| This research looks at pre-service teachers learning during their teacher education training. It particularly aims at examining the identity constructions of Indonesian pre-service English teachers with the concept of imagined identity (Anderson, 1989; Norton, 1995). The setting of the study was in an English education program of a private university in Central Java. Specifically, this study addressed two research questions: 1) what have been the influential aspects of the Indonesian pre-service English teachers’ investment into the teaching profession?; and 2) what professional identities of English teachers do the pre-service teachers aspire to be? Qualitative approach was adopted as the methodology to investigate participants’ conceptions of self and professional identity. Open-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews are used as data collection instruments. There were 20 pre-service teachers who filled the open-ended questionnaires while ten of them volunteered to be interviewed. All data gathered were examined in detail. The analysis followed three main stages of grounded theories (Corbin & Strauss, 1990), which involved open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. To avoid a broader interpretation, the findings were exhibited into two main sections. Firstly, the data pertaining to the first research question was delivered using Darvin and Norton’s (2015) model of investment. Secondly, the data pertaining to the second research question were distributed in three themes, such as past and present views of the teachers’ roles and imagined teacher’s role. The teacher roles identified in this study follows Beijaard, Verloop, and Vemunt (2000) categorization, which contains the teacher as a subject matter, pedagogical, and didactical expert. The findings suggested that the influential aspects of the investment into English teaching were related to three significant elements within the model of investment (Darvin & Norton, 2015), which embodied sense of ideology, capital acquistion, and construction of various teacher identities. Furthermore, teacher identities they aspire to be in the future were dominantly as a didactical expert. It linked to their past and present understanding of teachers’ roles. Finally, this study implied relevance for policymakers in supporting professional development in English teacher education program in Indonesia. |