Using Metaphor to Explore the Professional Role Identities of Higher Education English Language Instructors

While the teacher professional role identity of pre-service English Language teachers has gained popularity recently, that of practicing teachers is less well-researched. This study aims to reveal how a group of Turkish university English Language instructors (n=35) perceived their professional role identities. To this aim, the participants were asked to describe how they saw their roles as English teachers using a metaphor of their own choice. Content analysis of the metaphors revealed 9 overall themes. The most common theme was’guide’; followed by’flexible’,’nurturer’,’frustrated’, and’authority’; then’entertainer’ and’challenger’; and finally’novice’ and’other’.