EFL Teachers' Professional Identity: A Metaphor Analysis

The aim of this study was to investigate the consonance and dissonance between how foreign language university instructors viewed their identities as ¿foreign language teachers¿ and how they were viewed by their students. Data in the form of metaphors were collected from 10 instructors and 200 students at the foreign language preparatory school of a public university in Turkey. Results revealed that the instructors depicted their professional identities under six distinct categories of metaphors, while the metaphors of the students could be categorized under 14 themes. Moreover,although some metaphors of instructors overlapped with the ones given by their students, there were some mismatches between the metaphorical expressions. Most of the instructors strongly believed that it would be beneficial to make a thorough review of their practices in the light of the feedback they got from their students.The results underline the importance of using metaphor and the role of interaction between teachers and students in foreign language teacher development.