École normale superieure (ENS) is an Algerian teacher preparatory school. It provides English language students with the English language and pedagogical knowledge necessary to embark on the profession of teaching (Boudersa, 2016). The training of its candidates is based on two complementary parts: theory and practice. During the theory, student teachers are exposed to English language learning modules such as listening, grammar, and writing. These modules are accompanied with pedagogical modules such as syllabus design, teaching English as a foreign language, material design and development, etc. During the practicum period, student teachers are sent to schools to apply their theoretical knowledge in real classroom context with the guidance of a mentor. The practicum period distinguishes the ENS from the Algerian universities. The university graduates of English as a foreign language do not have an opportunity to put their theory into practice. Once they graduate, they must participate and succeed in a national competition to join the teaching profession with no specific training preceding the competition (Maraf, 2016). ENS graduates have the privilege to join the teaching profession straight after they graduate from the school after months of training. This distinction requires an investigation to understand what makes the experience of learning to become an English teacher within the ENS different from other teacher education institutions such as universities.

 Existing research within the ENS is still limited with only few studies that have been conducted in this context. These studies have focused on investigating how student teachers experience the training period and how they are helped by their mentors (eg, Benghabrit and Rabahi, 2014). Another study evaluated the teaching methodology modules (TEFL, material and syllabus design) of ENS to investigate whether it meets the needs of ENS student teachers (eg, Djoumia, 2016). These studies offered quantitative and interview data about how the ENS context is structured in terms of curriculum development and collaboration among different agents including teacher mentors and ENS teachers. Broadly, these studies have focused on the practicum period to assess student teachers` readiness to teach, giving little attention to the theory part of the programme. According to Chong et al (2011), the formation of professional identity of student teachers accompanies them during the whole duration of their teacher education programme, which might take four years or less. Accordingly, more research is needed to investigate how student teachers of ENS develop conceptions of themselves as future EFL teachers during the whole duration of teacher education including theory and practice period.

This study, aims to understand how English language student teachers develop their professional identity within the context of ENS. This development is explored starting from the delivery of their theoretical components of the programme into the practicum training period. The exploration of student teachers’ identity development is conducted within a sociocultural framework which suggests that culture influences the development of individuals based on the artifacts involved, the social interactions they engage in and the learning experiences provided (Verenikina, 2003). Consequently, this research investigates how these elements of learning influence the development of student teachers in the ENS. Professional identity development will be explored through the lens of Kaplan and Garner’s (2018) dynamic system model of role identity which conceptualises teacher learning and identity development based on four components. These components are self-perception and definitions (how they perceive their role as teachers), ontological and epistemological beliefs (how they see teaching), purpose and goals, and perceived action possibilities (their teaching goals and how they achieve them practically). The development of student teachers will be investigated from three distinct periods: the start, the middle and the end of their five-year training period.

According to Leavy (2014; 2017), researchers may use qualitative approaches to vigorously investigate the meaning that people attribute to activities, situations, events and artefacts in a social environment. Therefore, qualitative research design is used to explore how student teachers construct their professional identity in the sociocultural context of ENS. Specifically, five student teachers from each academic level including first, third and fifth are recruited. The rationale behind selecting these levels is to track their development starting from the first year (theory) until the final year (practicum) in the ENS. Guided reflective narratives are collected from first- and third-year student teachers at the beginning of their academic year. Another guided reflective narratives are collected from fifth year student teachers after the end of their internship. These reflective narratives are informed by the dynamic system model to role identity introduced by Kaplan and Garner (2018). These components serve as prompts to stimulate student teachers` reflections and cover different aspects of what it means to them to be an English teacher. Focus group interview are also used with open ended questions to explore the shared experiences and the taken for granted aspects of their daily routines within the ENS (Morrison,1998; Acocella 2011). Accordingly, first and third year student teachers are interviewed in groups separately after a short period of the beginning of the academic year, to reveal the common challenges, factors and assistance they experienced while learning in the ENS context. Fifth year student teachers are gathered in a focus group interview at the end of the internship to articulate the challenges and assistance they experienced during their internship period. In order to report experiences, meanings and realities of student teachers within the ENS, thematic analysis is used through process of induction, allowing for an open-ended investigation within this understudied context. In addition, the analysis of the data followed Braun and Clarke (2006) framework for thematic analysis. As such, data is analysed based on different stages. The first stage consists of a thorough reading to gain familiarity with the data. Then data will be coded manually by highlighting the repetitious and important concepts. After that, all the codes will be included into themes, sub-themes, and discarded themes. Afterwards themes will be given specific names that reflected their content. Finally, themes will be used to develop a comprehensive understanding of ENS students teachers` professional identity development, the factors and the forms of scaffolding that accompany that development.

Discussion: The results will report on the key themes arising from this study, providing a rich picture on the possibility of student teachers` belief change within the context of ENS. The beliefs of student teachers follow stages of transformation starting from their first year where they hold a naïve understanding of their role as teachers until their training period where these understandings change further after facing classroom realities. The results will also impart understanding on the factors that influence the professional identity development of ENS student teachers. Factors in this sense indicate the positive and negative experiences that might influence the way they see themselves as future teachers, their sense of belonging and their motivation to develop themselves further as future English teachers. In addition, this study accounts on describing how these student teachers are scaffolded in the ENS to become teachers which represents, in my view, the specific culture of teachers` development that pertains to ENS. These findings have important implications for highlighting the possibility of ENS context to either develop or hinder the professional identity of its graduates who are future English teachers. The findings also intend to inform stakeholders, teacher educators and those involved in the training of Algerian EFL prospective teachers about student teacher’s lived experiences within the context of école normale supérieure and how these experiences are conceived by ENS graduates.The results of the study have relevance to teacher education in general in that it might join the current literature that declares the possibility of student teachers` beliefs change once joining the teacher education programme (eg, Sutherland et al, 2010; Chong et al, 2011; Fomunyan, 2016; Yüksel and Başaran, 2019).

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