The art of language teaching: are teacher identity and performative teaching mutually exclusive?

This keynote paper was based on my own research and on-going reflections on my teaching and teacher training experience. It considers the possible conflict between presenting and maintaining a natural and genuine teacher identity whilst also recognising the need for teachers of any subject to draw on certain performative skills to spontaneously address any emerging issues during the course of a lesson. It was argued that it is essential a teacher's behaviour remains natural and as close as possible to his/her general persona but that training in certain performative skills can equip teachers with strategies that can enhance teacher/student rapports and classroom dynamics and help put teachers in a state of preparedness to tackle those moments that require in-the-moment improvisation