Identity reconstruction of an EFL teacher through a textbook development project: An autoethnography

Abstract

This autoethnographic study explores how participation in a national English textbook development project reconstructed my professional identity as a university teacher of English as a foreign language (EFL) in China. Amid increasing institutional emphasis on research productivity and curriculum reform, I reflected on the evolution of my dual roles as a textbook writer and a researcher through sustained engagement in materials development. Drawing on Wenger’s community of practice (CoP) theory – specifically the modes of engagement, imagination, and alignment – I analyse the transformative experiences and tensions encountered during the co-authoring and editing of junior secondary English textbooks. The data corpus comprises personal narratives, reflective journals, meeting notes, and official project documents collected over four years. Findings reveal that active collaboration, envisioning new professional possibilities, and reconciling personal beliefs with institutional standards and national curriculum requirements were critical in shaping my evolving professional identity. This study provides an insider, longitudinal perspective on how high-stakes textbook authorship functions as a site of identity reconstruction and professional growth. It contributes to the fields of teacher identity and materials development by highlighting negotiation as a crucial mechanism in identity reconstruction shaped by both personal agency and contextual constraints, advancing the theorization of dual and hybrid identity reconstruction in collaborative reform contexts, and reconceptualizing textbook writing as a form of practitioner inquiry that fosters reflective, research-informed practice.