“Teaching Was Changing Me”: EFL Teacher Identity Trajectories as Dynamic Systems—An Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry

Abstract

This study investigates how English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ role identity trajectories develop over time and how such processes are rendered visible through arts-based narrative practices. Drawing on the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI), the study adopts an arts-based narrative inquiry design with two in-service teachers in the Turkish EFL context. Data were generated through multimodal artifacts (self-portrait collages, soundtracks, literary reflections), written narratives, and post-curation meetings across a three-phase process. The analysis traced the dynamic alignment and misalignment among identity components, including beliefs, goals, self-perceptions, and perceived action possibilities. Findings revealed two predominant trajectory patterns that differed in the degree to which coherence among identity components was disrupted, maintained, and consolidated over time. The first, a perturbation-driven reorganization, was characterized by initial misalignment, contextual disruption, and subsequent cycles of reconfiguration and expansion. The second, a value-anchored consolidation, reflected a comparatively stable trajectory in which early coherence across identity components was progressively strengthened and deepened over time. These patterns demonstrate that identity development is not uniformly driven by tension or instability but may also emerge through the consolidation of internally coherent value structures. The study contributes to DSMRI-informed language teacher identity (LTI) research by illustrating predominant modes of system organization and reconceptualizes LTI as a complex system whose developmental pathways are differentially structured by configurations of coherence across components. Methodologically, it highlights the value of arts-based narrative practices as mediational affordances for externalizing and articulating retrospectively reconstructed identity trajectories.