ISSUES OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY IN AN EFL TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM IN COLOMBIA

This paper reports an ongoing research project on the teachers' identities of 70 undergraduates of a TEFL program. A qualitative inquiry looks into three factors involved in teacher identity construction: a like for languages and cultures, an emotional attachment to the teacher role and an imagined future career trajectory. Teacher identity is complex process; to determine the undergraduates' current identities, a survey to 70 participants was given asking: a) motives to a join a college of education, and specifically a TEFL program, b) social, political and cultural aspects related to their teacher roles, and c) expectations as future teachers. The survey indicated that all participants liked modern languages, but only 14 expressed a wish to teach. Last year students, who had already done the teacher practicum, complained that they saw little connection between theory and practice and manifested doubts and fears about their competence to meet the challenges posed by teaching at school, such as classroom management and policies and standards of the Ministry of education of Colombia. At present, the data mentioned above was gathered for this purpose.