The construction of language teacher professional identity in the Global Englishes territory: ‘we are legitimate language teachers’

Although teacher professional identity has been much discussed and reported in teacher education and language education, little empirical evidence addresses how language teachers construct their professional identities as legitimate English practitioners as they have witnessed and encountered the increasingly important role of English as a global lingua franca. To fill this void, this article reports on a narrative case study that investigates how Chinese language teachers construct and negotiate their professional identities as legitimate English practitioners. Drawing on identity theory, the article showcases how a group of Chinese English teachers challenged the ideology of native-speakerism as they were routinely engaged in the construction of what it means to become legitimate English teachers. The implication of this study calls for the inclusion of Global Englishes and critical language pedagogy in language teacher education.