Abstract
As English nowadays is deemed to be the language of globalization, international communication, business and technology, it has assumed the role of "lingua franca" and "international language". With this expansion, reflections about how to teach English classes also have arisen, being one of the central concerns teachers' qualifications, their reflections about their own practices, their beliefs, and their cultural and professional identity in an unfavorable context for his/her development. In this study, we investigate the representations that constitute the teaching culture of eleven English (as an additional language) teachers in Santarem, Para. Following a qualitative paradigm based on interpretation, we could identify twelve representations that allowed the possibility to affirm that, besides the feelings of accomplishment regarding their profession, these teachers also exhibit an idealization of native speakers, thus, feelings of unease in their positions of nonnative teachers. Their identities are, therefore, constructed from the need to improve more and more in order to achieve that native speaker idealization