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To Leave or Not to Leave: A Narrative Inquiry of Chinese EFL Teachers’ Identity Evolution

Teacher identity evolves over time and is often characterized by crisis and destabilization. Based on self-reflection journals and in-depth interviews, this narrative inquiry explores the identity evolution and the accompanying contributive factors of identity crisis of three experienced Chinese EFL teachers in a higher vocational college in China over ten years, aiming to unveil the interactions between teachers’ identity evolution trajectories and identity crisis factors. Findings show that, under the interplay of macro-level social factors, meso-level institutional factors, and micro-level personal factors, the three teachers’ professional identities underwent from honeymoon phase during their early career years, to confusion phase and dilemma phase in the mid-career years featured by identity crisis. It is suggested that relevant parties should attach more importance and make efforts to scaffold Chinese EFL teachers’ identity development during their mid-career phase in the particular L2 context of higher vocational college in China, so as to help them maintain high commitment to their professional identity and teaching throughout the whole career.