9 Iswandari 2016 examined 19 EFL pre-service teachers in her class namely
Micro Teaching. Furthermore, she used reflective journals to find out their imagined professional identity by employing categories of professional identity by
Xu 2013, namely language expert, language facilitator, and spiritual guide. The result showed that the three categories appeared in her study in which she found
that there were 12 language facilitators, 5 language experts, and 2 spiritual guides.
B. Theoretical Description
In this section, the study elaborates the theories of identity. The researcher employs definition of identity by experts in order to examine the identity
transformation of EFL pre-service teachers and the factors which contribute to the transformation.
1. Identity
Identity is related to a person’s uniqueness or personal characteristics which
make himself or herself different from others. Besides, identity is also related to how someone acts. In this section, the definition of identity and EFL pre-service
teacher ’s identity will be discussed.
a. Definition of Identity
Identity deals with self-understanding and self-portrait. According to Beijaard 1995, identity has been defined as “who or what someone is, the various
meanings people can attach to themselves, or the meanings attributed by others” as cited in Nykvist Mukherjee, 2016, p. 2. Besides, Lasky 2005 also defines
10 identity as how someone describes himself or herself to himself or herself and to
other people. Additionally, identity involves an ongoing process. In relation to this, Lasky 2005 also states that identity is gradually formed and shaped over the
process. In brief, it can be concluded that identity is self-understanding that defines who someone is. Further, identity also involves an ongoing process of incorporating
someone with his or her profession.
b. EFL Pre-service Teachers’ Identity
Learning and teaching a language to students at the same time is not easy. This is what EFL pre-service teachers should do while they are doing their job as a
teacher. In relation to this, Hamerness, Darling-Hammond, Grossman, Rust, and Shulman 2005 state that becoming a EFL teacher is complex. In addition, it is
because English is considered as a foreign language in Indonesia. Consequently, in order to be an English teacher, pre-service teachers should learn the language and
know how to teach the language as English is not the first language in Indonesia. After learning the theories of the language, the pre-service teachers need
time to practice their knowledge in the real school setting. According to Luebbers 2010, the teaching practice program is believed to provide pre-service teachers
with new and different ways of teaching a foreign language. Moreover, this program also makes them as prospective foreign language teachers. Besides, pre-
service teachers view themselves as professionals determine how they feel about themselves as teachers in the classroom Hong, 2010; Mahan, 2010. From this
perspective, it is clear that teaching practice program plays an important role in constructing pre-
service teachers’ professional identity.
