Identity, Investment, and Poetic Autoethnography: Becoming an Agentive TESOL Professional through Critical Translanguaging

Abstract

Poststructuralist conceptions of learner identity as investment have reshaped English language education by emphasizing the sociocultural positioning of multilingual learners. Yet, the evolving nature of language ideologies and their influence on TESOL professionals’ identity and investment remain underexplored from a decolonization perspective. In this poetic autoethnography, I examine how identity, investment, and ideology intersect in my learning and teaching experience. Drawing on earlier personal narratives, fieldnotes from my own EFL writing classrooms and an interview with me by a former student, I trace how pedagogical choices can either reinforce or disrupt dominant language ideologies, shaping learners’ and teachers’ investments in particular identities. I argue that critical translanguaging in both pedagogical and research practices offers a powerful tool for decolonization by valuing diverse linguistic resources and challenging colonial hierarchies of languages. By weaving together poetic autoethnography and translanguaging, this work foregrounds the lived experiences, plural perspectives, and creative agency of TESOL professionals and learners. It also highlights the importance of viewing language ideology as a diverse, dynamic, and evolving set of beliefs about language, which is central to identity formation among multilinguals. Ultimately, I advocate for a more expansive, critical, and humanizing understanding of identity, investment, and ideology in EFL writing education.

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