The dynamism of EFL teachers’ professional identity with respect to their teaching commitment and job satisfaction

This study investigated the dynamism of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ professional identity with respect to their commitment and job satisfaction. A mixed-methods design integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches was used. To conduct the quantitative part of the study, 198 EFL teachers were selected from different private language institutes in Mashhad, a city in northeastern Iran. They were requested to complete a battery of three questionnaires. For the qualitative part of the study, four EFL teachers were chosen to be interviewed. Teacher professional identity measured six factors: Self-expectation (SE), Teachers’ duties (TD), External influential factors (EF), Pedagogy (PE), Instructional skill and knowledge (SK), Teachers’ citizenship behavior (CB). The results of structural equation modeling (SEM) demonstrated that job satisfaction played a positive and significant role in SE and TD. Job satisfaction was in turn influenced by EF. Job satisfaction predicted teacher commitment both directly and indirectly via its effect on TD and CB. Teacher commitment, on the other hand, impacted on PE, CB, and SK. The results of the qualitative part demonstrated the

Abstract: This study investigated the dynamism of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' professional identity with respect to their commitment and job satisfaction. A mixed-methods design integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches was used. To conduct the quantitative part of the study, 198 EFL teachers were selected from different private language institutes in Mashhad, a city in northeastern Iran. They were requested to complete a battery of three questionnaires. For the qualitative part of the study, four EFL teachers were chosen to be interviewed. Teacher professional identity measured six factors: Self-expectation (SE), Teachers' duties (TD), External influential factors (EF), Pedagogy (PE), Instructional skill and knowledge (SK), Teachers' citizenship behavior (CB). The results of structural equation modeling (SEM) demonstrated that job satisfaction played a positive and significant role in SE and TD. Job satisfaction was in turn influenced by EF. Job satisfaction predicted teacher commitment both directly and indirectly via its effect on TD and CB. Teacher commitment, on the other hand, impacted on PE, CB, and SK. The results of the qualitative part demonstrated the ABOUT THE AUTHORS Shima Abedi Ostad is an MA graduate of TEFL from Imam Reza International University, Mashhad, Iran. She has taught English in language institutes for several years. Her research interests lie in language teacher identity.
Dr. Afsaneh Ghanizadeh is an assistant professor at Imam Reza International University She received her PhD in English language teaching (ELT) from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. She teaches ELT at MA level, and supervises theses in the field.
She has published over 80 papers in research scientific journals and about 30 papers in ISI or Scopus-indexed journals (published in Elsevier, Oxford, Springer, Taylor & Francis, Sage, Emerald, etc.). She has also published 6 books in English teaching and translation. Her research interests include, psychology of language teaching and learning, and teacher education.
Maryam Ghanizadeh is a university lecturer in statistics. She has taught statistics and mathematics in universities for about 10 years. Her research interests involve survival statistics and applied statistics.

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
Identity is a construct which is of great importance in different fields of study, especially in the realm of teacher education. Identity is a multifaceted construct and its changing profile in terms of external facets demonstrates its dynamism. This study investigated the dynamism of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' professional identity with respect to their commitment and job satisfaction. The results revealed that there is a mutual relationship between teacher identity and their job satisfaction. Job satisfaction predicted teacher commitment both directly and indirectly. Teacher commitment, on the other hand, impacted on different components of teacher identity. The results of the qualitative part demonstrated the overlap between the three constructs and were in line with the results of the quantitative part of the study. Based on the findings of the present study, it seems essential to promote teacher awareness of the critical role of teacher professional identity in their profession as well as the factors which would shape it.

Introduction
Identity is a construct which is of great importance in different fields of study, especially in the realm of teacher education. Identity is a multifaceted construct and its changing profile in terms of external facets demonstrates its dynamism. Epstein (1978) argued that identity is an idea of synthesis, integration, and movement that represents the method via which the person seeks to incorporate his copious statuses and roles, in addition to his right into a coherent picture of self. Kerby's (1991) explanation of professional identity conceptualizes it as an open-ended development of interpretation and re-interpretation of experiences which is dependent on a continuous learning development.
In effect, identity and practice emulate each other. Professional identity is associated with the concept of profession and of the professional. However, the professional socialization of most teachers typically becomes implicit and unsystematic after commencing work at schools. Teachers rarely link their professional identity to clearly defined professional norms. Teachers tend to form their professional identity in a local and unique manner (Servage, 2009). Since professional identity is a social construct resulting from interactions among several factors, such as people's subjective experience and critical self-examination, professional identity does not remain in a steady condition (Pinar, 2012).
Teaching is among the jobs in which identity plays a key role (Beijaard, Meijer, & Verloop, 2004) and teachers can learn how to apply expertise to develop the scope of their professional identity by executing action to influence the entire school (Goodson & Cole, 1994). Consequently, identity awareness has been considered as an important responsibility for teachers (Tajeddin & Teimournezhad, 2014). Furthermore, professional development helps enhance or transform teachers' professional identity. This works most effectively when the content of professional development is in alignment with the knowledge and beliefs of teachers (Ottensen, 2007). In this regard, the concept of teacher identity can be considered as the way by which teachers think and visualize themselves (Ottensen, 2007) which is highly connected to emotions, their sense of attachment to the organization, and their gratification (Day & Møller, 2017, as cited in Ye & Zhao, 2018. Constructing teachers' professional identity encompasses the interactions of personal standards and experience, communal context, organizational culture, and professional experience (Van Den Berg, 2002). The professional identities of teachers affect how they cognitively and affectively experience their profession. Similarly, their cognitive and affective response to experience can influence their identity construction (Dang, 2013). Regarding the transformation of teachers' professional identity, while teachers as professionals have increasingly become subjected to external values and professional codes, their own action functions as a powerful shield for constructing their professional identity and strengthening their commitment (Thomson & Palermo, 2014). This perspective of teacher identity is built on other identities, including those of a professional, academic, researcher, or intellectual. Indeed, throughout the literature, teacher professional identity was examined in relation to practice and knowledge (Andrzejewski, 2009), self-regulation (Cardelle-Elawar & Sanz de Acedo Lizarraga, 2010), teaching tensions (Pillen, Beijaard, & Den Brok, 2013), quality of teaching (Battey & Franke, 2008), macro and microcontextual factors (Salinas, 2017), demographic variables (Ghanizadeh & Abedi-Ostad, 2016), and coping strategies (Hong, Day, & Greenea, 2018). Kao and Lin (2015) reviewing the literature on the professional identity of teachers came up with two classifications hypothesizing various aspects of teacher identity: (a) formation and development of teachers' professional identity and (b) identification of characteristics of teachers' professional identity. Professional identity of teachers incorporates internal and external factors such as, teachers' personal life experience, teachers' thinking about instruction, personal values and expectations for the future, and teachers' relationships with peers, work environment redesign, organizational structure, and the implementation of teaching, education reform, school leadership, and professional development (Kao & Lin, 2015).
So, it is apparent that teacher professional identity is a multifaceted construct being impacted by various internal and internal factors and in turn influences different aspects of teachers' functioning. The present study exploits the theoretical framework conceptualized by Kao and Lin (2015) which explains teachers' professional identity in six dimensions: self-expectation (SE), teachers' duties (TD), external influential factors (EF), pedagogy (PE), instructional skills and knowledge (SK), and teachers' citizenship behavior (CB). By SE, we mean teachers' commitment to and evaluation of their job. TD is teachers' responsibilities toward students, curriculum content, and society. EF is defined as teachers' perceptions of social interactions and school policy. PE is students' behavioral education and relationships with students. SK is teachers' subject knowledge and approaches for delivering curriculum, and CB is teachers' devotion of additional efforts in their work and profession.
The existing literature on language identity demonstrates that research on EFL/ESL teachers' identity has attracted researchers' attention in the past two decades (e.g., Ghanizadeh & Abedi-Ostad, 2016;Norton, 2010). In the Iranian EFL context, teachers' professional identity has been also attested. In this regard, Ghanizadeh and Abedi-Ostad (2016) demonstrated the dynamism of Iranian EFL teachers' identity with respect to the demographic variables. They showed that EFL teachers' perceptions towards professional identity alter over time, i.e., their insights into the early stages of teaching are not the same as their beliefs as they gain more experiences. Furthermore, community of practice appears to play a key role in forming EFL teachers' identity (Sarani & Najjar, 2013).
In the current study, teachers' professional identity is studied in relation to two other occupational factors, i.e., job commitment and job satisfaction. Commitment has been designated from various perspectives. Commitment is an association or social intentions to employ effort (Mowday, Steers, & Porter, 1979); a function of a cognitive assessment of the consequences and profits of involving in a particular task (Hrebiniak & Alutto, 1972). Teacher commitment, as delineated by the degree of psychological and positive affective attachment to the teaching profession, has attracted the attention of educationalists since the issue of teacher retention affected many countries around the globe (Coladarci, 1992). It can be categorized into three dimensions: school organization, teaching profession, and students (Firestone & Pennell, 1993) and shows the degree to which one is involved in operating the specific tasks in the workplace or the degree of importance that work plays in one's life (Brown & Leigh, 1996). Teacher commitment to students comprises teachers' readiness to help students and their deep sense of responsibility for student learning and school life. Kushman (1992) believed that teacher devotion to effective teaching promotes students' interest, engagement, and ultimately effective learning, particularly for students who are academically at risk. This commitment is highly related to affective attachment with students such as individual caring.
Teachers' work is situated within the organizations and environments of that organizations, such as schools and education systems. Therefore, teacher commitment could be conceptualized in terms of the organizational scopes of emotional and normative commitment. Commitment, therefore, occurs when the teacher has a strong attachment with one or many aspects of a particular context or organization. The teacher may be committed to a specific organization's ideology, clientele, goals, methods of instruction, or even its reputation (Meyer & Allen, 1991).
Teacher commitment has operatively been recognized as the most functional corridor to school success by the leadership literature (Fink, 1992). The literature on teaching commitment has studied this construct from different dimensions and in various contexts (as mentioned above). These studies demonstrated that teacher commitment is shaped by a host of internal and external factors (including emotion, motivation, and social identities) and can in turn influence various aspects of teacher performance. In this study, it is hypothesized that teacher commitment is associated with their identity operationalized via self-expectation, teachers' duties, external influential factors, pedagogy, instructional skills and knowledge, and teachers' citizenship behavior.
Another variable pertained to the present study is job satisfaction. As indicated by Locke (1976), job satisfaction is an inspirational state of mind coming about because of the view of one's job as satisfying one's needs. There are three vital measurements of job satisfaction. Warr, Cook, and Wall (1979) signified the term job as "the tasks undertaken in a particular setting" (as cited in Smith, 2007). Young (1984) defined job satisfaction as "the affective reaction that employees have about their jobs" (p. 115). All in all, the proposed definitions for job satisfaction tend to pivot around the same notion: the attitude an employee has towards his/her job. These to Luthans (1998) are: the work itself, pay, advancement openings, supervision, and associates. It is so vital that its absence frequently prompts dormancy and reduced commitment (Moser, 1997). Absence of job satisfaction is an indicator of leaving a place of employment (Alexander, Liechtenstein, & Hellmann, 1998).
In recent years, studies on job satisfaction have been generalized to teaching domain and feeling in teachers' work has attracted the attention of educationalists. From a position where feeling was viewed as peripheral to teaching, researchers into teacher emotion have extended a consensus that emotional stance of teacher resulting from their job satisfaction is central to teaching and teachers' lives (Hargreaves, 2001;Isenbarger & Zembylas, 2006). Occupational identities and expectations are connected to job satisfaction as the most significant factor for teachers to judge about their occupation and organization (Robins, 2007).

Purpose of the study
The above literature on teachers' professional identity, teachers' commitment, and teachers' job satisfaction demonstrated that studies on these issues left out a space for doing a research on exploring the dynamic interplay among these constructs. To the researchers' best knowledge, although previous studies explored teachers' professional identity, commitment, and job satisfaction in parallel, little research has been done investigating their interrelationship with each other. Also, no study examined the aforementioned relationship among Iranian EFL teachers. As stated earlier, the present study utilized a theoretical framework proposed by Kao and Lin (2015) conceptualizing teachers' professional identity in six dimensions: self-expectation, teachers' duties, external influential factors, pedagogy, instructional skills and knowledge, and teachers' citizenship behavior. In so doing, a mixed-methods design integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches was developed. To attain the goals of present research, the following research questions were posed and investigated in the present study: Q1: Is there any significant relationship between EFL teachers' professional identity and teachers' commitment?
Q2: Is there any significant relationship between EFL teachers' professional identity and teachers' job satisfaction? Q3: Is there any significant relationship between EFL teachers' commitment and their job satisfaction?

Phase 1
The sampling frame for the quantitative part of the study was limited to schools and Englishlanguage institutes in Mashhad. In this study, 212 teachers were selected according to a convenience sampling from different private English-language institutes. Participants' age varied from 20 to 49 years old (M = 28.21, SD = 5.97) with 1 to 22 years of English teaching experience (M = 7.48, SD = 5.35), their degree varied from B.A. to M.A. of English Literature, English Translation, and English Teaching. Out of 212 distributed questionnaires, 198 were returned to the researchers, so the actual number of participants of the study included 198 EFL teachers.
The impetus behind selecting teachers of private language institutes rather than public centers was based on the discrepancies associated with each setting making private institute teachers more appropriate for the study. Generally, in Iran, EFL learning can typically be pursued via these two channels. Notwithstanding the shared objectives − English learning-they deviate in various respects such as learning objectives, teaching approaches and methods, the extent of volition over attendance, and the teacher and learner roles. The English learning curriculum in high schools is derived from the traditional grammar translation approaches and is presented by the Ministry of Education. Furthermore, the English courses are mandatory to pass in order to graduate and ultimately get a diploma. Teacher role is restricted to passing knowledge via and assessing learning. Language institutes, on the other hand, are private non-profitable organizations which are financially dependent on the tuition fees they charge from the attendants. They typically present courses aligned with the most recent language learning methods and approaches. A host of inspirations underlies attending language institutes, including, opening up better educational opportunities inside and outside the country, offering the prospect of living abroad, facilitating access to technology-based information resources, comprehending western movies, music, and scientific texts. In these institutes, teachers and learners work together, and the boundaries between teachers and learners are not as formal and inflexible as classes conducted by traditional-oriented approaches (Ghanizadeh & Rostami, 2015). Consequently, teachers require not just a solid base of content area knowledge, but a high level of interpersonal competence, innovation, dedication, and willingness to encourage and sustain student interactions, rapport, and interest in English learning (Ghanizadeh & Moafian, 2010). All in all, it seems in such collaborative settings, teacher identity acts as a crucial component in determining how language teaching is played out.

Phase 2
For the qualitative part of the study, four English teachers from different language institutes in Mashhad were selected according to a convenience sampling and were interviewed. They aged between 23 and 34, and they were B.A. or M.A. holders of English Literature, English Translation, and English Teaching.

Instrumentation
A battery of three questionnaires was utilized in current study. The interview was developed with the purpose of eliciting more comprehensive information and triangulating the data collection. Also, there were flexible interactions so that teachers could elaborate on the subject matter being asked and other relevant issues as well. The questionnaires are as follows:

Teacher professional identity inventory
It included 22 close-ended items on 5-point Likert scales ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) to measure different teacher identity components. It was designed and validated by Kao and Lin (2015). These items measured six factors: self-expectation (SE), Teachers' duties TD: 1) I believe that being responsible for students is one of my professional duties.
PE: 1) As a teacher, I always lead by example to teach students how to get along with others.
SK: 1) I believe that teachers should be able to teach most students to understand the content of teaching material.

Teaching satisfaction scale (TSS)
The single-factor Teaching Satisfaction Scale (TSS) which was developed by Ho and Au (2006) was employed in this research in order to evaluate EFL teachers' perception of teaching satisfaction. This questionnaire has five items which are scored on a 5-point Likert scale. 1 stands for strongly disagree, 2 stands for disagree, 3 stands for no idea, 4 stands for agree and 5 shows strongly agree. Items of this questionnaire are mentioned below: 1. In most ways, being a teacher is close to my ideal.
2. My conditions of being a teacher are excellent.
3. I am satisfied with being a teacher.
4. If I could choose my career over, I would change almost nothing.
5. So far I have gotten the important things to want to be a teacher. Mowday et al.'s (1979) "Organizational Commitment Questionnaire" (OCQ) was applied. This test comprises 15 items that measure the affective domain rather than normative or continuance domains of organizational commitment. Teacher commitment was constructed with threedimension measures as follows: teacher commitment to school organization (TCO), teacher commitment to teaching profession (TCP), and teacher commitment to students (TCS).

Teacher commitment
TCO is the sum of three questions on a 6-point Likert response scale to indicate their agreement (1 = strongly disagree, 6 = strongly agree). Teacher's commitment questionnaire test item samples are as follows: TCO: 1) There is broad agreement among the entire school faculty about the central mission of the school.
TCP: 1) I usually look forward to each working day at this school.
TCS: 1) I feel that it's part of my responsibility to keep students from dropping out of school. Table 1 represents the reliability of the scales in the original study and in the present study.

Procedure
The data for the present study were collected using three questionnaires and a semi-structured interview. The questionnaires were administered to the participants from 9 February to 22 February 2016 in both paper and electronic formats. All participants were instructed to respond to three questionnaires. They responded to the electronic format whenever they wanted, and the ones who received the paper format completed the questionnaire at home and returned them the following session.
Participants were required to indicate demographic information such as gender, age, major, their educational degree, years of English teaching experience, and place of teaching. The questionnaires were coded numerically. The design of this study was primarily quantitative and partly qualitative. A mixed-methods approach was employed. The quantitative part was conducted using the aforementioned questionnaires and constructing an SEM model based on the collected data, and the qualitative part was assessed by semi-structured interviews. Four teachers (two men and two women) were interviewed individually and face to face. They participated voluntarily and all of them were informed about the explanations of the three constructs before being interviewed. Before asking the questions, they were asked to introduce themselves and provide information about their age, major, educational level, and teaching experience in order to create rapport and help them feel relaxed. Then, they were asked 10 content questions based on the identity conceptualization one after another. All the participants agreed that their voices be recorded, so all the interviews were recorded by using an iPhone 7Plus. Each file was named and backup files were created to find them easily and not to lose them. The questions were asked in Persian, later the files were transcribed and then translated to English. To analyze data, MAXQDA software was used to extract and count the recurring themes.
Two males and two females were chosen randomly. They were from Mashhad, a city in northeastern Iran. For confidentiality purposes, pseudonyms were used in the study. The first participant was Mostafa, 34 with an MA degree in English teaching and 16 years of English teaching experience. He was a teacher at an institute. The second participant was Mohammad, 28, with an MA in English translation and 9 years of teaching experience. The third participant was Shirin, 27 with a BA in English literature, and 3 years of English teaching experience. She taught English in a school. The Forth participant was Elaheh, 30 with an MA in English translation, and 3 years of English teaching experience. She was a teacher at an institute.
One of the researchers interviewed the four aforementioned participants. She interviewed them one by one on different dates. Mostafa, Mohammad, and Shirin were interviewed in a quiet place in the institutes they worked in, and Elaheh was interviewed in her car while she wasn't driving.
Participants first introduced themselves and briefed about their name, age, and field of study, educational degree, and teaching experience. Then, the questions were asked one by one. The interviews varied in length, not usually lasted between 10 and 25 minutes.
To analyze interview protocols, the collected data were recorded and then transcribed. The transcribed data were coded based on recurring themes and then categorized via MAXQDA.
The coding process was retroductive, moving between a priori codes based on our conceptual framework and literature review, and themes that stood out through the process of reading and rereading the transcripts.  Table 2 presents descriptive statistics of teachers' professional identity. As the Table indicates, SE receives the highest mean (M = 16.42, SD = 4.14) and EF obtained the lowest mean score (M = 10.39, SD = 2.23).

Results of the quantitative phase
The reliability estimates of each variable computed via Cronbach's alpha were as follows: SE (α = .72), TD (α = .70), EF (α = .68), PE (α = .61), SK (α = .63), and CB (α = .65). Table 3 shows descriptive statistics of EFL teachers' commitment and job satisfaction. According to the Table,  To examine the structural relations, the proposed model was examined via LISREL 8.50 statistical package. To assess the model, the following fit indices were checked: the chi-square magnitude which shouldn't be significant, Chi-square/df ratio which should be lower than 2 or 3, the normed fit index (NFI), the good fit index (GFI), and the comparative fit index (CFI) with the cut value greater than .90, and the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) of about .06 or .07 (Schreiber, et al., 2006).
As demonstrated by Figure 1, the fit indices are within the acceptable thresholds: RMSEA (.69) the chi-square/df ratio (2.8), GFI = .89, NFI = .90, and CFI = .90. This implies that the model had a good fit with the empirical data.
To check the strengths of the causal relationships among the variables, the t-values and standardized estimates (β) were examined. As indicated in Figure 1, two indices are displayed on the paths, β and t, respectively. Standardized coefficient (β) shows the predictive power of the independent variable in accounting for the dependent variable. The closer the magnitude to 1.0, the higher the predictive power is and the stronger the association will be. The t-value higher than 2 is an indication of statistical significance.  The results demonstrated that job satisfaction plays a positive and significant role in SE (β = .33, t = 4.21) and TD (β = .43, t = 5.19). Job satisfaction is in turn influenced by EF (β = .23, t = 2.38). Job satisfaction predicted teacher commitment both directly (β = .41, t = 5.22) and indirectly via its effect on TD and CB. Teacher commitment, on the other hand, impacted on PE (β = .46, t = 5.67), CB (β = .45, t = 6.22), and SK (β = .23, t = 3.08).
The correlation coefficients among the variables in question are presented in Table 4. As can be seen, commitment had the highest correlations with SK (r = 0.78, p < 0.05), followed by PE (r = 0.71, p < 0.05) and SE (r = 0.70, p < 0.05). Job satisfaction had the highest associations with SE (r = 0.66, p < 0.05), and commitment (r = 0.58, p < 0.05).

Results of the qualitative phase
To confirm the results from the first phase of the study, a qualitative phase employing interview protocol analysis was conducted. The results of the interviews were analyzed through reading, coding, and revising the codes. The following Table portraits the profile of interviewees (Table 5).
Primarily, the researchers went through the transcripts and extracted the parts that appeared to be relevant. The researchers coded each part by MAXQDA and identified recurrent codes. They then reviewed the codes and identified repeated patterns. Finally, identified patterns were evolved. During this process, quotations were adapted from the highlighted parts, and researcher translated the quoted sentences into English. The following table displays the coded themes along with their frequency ( Table 6).
The questions and the answers and their analysis are as follows: Q1: How is your professional identity shaped? For ease of presentation, observed variables are not included and only latent variables are presented. SE stands for self-expectation, TD stands for teachers' duties, EF for external influential factors, PE for pedagogy, SK for instructional skills and knowledge, and CB for teachers' citizenship behavior.
All of the participants mentioned that it is important for them to be accepted by others. In this study, one of the components that shaped identity was EF (external influential factor) which was one of the most important factors in shaping identity according to all participants who were interviewed. According to Mostafa, having an acceptable method of teaching, knowing the language, culture, vocabulary, and being a good communicator are also other factors which shape his professional identity, and in this study, these were considered as SK (instructional skills and knowledge). Shirin's inclination was toward the CB (citizenship behavior) as she said, "The relationship that I have with my students is even more important for me than being only a teacher. I want students to consider me as their friend and ask me every question they have. I like to help students voluntarily and devote my time to them even outside the classroom".   Mostapha said, "I have to confirm myself as a teacher, to do so, I need to know the English language very well. I need to be good at communicating in English so that I know the ways of transferring the language. I need to be a good teacher which means having good methods for teaching. The most important factor is that I must be acceptable and be up to date. I must know the vocabulary and the target language culture, and how they may affect students' minds." According to Mohammad, the credit that people give you creates your identity.
Q2: What factors determine your job satisfaction? Does the above-mentioned considerations on identity affect your job satisfaction? If yes, how?
Three of the participants said yes to this question and believed that job satisfaction has a great or even 100% influence on their professional identity. Analyzing the interview protocols demonstrated job satisfaction is highly associated with SE and TD.
Mostafa stated, "Yes, exactly. Job satisfaction has two layers, internal and external without which I can't feel proud of what I do as a teacher; otherwise, I will only be a clerk in this profession. It means that I only go to the class and teach three pages. Teaching is not only teaching, it also includes helping people to develop intellectually and emotionally, and a fully-functioning member of the society. I wouldn't have any identity if I'm not satisfied with my job from these two layers." Mohammad said, "It is true 100 percent. The more satisfied I am, the better I work." Shirin had a similar idea.
Q3: How does your commitment to teaching shape your conceptions and disposition toward your profession?
Three of the participants believed that commitment shapes their professional identity. Shirin and Mohammad said without commitment to their job they would not be able to do their job. Mostafa said, "Committing to work for me is defined as being accepted by the others, especially as an English teacher. I have to do everything that makes me a successful English teacher. I do this to find and project my identity as a teacher." Q4: How does job satisfaction affect your commitment?
Two of the participants believed that the more satisfied they are with their job, the better they work and the more committed they will be. As was shown in this study, there is a significant relationship between job satisfaction and commitment, and job satisfaction exerted influence on commitment.
Shirin said, "When I'm satisfied with my job, I do it better. When my salary is more satisfying and I have a better social position as an English teacher, I feel more committed to my job." Q5: Do you always want to be a teacher? What is the cause?
Two of the participants wanted to be a teacher from the early ages. Mostafa wanted to be a teacher so that he could be effective socially. Shirin wanted to teach others the things that she knew. This question was about their SE. In this study job satisfaction affected SE.
Mostafa said, "I always wanted to be a journalist, reporter, or a teacher, and this is because of the social aspect of these jobs. I wanted to work somewhere I could be effective socially; the outcome is job satisfaction." Q6: Is being responsible for students' learning one of your professional duties?
All of the participants gave a positive answer to this question. They all believed that a teacher must be responsible. And they said it is mostly because of the students' time and money. Mostafa mentioned when he has job satisfaction, he is more responsible for students.
Mostafa said, "I must understand students and help them. My ultimate goal for them is effective English learning, and not only doing homework. When I am satisfied with my job, this would be meaningful." Mohammad said, "Students spend their time and money on learning English, and this is my responsibility to help them achieve their goal. In this case we'll all be satisfied." Q7: Do school policies influence your teaching?
Three of the participants thought that the policies influence their teaching. When the policies are not against their discretion, they may lead to their job satisfaction. The model tested earlier also demonstrated the same finding, in which EF influences job satisfaction.
Shirin said, "Some schools provide teachers with better facilities and practical policies. In such schools, I will be more satisfied with my job." Q8: As a teacher, do you teach to teach students by examples to get along with others?
All of them assumed that they did, and three of them believed that this was the result of their commitment. This study also found that teacher's commitment influences their PE.
Shirin said, "I do this as much as I can." Elaheh said, "I believe this happens unconsciously, and it is because of the commitment I have to my job." Q9: Do you believe that teachers should ensure that most students have understood the content of the teaching material?
All of the participants stated that it was something that must be done, and it is for sure related to their commitment. As was found in this study, teacher's commitment influenced his SK.
Shirin said, "It is mostly related to the teacher's oratory, and it is because of her commitment." Elaheh said, "I'm not inclined to do so, but I must do this because of the commitment I have toward my students and job." Mostafa said, "I have to create a situation in which all of my students are cooperated in learning. I cannot guarantee that all of them will perfectly learn, but I do my best to maximize learning via different methods and strategies." Q10: Are you willing to expend additional time to help students solve academic problems.
All of the interviewees said yes and three of them mentioned that their commitment is the cause. It substantiated the findings of this study which showed that teacher's commitment influences CB.
Elaheh said, "I feel totally committed to teach the whole material, and answer students' questions." Shirin said, "It gives me a very good feeling when I spend extra time after the class to help students' learning problems. I feel that's because I'm dedicated to my job."

Discussion and conclusions
The research questions in the present study are presented once more and the results extracted from data analysis have been summarized and discussed: RQ1: Is there any significant relationship between EFL teachers' professional identity and teachers' commitment?
The results of SEM indicated that Teacher commitment impacted on PE, CB, and SK. The results of correlation also demonstrated that commitment had the highest correlations with SK. As was mentioned before, commitment is defined as related to some important factors, such as commitment to the workplace, students, etc. When teachers are more committed to their job, they try to improve their instructional skills and knowledge and their pedagogy. Also, they expect themselves to do their best. This may be because they felt they had to be qualified enough to fulfill the students' and their own needs. When the professional identity of teachers involves high degree of instructional knowledge and can establish rapport with students, managing negative emotions caused by the external pressure becomes easier for them (Cross & Hong, 2012); so, they would be more affectively attached to the teaching profession. This is in effect an indication of teaching commitment given that as maintained by educationalists teaching commitment is an emotional bond or identification with teaching activity and is delineated by the degree of psychological and positive affective attachment to the teaching profession (Coladarci, 1992). The analysis of interview protocols was in harmony with the above finding.
RQ2: Is there any significant relationship between EFL teachers' professional identity and teachers' job satisfaction?
The results demonstrated that job satisfaction plays a positive and significant role in SE and TD. Job satisfaction is in turn influenced by EF. Job satisfaction is defined as all the feelings that an individual has about his/her job (Luthans, 1998). Professional identity involves a person's self-concept and identity that stem from interpreting and reinterpreting his or her professional experience. Because it is a social construct resulting from interactions among several factors, such as people's subjective experience and critical self-examination, professional identity is plausibly influenced by our feelings and perceptions towards our job (Pinar, 2012). In other words, the more satisfied teachers are with their job, the more they have self-expectations and the better they do their duties which imply more achievement in the performance. Also, external factors such as the work place, its policies, payment, colleagues, etc. may help teachers to be more satisfied with their job. RQ3: Is there any significant relationship between EFL teachers' commitment and their job satisfaction?
Job satisfaction had a high association with commitment. Job satisfaction predicted teacher commitment both directly and indirectly via its effect on TD and CB. Teacher commitment, on the other hand, impacted on PE, CB, and SK. In other words, the more satisfied teachers are with their job, the more committed they will be. This is unexpected and can plausibly be justified from a commonsense perspective given that one of the determinants of commitment is the degree of our pleasure with what we do and where we work.
As stated earlier, previous research demonstrated that teacher commitment has a great impact on their professional performance (Park, 2005) and the resultant job satisfaction (Ghanizadeh & Abedi-Ostad, 2016). It seems quite obvious that in addition to having an interest in teaching, they should have a high sense of attachment to their work place since in educational settings various kinds of relationship (e.g., between teacher-student, teacher-teacher, and teacher-supervisor) determine teachers' job satisfaction. It is not out of expectation that such teachers exert more diligence in the teaching process and are more dedicated to people who are in their professional sphere, like learners, colleagues, and supervisors (Ghanizadeh & Ghonsooly, 2014).
Taken together, considering the role of teachers' professional identity in teachers' success, it was the concern of the present study to explore what could affect this factor. Based on the findings, there should be a tendency towards encouraging teachers to improve their knowledge, teaching strategies, pedagogy, and citizenship behavior which are some of the components of teachers' professional identity. It was also concluded that the more the teachers are satisfied with their profession and the more committed they are to their profession, the more effectively their identity shapes, the more satisfied the teachers are with their work, and the more committed they will be.
The conclusions derived from this study can have important implications in the teacher education domain. They notify teachers of their professional identity and the factors that may influence it. It is essential to promote teacher awareness of the critical role of teacher's professional identity in their professions as well as the factors which would shape it. Informing teachers about these issues may help them to have a better understanding about themselves and their job. Experienced teachers are also required to be cognizant of the basic causes of change in their professional identity and help novice teachers to have a good understanding about it and building it from the very first steps. Teacher educators and authorities are also recommended to provide the favorable environments and help teachers build realistic professional identity. Institutes are also required to consider and improve the work-related factors that would lead to enhanced job satisfaction.
It is essential to note that the present study is limited in a number of ways. First, this research was conducted only among the EFL teachers in language institutes; thus, the study should be conducted with other samples from official schools and centers in different regions of the country and utilize procedures that confirm a higher degree of randomization and, eventually, more generalizability. Second, in the present study, the data about the variables under investigation were largely gathered by means of self-reporting questionnaires and were therefore subject to various biases. In the present study, qualitative phase was conducted via semi-structured interviews. In any case, future research should use other sources of qualitative approaches such as interviews, case studies, and observations to evaluate different aspects of teacher identity. Third, in this investigation, teachers' demographic information, such as their age, marital status, cultural and socioeconomic background, mastery experience, pedagogical training, contractual status, and major were not controlled and their role on each concept was not considered. It is also recommended to track the dynamic and developing nature of teacher identity in a longitudinal study over time.