Volume VI Issue IV October-December 2026

Name of Author : Mazin Al-Saadi

Title of the paper : From Canon to Cloud, but Whose Profession? The Cost of an Undefined Professionalism in Research on Technology and English Language Teaching: A Critical Review

Abstract: The migration of English language teaching into technology-enhanced learning environments has generated a growing body of research on the relationship between teachers and the tools they are asked to use. In this paper, I argue that much of this research rests on an unexamined foundation, since it places professionalism, or its near-synonym professional identity, at the centre of its enquiry without defining what professionalism is taken to mean. Through a focused review of studies that address teacher professionalism and technology together and explicitly, I show that the field has described their relationship in several ways, as professional identity determining technology use, as the two mutually shaping one another, and as an emotionally charged and performative encounter, while leaving the central concept undefined throughout. I then argue that this silence is consequential rather than incidental. When professionalism is not defined, it defaults silently to the institutions version the gap between what teachers are required to be and what they enact becomes invisible, the ideological and emotional content of the relationship is lost, and description is quietly confused with norm. Drawing on the dual constitution of professionalism as both demanded and enacted, I construct three scenarios that show how the research question changes depending on the definition adopted. I conclude that a clear conception of professionalism must precede, rather than follow, the study of technology in English language teaching, since the definition chosen determines what the relationship can be seen to be.

Keywords : teacher professionalism; professional identity; technology-enhanced learning; English language teaching; demanded and enacted professionalism; conceptual review.

DOI :

Page Number : 9-15