The Role of Context in Language Teachers’ Self Development and Motivation

Amy S. Thompson takes us on a dialectical journey between self and context as it informs being and becoming a multilingual user/teacher and leaves us with a myriad of questions, future directions, and implications to ponder in a world plagued by institutional racism, systemic inequalities, and professional discrimination. * Ali Fuad Selvi, Middle East Technical University Northern Cyprus Campus, Turkey *
Focusing on EFL teachers who are not first language speakers of English and who work in diverse cultural settings, this book brings together richly illuminating insights into their motivations, experiences and professional development. As Thompson’s analysis shows, teachers’ lives, contexts and perspectives truly matter, and her account makes for compelling reading. * Ema Ushioda, University of Warwick, UK *

This book provides a detailed account of the development of a language teacher self and motivation in multilingual countries, which also informs us of the dynamic interaction, interconnection, and interdependence between teachers and contexts; and offers future research directions, such as the learning experience of the L2MSS and the interplay of dual identities (the learner and the teacher). Therefore, I would recommend the book to researchers and language teachers who endeavor to both decipher and explore the relationship between language teacher selves and contexts.

-- Wenxiu Chu, Northeast Normal University, China * System 101 (2021) *

This monograph is thought-provoking in that it delves deeply into the professional and academic trajectories of
EFL teachers who come from diverse sociopolitical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral backgrounds. Furthermore, the qualitative data were collected from teachers from seven countries which were underappreciated in the literature, so the findings can be novel and insightful.

-- Jieping Xu, Chaohu University, Hefei, China * Frontiers in Psychology, Volume 12, July 2021 *