Student-teachers’ professional identity in the age of neoliberalism in an Omani foreign language context : a sociocultural approach

Abstract EN

Pre-service teachers’ professional identity is currently receiving a great deal of attention in the field of second/foreign language teaching.

This study aims at investigating the professional identity of the student teachers in the Sultanate of Oman in the age of neoliberalism from sociocultural perspectives.

The present study employed grounded theory approach to analyse the collected data to help the researchers get an in-depth understanding.

Therefore, structured interviews were conducted.

Concurrently, the ATLAS.ti software was utilized to facilitate the data analysis.

The findings revealed that the student teachers were able to construct their professional identities, by the help of senior teachers and the supervisor during the practicum.

A number of factors that appeared to impact identity construction were recognized, e.g.

the practicum, the supervisor, the senior teacher and the class teacher.

The results obtained from this research may contribute to the field of applied linguistics and teacher training programmes.

Pedagogical implications and practical suggestions were highlighted.