factors contributing to teachers identity in online classes at iranian efl institutes

The current research explores the underlying factors affecting iranian efl institute teachers identity reconstruction in online courses. it also aims at investigating the combination of roles that constitute iranian efl teachers’ identity in the context of language teaching institutes. fifteen iranian efl teachers from three private foreign language (fl) institutes located in the city of shiraz are interviewed through semi-structured interviews for their narratives. all of the participants had at least three years of teaching experience, which helped to lessen the influence of initiating-career reality shock (veenman, 1984). further, the participants were selected from both genders (6 male, 9 female), and their ages ranged from 22 to 47, of whom the average age was 32.1 years. the data were analyzed utilizing a grounded theory (gt) approach in which open, axial, and selective coding was utilized to extract the themes. results of the study indicate that two main sets of factors a) individual factors and b) context-based factors are responsible for the reconstruction of iranian efl institute teachers identity. individual factors include educational background, professional background, emotions, and beliefs and attitudes. context-based factors encompass classroom management, time management, communicative issues, course design issues, and teachers role identity sub-factors. the present study s findings can be helpful for teachers, pre-service teachers, institution managers, course designers, and program developers.