Finding one’s own voice – Balancing the views of the researcher within narrative inquiry when exploring race and teacher identity in an EFL context

The discussion of native and non-native English speaking teachers is an ongoing debate which addresses the linguistic issues regarding the language user. It is more recent that matters of race and English language teachers have been considered. This paper focuses on the methodological difficulties that the narrative researcher encounters when they share a similar background to their research subject(s). The author discusses the issue of positionality within the research when conducting a narrative approach with two participants who share a similar racial and linguistic background as herself, a Canadian-Filipino native English speaker. The author examines the dynamics of retelling the narratives of the participants when taking into account her own experiences that are mirrored within their stories, and concludes with further implications for narrative reflexivity.