Bilingual teaching: voices of English teachers in an adaptation context
Bilingual teaching. Language teacher development. English teacher. Teacher identity.
This study aims to analyze the adaptation of English teachers to the context of bilingual teaching and to understand how these teachers' identity was constructed throughout this process. Private schools that offer bilingual Portuguese/English teaching in the north of Mato Grosso constitute the context of this research. Five teachers who worked in regular education and started to work in bilingual schools participated in the research. The theoretical background involves studies on bilingualism (BLOOMFIELD, 1935; HARMES; BLANC, 2000; MEGALE; LIBERALI, 2016), identity (DUBAR, 2005; SILVA, 2000), and language teacher development (LEFFA, 2016; NORTON, 2000; MEGALE, 2020, LIBERALI, 2017). The methodology used was narrative research (BARCELOS, 2020). The data collection instruments used were timelines, contemplating the adaptation process to the bilingual context experienced by the teachers, and recorded interviews, in which they explained their timelines and gave more details about this adaptation. The results indicate that the teachers faced many challenges during the process of adapting to bilingual teaching. For example, there was not specific training to work in this context, which, in some cases, ended up affecting the professional performance and mental health of the teachers. Despite all the challenges faced by these professionals, migrating to a different teaching modality had a positive impact on the construction of their teaching identities.