Abstract
Tensions are generally coined as negative experiences because teachers may find them intimidating when their reality and ideals/beliefs/practices do not match. However, tensions can also be potentially critical resources for an identity-responsive language teacher education. This study proposes a metaxical approach to operationalize tensions in language teacher education. In this approach, tensions are closely related to language teacher/learner identities, and they are juxtaposed in dramatized settings. In other words, tensions are used as productive learning experiences for pre-service language teachers. In this self-study of teacher education practices (S-STEP) case study, the researcher drew on classroom observations, reflective tasks, and interviews to collect the qualitative data, which were analysed with reflexive thematic analysis to explore the metaxis experienced by the participants. Findings revealed that (1) pre-service teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) discovered tensions as professional learning opportunities in dramatized settings; (2) they explored tensions in a safe learning environment while juxtaposing these identity tensions through make-believe; (3) the identity work in metaxis allowed participants to navigate through tensions while (re)constructing their teacher/learner identities.
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