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Description
Teacher identity shapes how teachers respond to technological change, including the rapid arrival of generative AI in language education, yet it is rarely examined among primary English teachers in under-resourced settings. This study explores how primary English teachers in mountainous northern Vietnam, where English became compulsory from Grade 1, understand their roles as digital professionals. Drawing on a multidimensional view of professional identity (Kelchtermans, 1993; Beijaard et al., 2004), we analysed survey data from 1,338 teachers, collected with an instrument based on the six DigCompEdu domains, together with open-ended responses from 1,080 teachers. Self-rated competence was highest for professional engagement (M = 4.02) and lower for assessment (M = 3.55). Attitudes towards technology were strongly positive (83.5–88.0% agreement), yet varied slightly by career stage, with teachers aged 40 and over less positive than younger colleagues, while competence scores did not differ by age or experience; younger teachers more often named equipment and their own skills as difficulties. Equipment and connectivity dominated open-ended accounts of difficulties, although 89.4% reported receiving the support they needed from their schools. Among the 1,080 teachers who commented, 22.1% mentioned AI tools, mainly as a wished-for training area for lesson planning, materials, and, in a few cases, marking; ethical considerations appeared only occasionally and implicitly. Read as indicators of professional identity, the findings suggest a committed, change-oriented self-understanding in which AI is becoming part of what teachers see as their task, but whose enactment depends on context and support. We discuss implications for professional development for AI-integrated teaching and for research that measures teacher identity directly.
Keywords: teacher identity; professional identity; digital competence; generative AI; primary English teachers; Vietnam