While much attention has been given to the influences on teachers’ identity construction in different contexts, research with EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers as participants in their transition time of becoming a teacher and in the context of Mainland China is inadequate. Therefore, selecting Mainland China as a research site, this study will explore the influences on EFL teachers’ identity formation and make a contribution to the literature. The study focused on 12 EFL student teachers in an EFL teacher education programme in China. The research is following them in their last two months of their programme and into the first six months of teaching. Mind maps and associated mind map mediated interviews were applied as the main instruments to collect data. The results of this medium-term study are expected to enrich the understanding of EFL teacher identity (TI) construction and reconstruction.

    So far, the first phase (i.e. participants’ being in their programme) of data gathering has been completed. The next step is to transcribe and translate.