Professional identity constructions of pre-service English teachers through telecollaboration projects

This study set out to investigate language teacher identity formations of Turkish pre-service teachers through a cross-cultural telecollaboration project conducted between Türkiye and the USA. For the present qualitative study, 51 Turkish pre-service EFL teachers participated in an 8-week-long telecollaboration project with 38 American counterparts. The participants completed a series of tasks related to their teacher identity constructions throughout the project. The data of this study were collected from the posters defining their teacher identities, reflective entries, and focus group oral interviews. Drawing on Yazan's (2018a) conceptual framework to understand language teacher identities, thematic analysis is used in order to investigate teacher identity constructions of Turkish pre-service teachers through telecollaboration projects. The findings of the study revealed various aspects of language teacher identity constructions of Turkish pre-service teachers on teacher learning, teacher cognition, participation in communities of practices, contextual factors, and emotions in the context of telecollaboration projects. Based on the findings of the study, several implications for English language teacher education and future studies were suggested. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of English language teacher identity formation and the effect of telecollaboration projects in the process.