English language teacher employability and identity: An investigation into hiring experiences and beliefs in Australian adult English language teaching

Abstract

The employment landscape for many English language teachers in the adult English language teaching profession in Australia is becoming increasingly precarious. Although their endeavours significantly contribute to the success of Australia’s international education sector, the employment of these teachers is increasingly marked by casualisation and, as such, instability. This study investigates what makes a teacher ‘employable’ in the context of the continuously changing neoliberal Australian job market. It examines the characteristics of teacher employability in the adult English language teaching sector in Australia, and how these reflect and influence teacher identity and teacher recruitment experiences. These issues are explored across four different domains of adult English language teaching, namely private language schools, university English language pathway/foundation programs, adult migrant English programs, and vocational English programs. This study investigates the contingent nature of teacher employability in adult English language teaching in Australia using a critical qualitative framework. It first examines teacher job advertisements to identify the features of teacher employability that are considered to be the most important to teacher hirers. This is followed by an investigation – through surveys and interviews with teachers and teacher hiring managers – of what constitutes an ‘employable teacher identity’ for those working in English language teaching in this context. These participants’ views of the employable teacher identity are then considered in relation to the discourses of English language teacher professionalism in the Australian market-orientated language education context. The findings suggest that English language teacher employability is a constant process of identity work, and that – in contrast to human capital theories of employability – teacher employability is managed not only by individuals but is constructed through relationships within the teaching context itself as well as the wider employment market.