'Writing makes us professional': Second language writing in Argentinian teacher education

In Argentina, the context of this chapter, research on second language (L2) writing in initial English language teacher education (IELTE) has examined pre-service teachers’ writing through case studies, corpusbased analysis, quasi-experiments and mixed methods. The focus has been on linguistic development evidenced in writing through individual and collaborative tasks informed by genre analysis and grammar. Nonetheless, there is a paucity of studies on pre-service teachers’ perceptions on their motivation and identity in relation to L2 writing. Teacher educators and pre-service teachers may wonder about the impact of writing in IELTE and teaching as a profession. In this interest in impact, it is believed that motivation and identity exert a significant influence on pre-service teachers’ writing practices; thus, it is vital for teacher educators to understand the interplay between writing, motivation, identity and pre-service teachers’ investment in their professional identity.In this chapter, we first review studies on L2 writing in Argentinian IELTE. Secondly, we conceptualize identity, motivation, investment and the role of feedback in order to promote the inclusion of such key constructs among researchers in language teacher education in Argentina. Thirdly, we present our small-scale study carried out at an online IELTE program – the research methodology, findings and discussion in light of our research questions and theoretical background. Our study lends support to the need to include notions of motivation and identity in studies on L2 writing in IELTE programs in Argentina.