“I am Kichwa”: The Funds of Identity of an Indigenous Ecuadoran NNES Teacher

Abstract

To counter ongoing NES/NNES, NEST/NNEST dichotomies and the essentializing of NNESs (Ellis, 2016), we examine the personal and professional tensions of an Indigenous Ecuadoran NNES teaching in a dominant Spanish-speaking context. We attend to the ways Roberto (pseudonym) responds to his students and his peers through the lens of his Kichwa identity, the historic oppressed positionality of and ongoing prejudice toward Indigenous peoples in Ecuador. In such contexts, Roberto cannot share "insider" cultural references to enhance his EFL instruction; rather, he is perpetually set as an outsider-both in the broader frame of NNES movement and more singularly and powerfully within his own professional context. We draw upon Esteban-Guitart and Moll's (2014) "funds of identity" and teacher professional identity development (Sachs, 2005) to explore the following central tensions in Roberto's evolving professional teaching identity: (1) Roberto's sense of himself as (il)legitimate speaker of English, (2) role of structural oppression toward Kichwa as it mediates his perceptions and interactions, and (3) the increased use of communicative-based language instruction. Attending to the multiple facets and resources that comprise "funds of identity," EFL teacher educators can better account for the complex identity formation for EFL teachers and students.