Abstract
This paper presents a possible direction in research on teacher and learner motivation in language teaching using the possible selves theory (PST), which has successfully established itself as a theoretical framework in psychology, pedagogy, and applied linguistics. The text begins by introducing the background of PST and then proceeds to discuss its application in research on two key agents of the language learning process: the teachers and the learners.
First, it examines language teachers' professional identity. Secondly, it introduces PST in applied linguistics, where it has flourished as a framework to explore the motivation to learn a foreign/second language.
Previous research has mainly focused on the teaching and learning of English or other major languages. By presenting selected studies that have used PST, the text outlines the possibilities of its validation in the field of teaching Czech as a second language as well as in research on the personality of foreign language teachers (whether Czech or another language) in the Czech environment, which is still waiting for a broader scale use of PST.