The teacher I want to be, should be and fear becoming

EAP teachers in university direct-entry programs are both language and genre specialists; they are teachers of academic and digital skills and literacies (Murray, 2018; Roche, 2017) and, they are often the first point of contact for international students experiencing isolation and other psychological challenges (Kahu & Nelson, 2018; Ding & Bruce, 2017; Wilson, 2017). In 2020, many EAP direct-entry teachers in Australia and New Zealand found themselves teaching online for the first time and were also among the many thousands of university employees who lost their jobs (Davies, 2020). Surprisingly little is known about this teaching cohort. There is a paucity of research into how teachers working in direct-entry programs for international students conceptualise their own roles, or what motivates them to continue to develop professionally. Are they motivated by a vision of the ideal teacher they could be, the fear of what they could become or, the expectations of their institutions, their students and their managers? Could knowing this be the key to designing future professional development programs for direct-entry teachers as they struggle to “teach to the times”? This short, virtual presentation will examine the importance of understanding language teacher possible selves(Kubanyiova, 2009) as universities start to plan beyond COVID-19.