1 Membership, belonging and identity in the 21st century 2 3 Gary Motteram 4 5 6 Abstract 7 8 This paper takes a case study approach to exploring membership, belonging and identity 9 amongst English language teachers in the 21st century. It explores findings from two 10 membership surveys conducted for the International Association of Teachers of English as 11 a Foreign Language (IATEFL), and considers the impact of implementing recommendations 12 emerging from the first survey to enable members to engage more fully in the 13 organisation. The paper shows that a combination of reaching out to the broader 14 community of teachers (using increasingly widespread digital technologies), combined 15 with supporting targeted local actions, not only better enables teacher associations to 16 achieve their mission to serve all their members, but also takes into account the changing 17 nature of belonging and identity of ELT teachers to enable them to become more engaged 18 and have a stronger voice in the ELT community as a whole. 19 20 Introduction 21 Issues of identity have been regularly discussed in the teacher development literature, but 22 very little is made of the relationship between teacher associations (TAs) and teacher 23 identity. In this respect, it is pertinent to consider the view that Varghese et al. (2005) 24 present of language teacher identity, which they see as: 25 26 constituted by the practices in relation to a group and the process of individual 27 identification or non-identification with the group. (p. 39) 28

29 In this paper, I am interested in aspects of the practice of belonging to a teachers’ 30 organisation that defines itself as global, the International Association of Teachers of 31 English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL), and the teacher identities that are forged from 32 engaging with that organisation. I explore this practice through responses from two 33 questionnaires and consider the following question: 34 35 What do we learn about teacher identity and belonging when we look at the 36 practice of being a member of a teachers’ association? 37

1 38 IATEFL as a membership organisation 39 40 A membership organisation is a subset of the broader group of ‘civil society organisations’. 41 Civil society organisations are generally part of the voluntary sector and are usually 42 charities, organisations that aim to fulfil a particular purpose (education in this case) and 43 are non-profit making (Charity Commission, 2013). IATEFL is a membership organisation 44 for English language teachers, which was founded in the UK in 1967. The association runs 45 an annual conference in the UK and other events, both in the UK and elsewhere, as part of 46 its core activity. Other core membership services include a bi-monthly newsletter, as well 47 as membership of Special Interest Groups (SIGs). Members pay a membership fee, and the 48 association thus “need[s] to provide clear support to members in order to justify 49 membership fees…” (Lamb 2012: 287). However, as a charity registered in the UK, IATEFL 50 also has obligations which it must fulfil in order to maintain its charitable status and 51 receive certain benefits from the UK state. For example, IATEFL offers services to the 52 broader English language community because “to be a charity [it] must have only 53 charitable purposes which must be for the public benefit” (Charity Commission, UK 54 online). IATEFL therefore offers subsidised memberships, mainly through its Wider 55 Membership Scheme (WMS), offered to teachers who live in countries which are ranked 56 towards the lower end of the Human Development Index (2013). Teachers’ Associations 57 from this group of countries which also have an Associate agreement with IATEFL can bid 58 for a number of supported memberships which are paid for from a fund specifically set up 59 for this purpose. IATEFL also awards a number of its own scholarships to attend its annual 60 Conference; facilitates a large number of conference scholarships funded by other 61 organisations; and organises free online activities on a regular basis (see below). 62 63 At the time of writing, (May 2015) IATEFL has 4045 members in total, both individual and 64 institutional, drawn from 132 countries. From a snapshot taken from the membership 65 database, 755 individual members declare that they are working outside of the country of 66 their birth, 1694 that they work in their home country, 44 have dual nationality and 1502 67 members have not shared that information. Furthermore, 26% of members live and work in 68 the UK, 37% in Europe and the remainder elsewhere in the world, mostly in the Middle 69 East, Asia and South America. 70 71 Thus, this paper explores some of the dilemmas and issues that face membership 72 organisations like IATEFL, framing this exploration within a discussion of identity, 73 belonging and building communities of professionals around the world. It does so through

2 74 reporting the findings of two surveys, one conducted in 2011 and a second in 2015, which 75 allow us to explore the nature and motivations of contemporary members and teacher 76 associations 77 78 Membership organisations, belonging and identity 79 80 IATEFL has always had what might be referred to as ‘global aspirations’. The organisation 81 was founded as ATEFL in 1967, with the ‘I’ added in 1970 (Rixon & Smith 2016). Most early 82 members were expatriates, and a considerable percentage of the membership are still UK 83 citizens who have spent some of their teaching career working outside the UK. Some 84 continue living and working in the countries that they initially moved to and some, whom 85 we can characterise as ‘international nomads’ (Langford 1998), move from country to 86 country. There is now, however, a considerable percentage of the membership who do not 87 come from the UK, and live and work in the country of their birth. These are multi- 88 competent teachers of English (Cook 1999), who represent 80% of language teachers in the 89 world (Canagaragah 2005). 90 91 As the demographic of IATEFL membership continues to shift, the organisation needs to 92 take account of how its members view the organisation. Croucher’s (2004) view of the 93 changing nature of ‘belonging’ and ‘identity’ in the world suggests that living in a more 94 globalised world leads many of us to have increasing connectivity beyond our immediate 95 physical locality. This might lead us to reassess our views of who we are, what we stand for 96 and how we see ourselves in relationship to others and to trans national institutions. Thus, 97 teachers might reach out from their local context, become aware of global ideas and then 98 mediate these through the local realities of their language teaching context. An organisation 99 like IATEFL, it could be argued, has an offering that matches members changing views of 100 their identity, one that transcends local boundaries. Indeed, in a world fractured by endless 101 conflicts, globally-oriented organisations such as IATEFL can be seen as a uniting force, 102 offering members a stable identity in one part of their lives. Membership is an aspect both of 103 their identity as a teacher and of their sense of belonging and identity in the wider world. 104 105 I now turn to discuss the findings of two surveys which illustrate how many teachers perceive 106 their identity, and the role a teacher association plays in constructing this. 107 108 Finding out about members: The 2011 IATEFL survey 109 110 Methodological approach

3 111 112 As a part of a review of membership services in 2011, IATEFL conducted its first 113 Membership Survey. This survey was conducted via an online questionnaire which focused 114 on exploring key aspects of IATEFL as a membership organisation, particularly for those 115 members unable to attend the UK-based annual IATEFL conference. This conference has 116 always been one of the key events in the IATEFL year, and makes a significant contribution 117 to keeping the organisation financially secure. More importantly, it is seen as a key benefit 118 to members, and yet this key benefit is not available to people who cannot afford to 119 attend. The survey also focused on a variety of other issues, including why people join and 120 stay as members, and how to encourage new members to join. 121 122 The questionnaire consisted of four main parts and a variety of question types was used. 123 Some questions looked at basic demographics and opinions about key issues such as 124 satisfaction with the membership package, and relied on simple counts of response; others 125 asked for the views of participants and gave space for open-ended replies. There was a 126 final section that asked for any further views that the respondents wanted to contribute to 127 the issues raised in the questionnaire. The sample was a self-selecting group consisting of 128 members interested in providing a response. 129 130 The questionnaire was open for 6 weeks in September and October 2011, gaining 512 131 responses, approximately 12% of the full membership. While there is a perception that 132 lower return rates will have a significant impact on the reliability of the response, Groves 133 (2006) suggests that higher return rates are increasingly difficult to achieve and “… there 134 is little empirical support for the notion that low response rate surveys de facto produce 135 estimates with high nonresponse bias” (p. 669). Groves proposes that we should make sure 136 that we have additional evidence like focus groups to support our arguments; IATEFL made 137 use of more qualitative responses in the questionnaire to fill this gap. 138 139 The responses from the 2011 survey came from a total of 84 countries, in high numbers 140 from the UK, Germany, Switzerland and Italy but also Japan and Turkey; the vast majority 141 were individual members (n=458) from all membership categories, including full-fee 142 paying along with retired and student members. Considering barriers to responding 143 included availability of internet access, we were particularly pleased to get responses 144 from members of the WMS (see above)(n=27), although proportionally they were under- 145 represented. 146

4 147 In order to understand why people joined and stayed with IATEFL, and what this might say 148 about their attitudes to belonging and identity, I conducted a thematic analysis of 149 responses to the three questions that invited qualitative responses: ‘Please tell us why you 150 joined IATEFL’; ‘If you have been a member for more than one year, tell us why you re- 151 joined’; and ‘If you are long-term member, 5+ years, what keeps you renewing?’. The 152 qualitative data collected from the survey were thematically analysed following the 153 guidelines of Braun and Clarke (2006). Because of the lack of research about membership 154 organisations, deductive codes were not readily available and the analysis pursued a 155 grounded approach by exploring the data inductively. The themes identified below are 156 presented through specific quotes, following Joffe’s (2012) discussion of a theme as “a 157 specific pattern of meaning found in the data. It contains manifest content – that is 158 something directly observable …” (p. 209). 159 160 Membership and belonging: the analysis 161 162 The analytical themes and sub-themes that were generated from the data are presented 163 in Table 1. 164 Instrumental Including  Attending the annual conference  Knowledge development Belonging & identity Including  Community (building community)  Networking  Continuing professional development  Personal development  Demonstrating professionalism 165 166 Table 1: Themes and sub-themes from the analysis 167 168 As I explored the data, a number of issues appeared prominent, the first of which was 169 coded as attending the annual conference; this became part of an ‘instrumental’ theme 170 which emerged in respondents’ thinking about their reasons for membership of IATEFL. As 171 noted, it is not necessary to be a member of IATEFL to attend the annual conference. 172 However, it is necessary to be a member in order to present a paper; thus, some people

5 173 join only for this reason, and large numbers do not renew their membership after the first 174 year. Joining IATEFL to give a paper is a normal feature of the practices of conference 175 attending; it does suggest, however, that members responding to the questionnaire in this 176 way may only wish to stay on the edges of the IATEFL community as a “legitimate 177 peripheral participant” (Lave & Wenger, 1991: 29) and not engage more in the practices of 178 this membership organisation. They may belong to a local teachers’ association that is 179 more significant to them, or they may not be able to afford to pay for membership 180 themselves and have been sponsored to attend the annual conference to give a paper. 181 182 The instrumental perspective, however, is only one way of looking at annual conference 183 attendance. For members who want to develop further their identity as professional 184 teachers and become more significant members of the IATEFL community of practice, a 185 more complex relationship develops between the teacher, the conference and IATEFL 186 membership. For example, one participant wrote: 187 188 I want to stay in the SIGs [Special Interest Groups, e.g. Learning Technologies SIG] I 189 am in, to stay in touch with other ELT professionals around the world, and go to 190 the annual conference. I guess the conference could survive even if we all 191 attended as non-members, but it’s not the same. Membership brings exactly that 192 a sense of belonging to a professional body of like-minded teachers. 193 194 This then brings us to the main group of sub-themes in the data, which were related to 195 notions of belonging and identity. As Wenger argues (1998: 146) identity is “a part of the 196 practices of specific communities” and by exploring the interplay between the community 197 and the individual and views on belonging, it is possible to gain a better understanding of 198 both IATEFL as a community, and also the individuals that play a part in the construction 199 and re-construction of that community. 200 201 For example, the direct reference to the “a sense of belonging” in the quote above is also 202 evident elsewhere in the data. A number of other respondents refer to the organisation as 203 ‘a family’, an idea that is prevalent in the discourse around the organisation, for example 204 on IATEFL-related Facebook pages, in discussion forums and on blogs. Another member 205 illustrates the link between the sense of belonging and the conference, when they talk 206 about their sense of IATEFL as a ‘home’ when attending: 207

6 208 ...when I am at the IATEFL Conference I feel at home and experience a sense of 209 belonging, of knowing we do work that is important, and I remember why I wanted 210 to study English language and literature years ago. 211 212 These feelings of belonging are reinforced by engagement with the activity of the 213 organisation: 214 215 I am continuously encouraged to actively participate by writing an article or 216 participate in a conference and that active part is not only rewarding, it is 217 comforting. 218 219 A member who is part of the Wider Membership Scheme again reinforces ideas of 220 community and the global reach that IATEFL offers: 221 222 I re-joined mainly because of the lower fee I pay with WMS, but I think the most 223 important reason is that I am part of a worldwide community and am kept up to 224 date with every gathering in the ELT world. 225 226 This sense of belonging, community and activity links well to further data that reveal that 227 those who stay members also do so in order to network with others, to engage in 228 continuing professional development (CPD) and personal development, or to keep up-to- 229 date and what I coded as knowledge development. 230 231 An element that was mentioned quite often, but was not so prominent as the other areas 232 was that of demonstrating professionalism. People appear to be joining and staying as 233 members because “Being part of an international community is one mark of ‘being a 234 professional’”. Another described the organisation as their “professional home”, linking 235 the sub-themes of professionalism and belonging. This seems to suggest that, for 236 questionnaire respondents, IATEFL membership is part of a trajectory towards being 237 professional member of the community of ELT teachers and that without such a 238 membership you are not a full participant in the community of practice of ELT (Lave and 239 Wenger 1991; Wenger 1998). 240 241 Organisational Response to the Survey 242

7 243 IATEFL’s intention in conducting this first survey had been to explore ways it might better 244 fulfil its mission – ‘linking, supporting and developing English Language Teaching 245 professionals worldwide’, and participants suggested that members who are able to attend 246 the main UK conference seem well served. Thus in response to the survey, IATEFL chose to 247 focus on members who are not able to attend physical conferences and also to do more 248 work to provide additional funding to enable teachers in the WMS to benefit from IATEFL 249 activity. In the question asking whether IATEFL should do more to serve the membership 250 by providing, for example, online events, 413 (81%) responded positively. IATEFL predicted 251 that by doing this it would be possible to make more of a difference to teachers who were 252 very unlikely ever to be able to attend the main conference, thereby arguably developing 253 a sense of belonging to both IATFEL and the ELT profession more generally by other 254 means. 255 256 Thus, responses to the survey led to three types of activity being prioritised. Firstly, 257 IATEFL set up a series of monthly online seminars, usually a talk recorded for future 258 playback, and also open to non-members. Seminar recordings and slides are put into the 259 IATEFL website members’ area, becoming a permanent record of the event and thus a 260 member benefit. Secondly, building on this experience, the association also ran the first 261 IATEFL online conference in October 2014 (see Fisher, Moore and Baber, this volume) and 262 a second one in 2015. The aim with both initiatives was to build IATFEL membership 263 benefits for those who could not attend the annual Conference, and we shall see shortly 264 the extent to which this contributed further to the development of teacher identities and 265 their sense of professional ‘belonging’. 266 267 Finally, the association explored with its Associates a number of ways in which they might 268 be helped in their development both as teachers’ organisations and in teacher 269 development. One of the ideas suggested was to support the Associates to run local 270 projects that might have a sustainable impact on teachers in their communities. This 271 began to operate in 2014 and to date IATEFL has supported two local projects, one in India 272 and one in Cameroon (see also Smith and Kuchah, this volume). 273 274 To summarise IATEFL’s organisational responses, the themes which emerged from the 2011 275 survey seemed to indicate that the association is doing more than providing an 276 instrumental provision of useful activities. It appears that membership benefits and, in 277 particular, the annual conference, has a significant impact on members’ sense of identity; 278 this is connected with being and feeling part of a teacher community of practice.

8 279 However, attendance at the annual conference is a benefit open only to a minority of 280 members of IATEFL. The Association’s response was thus an attempt to broaden 281 membership benefits in a way which supported opportunities for professional development 282 with, possibly, further impacts on teachers’ sense of identity and belonging. A further 283 similar exploration via a 2015 survey allows us to get a clearer sense of whether this was 284 achieved. 285 286 The 2015 IATEFL Survey 287 288 In IATEFL’s second survey, launched in January 2015, we wanted to know if the 289 developments outlined above increased the sense of value of the IATEFL as a teacher 290 organisation, particularly with respect to members unable to attend the main conference 291 or SIG events run in particular countries. 292 293 In our email to members to introduce the 2015 survey, we highlighted the achievements 294 that we had made based on the findings from the first survey. The 2015 survey was an 295 adapted version of the 2011 survey, but the core questions were the same. Like the first 296 survey, it included both simple Likert scale items and more qualitative responses. A 297 smaller time window was provided for data collection, but despite this we achieved a 298 higher response rate of 751 responses, which is approximately 19% of IATEFL’s total 299 membership. 300 301 Individual members were the main body of respondents, representing 90% of survey 302 participants. Individual membership types that responded were similar to those who 303 responded in the 2011 survey, and 48 of this total were WMS members. The largest single 304 group of respondents was based in the UK (162), followed by Germany (64 respondents), 305 then Spain, Sweden, India, the USA, Russia and Turkey (responses in the 20s). The 306 qualitative data from the 2015 survey was analysed following a more deductive approach, 307 using the pre-existing categories established through the 2011 questionnaire (outlined in 308 Table 1), using these categories I looked for further evidence of the development of 309 teachers’ senses of identity and belonging. An inductive approach, allowing for the 310 emergence of new themes in the data, was applied to post-2011 developments, 311 refinements and new ideas. 312 313 A key issue related to building the professional community and sense of identity that 314 emerged as a new development was comment on the diversity of speakers chosen for the

9 315 webinars. It was pointed out by one respondent that as IATEFL is trying to reach a broad, 316 global audience, it should also explore further where speakers are from and what they are 317 saying, focusing on the reality of classrooms in the global south, for example. However, it 318 was still felt that there had been real progress: 319 320 A greater range of services, and, above all, … a real attempt to reach out to 321 teachers who for one reason or another can’t make it to the UK conference or 322 other face-to-face events. 323 324 Provision of online annual conferences have greatly improved over the past two 325 years, in terms of using the latest technology to enable teachers living in some 326 remote and developing countries to benefit from various educational programs. 327 328 This suggests that a further shift in the direction of our activity towards teachers in less 329 developed countries would further enhance people’s engagement with the community of 330 practice, encouraging them to forge a closer identity with other language teaching 331 professionals working elsewhere in the world. 332 333 Another comment on the issue of community and belonging was this: 334 335 ...I pay the subscription fee because I feel part of the community and really 336 appreciate what the organisation does for language teachers. 337 338 However, the suggestion was made by a small number of respondents that IATEFL might 339 not be doing the job as well as it thought and that it is not reaching out to its WMS 340 members as well as it could, still not providing sufficient support for the broader 341 community: 342 343 As a WMS in [country x] I can’t see many changes. 344 345 More online events have been included, however, these only cater to a small 346 section of the world population; that is those from UK and Europe. Americans and 347 Asian countries are not well represented. 348 349 Webinars continue to have no relevance to my work, and this is disheartening. 350 They mostly tend to concern European teachers.

10 351 352 Another comment on a connected issue concerned the authorship of articles in IATEFL 353 publications: 354 355 More effort should be put into getting articles from Africans about developments in 356 their own localities. 357 358 These responses highlight ways in which the community of practice should be further 359 developed to help move people from being peripheral participants in the organisation to 360 being fully engaged members. People who are able to attend the annual conference may 361 already have this sense of professional community and their place within it, but a greater 362 sense of identity brought about by a more inclusive stance within activities beyond the 363 conference may bring a broader group of people into the core of the community’s activity. 364 These responses also highlight the changing nature of IATEFL’s membership, as discussed 365 earlier. 366 367 Beyond this, the survey provided no evidence that IATEFL is being significantly superseded 368 by other online offerings and communities. This is despite the fact that there are 369 considerable opportunities for people to meet online and to run their own events – for 370 example, the #eltchat group (http://eltchat.org/wordpress/) that runs weekly online 371 discussions using Twitter. Many publishers also offer online seminars and many of these 372 can be linked to the Continuing Professional Development requirements that many 373 countries expect their teachers to meet. Thus, it may well be that IATEFL benefits from 374 the combination of physical and virtual events that it offers. Teachers still appear to value 375 the idea of belonging to a community that has a basis in the physical world, but their 376 sense of identity in the professional community of practice can be enhanced by the online 377 developments discussed in this article, particularly if they are made more relevant to the 378 significant part of the profession who are not able to attend a face-to-face conference. 379 From the evidence that we have seen here, identifying with a community of teachers, 380 well-defined through membership in a Teachers’ Association, still appears relevant in the 381 21st century. 382 383 Conclusion 384 This article has shown, through the case study of IATEFL as a membership organisation, 385 that notions of identity and belonging in the early years of the 21st century are an 386 important part of being a teacher. As well as offering a sense of identity for many through

11 387 such membership benefits as the main annual conference, IATEFL also offers an 388 opportunity for many others to join an international community of practice that accepts 389 the changing nature of belonging and identity in the world. This is a work in progress, but 390 there is evidence that the organisation has come some way along this path. 391 392 I have demonstrated that the steps that IATEFL has taken have both made a difference to 393 teachers, and at the same time enabled many more teachers around the world to take 394 part in and feel a sense of belonging to the professional community that exists in ELT. The 395 paper also suggests that a need for and interest in membership organisations such as 396 IATEFL is not diminishing, although such organisations will obviously need to continue to 397 examine a range of ways in which the professional community can be developed and 398 supported. This includes digital technologies which open up the possibility of a more 399 interlinked global membership, which appears to transcend the localised realities of a 400 teacher’s daily life. 401 402 References 403 404 Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2006) Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative 405 Research in Psychology, 3 (2): 77-101. 406 407 Canagarajah, A. S. (2005) Reclaiming the local in language policy and practice. Mahwah, 408 NJ: Erlbaum. 409 410 Charity Commission (n.d.) About public development. https://www.gov.uk/public-benefit- 411 rules-for-charities. Accessed 19 June 2015. 412 413 Cohen, L. Manion, L. & Morrison, K. (2011) Research methods in education, 7th edition. 414 London: Routledge. 415 416 Cook V. (1999) Going beyond the native speaker in language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 417 33 (2): 185-209. 418 419 Croucher, S. L. (2004) Globalization and Belonging: The Politics of Identity in a Changing 420 World. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield. 421 422 Groves, R. M. (2006) Nonresponse rates and nonresponse bias in household surveys. 423 Public Opinion Quarterly, 70 (5): 646-675. 424

12 425 Joffe, H. (2012) Thematic analysis. In David Harper and Andrew R. Thompson Qualitative 426 research methods in mental health and psychotherapy: A guide for students and 427 practitioners. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. 428 429 Lamb, T. (2012) Language associations and collaborative support: language teacher 430 associations as empowering spaces for professional networks. Innovation in Language 431 Learning and Teaching, 6 (3): 287-308. 432 433 Langford, M. (1998) Global nomads, third culture kids and international schools. In Mary 434 Hayden and Jeff Thompson International education: Principles and practice. Oxford: 435 Routledge. 436 437 Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. 438 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 439 440 Richards, L. (2015) Handling qualitative data: A practical guide. London: Sage. 441 442 United Nations Development Programme. (2013) Human Development Report 2013: The 443 Rise of the south: Human Progress in a diverse world. New York: UNDP. 444 445 Varghese, M., Morgan, B., Johnson, B., & Johnson, K. A. (2005) Theorizing language 446 teacher identity: Three perspectives and beyond. Journal of Language, Identity and 447 Education, 4 (1): 21-44. 448 449 Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of practice: learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: 450 CUP.

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