Constructing teacher identity in teacher collaboration: What does it mean to be a teacher of culturally and linguistically diverse English learners?

Research calls for practice-based inquiry where language teachers conduct exploratory action research to transform their pedagogical practices impact student achievement. This study builds on the in practitioner inquiry, teacher collaboration, and identity investigate how a seventh-grade English Language Arts (ELA) (Heather) constructed her as she collaborated with an ESL (Amanda) plan teach students collaboratively taught ELA classroom. Our qualitative included data gathered from two collaborative cycles three semi-structured interviews, planning sessions, fieldnotes of teaching reflective journals authored by teacher. The findings illustrate that Heather novice surface-level understandings limited knowledge about Collaboration did not disrupt deficit perspectives nor this partnership pave way Heather’s renewed Collaboration, instead, provided access Amanda, whom positioned experienced content who could make accessible students.