Cover not available
Part of
Language Teacher Development in Digital Contexts
Edited by Hayriye Kayi-Aydar and Jonathon Reinhardt
[Language Learning & Language Teaching 57] 2022
► pp. 91–114

Chapter 5
Discursive construction of collective identity in a global online community of practice of English language teachers

In this chapter, I explore how members of Webheads in Action, an online community of practice of English language teachers, construct a collective identity of “webhead-ness” discursively, how certain community values are realized at the linguistic level in their email communication, and how the community’s collective identity and values shape their professional development. Through a corpus-driven discourse-analytic approach of the email communication and content analysis of in-depth interviews with two long-term active members, I observed that members frequently draw on specific discursive resources that seem to have evolved as idiosyncratic linguistic practices in this community’s culture. Such practices that reinforce a collective identity are critical for cultivating and sustaining long-standing online communities of practice that foster teacher participation and professional development.
Keywords: online community of practice, collective identity, professional identity construction, online participation, membership
Article outline
  • Theoretical framework
    • Communities of practice
    • Online communities of practice
    • Positioning, identity, and collective identity
  • The study
    • Context and background
    • Data sources and analysis
  • Findings
    • RQ1: How do Webheads construct a collective identity of Webheads and Webhead-ness discursively?
    • RQ2: What linguistic practices do Webheads employ in their emails that reflect and reproduce their community values and collective identity?
    • RQ3: How do the Webheads community and its collective identity shape teachers’ professional development as experienced by members?
  • Discussion and conclusion
  • References
Published online: 20 January 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lllt.57.05kul
References (50)
References
Androutsopoulos, J. (2011). From variation to heteroglossia in the study of computer-mediated discourse. In C. Thurlow & K. Mroczek (Eds.), Digital discourse: Language in the new media (pp. 277–298). Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Anthony, L. (2004). AntConc: A learner and classroom friendly, multi-platform corpus analysis toolkit. In Proceedings of Interactive Workshop on Language E-learning (pp. 7–13). Waseda University Press.Google Scholar
Baran, B. (2007). A case study of online communities of practice for teacher education: Motivators, barriers, and outcomes (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.Google Scholar
Barton, D., & Lee, C. (2013). Language online: Investigating digital texts and practices. Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biber, D. E. (2012). Corpus-based and corpus-driven analyses of language variation and use. In B. Heine & H. Narrog (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of linguistic analysis (pp. 159–191). Oxford University Press.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Booth, S. E. (2012). Cultivating knowledge sharing and trust in online communities for educators. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 47(1), 1–31. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bostancioglu, A. (2018). Online communities of practice in the service of teachers’ professional development: The case of Webheads in Action. TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 17(2), 97–110.Google Scholar
Bucholtz, M., & Hall, K. (2005). Identity and interaction: A sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies, 7(4–5), 585–614. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Canagarajah, S. (2013). Translingual practice: Global Englishes and cosmopolitan relations. Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. (1999). Relationships of knowledge and practice: Teacher learning in communities. Review of Research in Education, 24(1), 249–305. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Costa, C. (2007). The curriculum in a community of practice. Sisifo: Educational Sciences Journal, 3, 85–96.Google Scholar
Darling-Hammond, L. (1998). Teacher learning that supports student learning. Educational Leadership, 55(5), 6–11.Google Scholar
Davies, B., & Harré, R. (1990). Positioning: The discursive production of selves. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 20(1), 43–63. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1999). Positioning and personhood. In R. Harré & L. Van Langenhove (Eds.), Positioning theory (pp. 32–52). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
d’Eca, T. A., & Gonzalez, D. (2006). Becoming a webhead: Bridging the gap from classroom to blended or online teaching. CALICO Journal, 23(3), 569–580. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duff, P. A. (2008). Case study research in applied linguistics. Routledge.Google Scholar
DuFour, R. (2004). What is a “Professional Learning Community”? Educational Leadership, 61(8), 6–11.Google Scholar
Gee, J. P. (2011). How to do discourse analysis: A toolkit. Routledge.Google Scholar
Glazer, E., & Hannafin, M. (2006). The collaborative apprenticeship model: Situated professional development within school settings. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22(2), 179–193. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gunawardena, C. H., Hermans, M. B., Sanchez, D., Richmond, C., Bohley, M., & Tuttle, R. (2009). A theoretical framework for building online communities of practice with social networking tools. Educational Media International, 46(1), 3–16. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hanson-Smith, E. (2013). Online communities of practice. In C. Chapelle (Eds.), The encyclopedia of applied linguistics. Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Karagiorgi, Y., & Lymbouridou, C. (2009). The story of an online teacher community in Cyprus. Professional Development in Education, 35(1), 119–138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kayi-Aydar, H. (2019a). Language teacher identity. Language Teaching, 52, 281–295. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2019b). Positioning theory in applied linguistics: Research design and applications. Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Khazraee, E., & Novak, A. N. (2018). Digitally mediated protest: Social media affordances for collective identity construction. Social Media + Society, 1–14. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kozinets, R. V. (2010). Netnography: Doing etnographic research online. Sage.Google Scholar
Kulavuz-Onal, D. (2013). English language teachers’ learning to teach with technology through participation in an online community of practice: A netnography of Webheads in Action (Doctoral dissertation, University of South Florida). ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. (Publication No: 3588563)Google Scholar
Kulavuz-Onal, D. & Vásquez, C. (2013). Reconceptualising fieldwork in a netnography of an online community of English language teachers. Ethnography and Education, 8(2), 224–238. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kulavuz-Onal, D., & Vásquez, C. (2015). Opening up worlds: Intercultural exchanges through telecollaboration. In N. Tcherepashenets (Ed.) Globalizing on-line: Telecollaborations, internationalization and social justice (pp. 109–128). Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Lam, W. S. E. (2008). Language socialization in online communities. In N. Hornberger (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language and education (pp. 2859–2869). Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lantz-Andersson, A., Lundin, M., & Selwyn, N. (2018). Twenty years of online teacher communities: A systematic review of formally-organized and informally-developed professional learning groups. Teaching and Teacher Education, 75, 302–315. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lim, S. H. (2017). Teachers empowering teachers in an online community of practice: A case study of Korean EFL teachers’ learning to teach flipped classroom on NAVER BAND. Multimedia-Assisted Language Learning, 20(1), 109–143. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Macia, M., & Garcia, I. (2016). Informal online communities and networks as a source of teacher professional development: A review. Teaching and Teacher Education, 55, 291–307. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Malinen, S. (2015). Understanding user participation in online communities: A systematic literature review of emprical studies. Computers in Human Behavior, 46, 228–238. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norton, B. (2000). Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity and educational change. Longman.Google Scholar
Pavlenko, A. (2003). “I never knew I was bilingual”: Re-imagining teacher identities in TESOL. Journal of Language, Identity and Education, 2, 251–268. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Polletta, F., & Jasper, J. M. (2001). Collective identity and social movements. Annual Review of Sociology, 27, 283–305. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Saldana, J. (2009). The coding manual for qualitative researchers. Sage.Google Scholar
Stevens, V. (2018). Webheads. In J. I. Liontas (Eds.) The TESOL encyclopedia of English language teaching (pp. 1–8). John Wiley & Sons. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tagg, C. (2015). Exploring digital communication: Language in action. Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thomas, D. (2006). A general inductive approach for analyzing qualitative evaluation data. American Journal of Evaluation, 27(2), 237–246. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van Langenhove, L., & Harré, R. (1999). Introducing positioning theory. In R. Harré & L. Van Langenhove (Eds.), Positioning theory: Moral context of intentonal action (pp. 14–31). Blackwell.Google Scholar
Varghese, M. M., Morgan, B., Johnston, B., & Johnson, K. A. (2005). Theorizing language teacher identity: Three perspectives and beyond. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 4(1), 21–44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(n.d.). Communities of practice. Retrieved on 7 July 2021 from [URL]
Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. M. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Wesely, P. (2013). Investigating the community of practice of world language teachers on Twitter. Journal of Teacher Education, 64(4), 305–3018. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Whooley, O. (2013). Collective identity. In G. Ritzer, J. M. Ryan, & B. Thorn (Eds.), The Blackwell encyclopedia of sociology, (pp. 586–588). Wiley-Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Xing, W., & Gao, F. (2018). Exploring the relationship between online discourse and commitment in Twitter professional learning communities. Computers and Education, 126, 388–398. DOI logoGoogle Scholar