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According to Bullough (1991), metaphors can be viewed as a mirror of teachers' professional identity. This article reports what kind of metaphors university teaching assistants (TAs) at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics in the University of Helsinki, Finland use for teacher's role. As a first phase of a longitudinal study, we analysed 35 TAs' metaphors using Beijaard, Verloop, and Vermunt's (2000) model of teacher identity and Metaphor Manual for Implementing this model (Löfström, Poom-Valickis, & Hannula, 2011). Most of the TAs metaphors were categorised as didactics expert or as self-referential. Also sub-categories were analysed, and potential new sub-categories found. The results also suggest that training can have an influence the metaphors TAs use to describe their role as a TA.

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