Presentation by: Sandra Filippelli
Session: A | Time: 9:00 AM – 9:40 AM | Location: Room 201
My inquiry into my shifting professional identity reflects my current positioning within the literacy and art education community as an art researcher and scholarly/creative writer after thirty years in the field of ESL instruction. In re-negotiating this combined identity, I take Thomas Farrell’s (2017) cue in engaging in “reflection and reflective practice” (p. 183) by climbing his “Tree of Life” (p. 185), delineated in his chapter, “‘Who I am Is How I Teach: Reflecting on language teacher professional role identity.” My professional and personal identity, marked by my progress up Farrell’s (2017) Tree of Life, reveals my “inside knowledge” (p. 187) of myself as a practitioner, acquired over three decades of English language teaching. I take inspiration from the narratives of five Second Language teacher/writer/researchers (Barkhuizen, 2017), beginning with Paul Kei Matsuda (2017), who sought to plant his feet firmly in the field of Second Language writing by determining his own identity as an instructor of second language writing. In his chapter, “Second Language Teacher Writing Identity,” he recounts rooting himself in a “disciplinary identity” (p. 240), straddling the fields of language and writing through his teaching, research and other professional work. Reflecting on Matsuda (2017) and other teacher-researcher-writers, I wish to apply this inquiry to my own experience of Second Language instruction through to my current position as a PhD Candidate researcher-writer and future instructor in a broader field of professional and personal practice with the hope that others may, in this way, reflect on their own practices.
Barkhuizen, G. (Ed.) (2017). Reflections on Language Teacher Identity Research. New York, NY: Routledge.
Abstract: 610