Exploring Translingual Teachers’ Professional Identities and Capital in U.S. Classrooms

Abstract

Although researchers have indicated that teacher identities play a key role in shaping teachers’ professional practices in the classroom, empirical research on translingual teachers’ professional identities and the cultural and linguistic resources that they bring to their teaching remains limited. This study presents case studies of two translingual English teachers, who finished K-16 education in China and Japan respectively, and migrated to the United States to pursue graduate studies. This study illustrates how these teachers’ cultural and linguistic capital was constrained in certain teaching contexts and thus shaped their professional identities. It also reaffirms and expands Darvin and Norton’s (2015) idea that the value of these teachers’ capital was dynamic and was shaped by people with certain ideologies. Despite the challenges they faced, the teachers saw value in other aspects of their capital and transformed it into valuable pedagogical resources. This allowed them to reposition themselves as legitimate English teachers.