Challenging Traditions: Constructing an Identity through Innovative Teaching Practices

In this chapter, the author presents the case of Mariana, a Uruguayan non-native speaking teacher of English working at Lake Primary School in Uruguay. This chapter describes an action research process during which the author and a colleague reconstructed the experience of introducing a new approach to the teaching of emergent literacy with six-year-olds. In order to generate data, apart from holding a series of interviews and class observations, they engaged in Cooperative Development sessions (Edge, 2002, p. 18) using the framework to engage in “a mixture of awareness-raising and disciplined discourse” as a further means of facilitating the understanding of professional development processes. During and after the data generation period, the author analysed the data and shared the interpretations with her colleague, who examined them critically, adding her own views and clarifying as necessary. In the midst of the explorations of pedagogical experiences, the author and her colleague allowed other discourses to emerge, and were thus able to draw conclusions regarding Mariana’s identity as a non-native speaking teacher, her ability to deal with change and innovation, her relationship with peers, as well as her newly-discovered roles as researcher, leader, and change agent.