Discursive construction of online teacher identity and legitimacyin English language teaching

Abstract

The paper investigates YouTube teachers’ identity construction within dominant language ideologies. Drawing on the constructs of language teacher professional identity, social media micro-celebrity persona, linguistic entrepreneurship, and raciolinguistic ideologies and online persona, the study analyses banner images, biographies, and semi-structured interviews of online teachers and provides a framework for understanding online teacher identity. The findings reveal that online teachers strategically align or distance themselves from different identity positions to foreground their identity as online English teachers. The findings point to the complex identity construction of online teachers as they navigate the complex terrain of the online English language teaching (ELT) marketplace dominated by neoliberal and raciolinguistic ideologies. The study contributes to a better understanding of the opportunities offered by technology in promoting or challenging such ideologies and calls for a recognition of the identity work online teachers put in to foreground their teacher identity.