Since the 1980s, the concept of “teacher agency” has increasingly become a hot topic in the fields of education, psychology, and teacher professional development. In the early days, most related studies regarded teachers as active agents. It is believed that teachers have the ability to utilize their personal capabilities to plan and adjust their career development and living conditions, and they can also maintain relative stability in the constantly changing social environment ([12]). This perspective on teacher agency emphasizes the significance of individual teachers taking the initiative to act, thus laying the foundation for the subsequent development of the theory.

In recent years, factors such as the reform of language teaching courses, the implementation of various language education policies and plans, and the increasing pressure on teachers in both teaching and research have posed particularly significant challenges to language teaching ([40]). These changes have provided more channels for teachers to exercise their agency as co-builders of curriculum reform, autonomous executors of policies, and active researchers of professional development. Agency has become a crucial part of teachers’ professional growth. Scholars believe that agency is generated in the interaction between the individual and their environment. It has the characteristics of social and cultural mediation, complexity and dynamics, and requires research in a specific context ([16]; [21]) to understand the concept of agency and its current research trends. It has crucial theoretical and practical significance. This article aims to sort out the essence of agency from the following aspects: connotation, research methods, and developmental paths, hoping to provide some guidance for future research.

In this review, teacher agency is interpreted as the ability of teachers to actively participate in purposeful, reflective actions that can shape their own teaching practices, rather than being regarded as a fixed, individualistic trait. Teacher agency is formed in the context of relationships with other individuals, institutions, and the broader world. It encompasses an understanding of past events, an understanding of the environment in which one is present, and reactive actions taken in response to specific individuals, circumstances, and the educational environment.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, research on teacher agency has increasingly focused on theory and practice. Many scholars have conducted studies on how teacher agency functions in specific situations. [27] proposed that there is a mutual influence relationship between teachers’ professional identity and agency. This relationship highlights the significance of teachers actively shaping their identities through practice. [4] proposed the first comprehensive model of agency, which explains that agency emerges under the interaction of structural conditions, individual capabilities, and context-specific factors. This model transforms the manifestation of the teacher agent from a static and inherently personal attribute into a dynamic process that actively emerges in a specific context, thus providing us with another perspective for understanding the teacher agent. [13] proposed a three-dimensional model of the teacher agent. This model is composed of agent capability, agent belief and agent personality. Interestingly, later on, the term “agency practice” was used to replace “agency capability”, providing a more accurate description that reflects the dynamic and situational characteristics of agent behavior. [9] introduced the concept of “professional agency”, emphasizing the connection between the individual and the structural conditions in the working environment. [22] defined “professional agency” from an ecological perspective, describing it as the result of the interaction of temporal, structural resources and personal experiences. The focus shifted from checking whether teachers have agencies to exploring the process by which they implement agencies in the context of schools and educational communities. This theoretical development process emphasizes the crucial role of teachers in the professional development, identity formation and educational reform practice of educational research.

Starting around 2010, Chinese scholars gradually incorporated the concept of “agency” into their research on teachers’ professional growth, school curricular reform, and issues related to teachers’ identity ([26]). [4] ecological model, along with [9] professional agency model, have been adapted to the Chinese context ([31]), broadening the scope of inquiry into how teachers assume various roles for development amid new curricular transformations. The scope of inquiry was expanded to include responses to teacher adaptation and resistance to policy changes, participation in school governance, teacher burnout, and aspects of positive psychology. Teacher agency has been explicitly conceptualized as the capacity of teachers to exercise autonomy, selectivity, and critical thinking within specific contexts ([32]). Rather than being mere implementers of reforms, teachers are portrayed as active agents who shape education. Since 2017, research has increasingly focused on conducting empirical studies related to the manifestation, influencing factors, and developmental trajectory of teacher agency ([26]; [39]), gradually building a comprehensive theoretical framework and practical applications. Meanwhile, some scholars propose developing a theory of teacher agency grounded in Chinese culture and perspectives. On the one hand, scholars establish their arguments based on institutional and experiential contexts ([20]; [36]). Researchers employ various research paradigms, including surveys, mixed methods, educational narratives, and action research, with an increased emphasis on contextual analysis and the integration of teachers’ experiences. Concerning teacher agency, its examination includes the relationship between teacher agency and the implementation of educational policy ([40]; [18]), teacher agency and identity formation ([11]; [32]), manifestations of teacher agency in different teacher groups ([35]; [10]), as well as teacher agency enactment during online teaching amid the COVID-19 pandemic ([29]).

The digital transformation of education has brought about particularly significant changes in the field of foreign language teaching. Such a transformation has posed many challenges to foreign language teachers, including the redefinition of roles, adaptation to technology, and the reconstruction of cognition. Some studies have already begun to explore the performance and changes of foreign language teachers’ agency in the digital environment ([7]). Several key factors influencing teacher agency have been identified, such as digital competence, technology-related anxiety, teaching workload, and institutional support ([42]; [41]). However, few studies have analyzed how university foreign language teachers respond to these changes in the broader digital transformation of education and promote their own professional development. There is even less research on the formation and development mechanisms of teacher agency in the context of digital transformation. Investigating the driving processes behind the development and enhancement of agency among foreign language teachers in colleges and universities within this digital transformation context is a critical issue that demands the attention of the academic community.

In recent years, both domestically and internationally, research on teacher agency has mainly focused on its concept, influencing factors, and development mechanism of teacher agency.

Nowadays, whether at home or abroad, research on teacher agency mainly focuses on several aspects, such as defining and explaining the connotation of agency, identifying the decisive factors influencing agency, and exploring the development path of agency, etc. From this perspective, both domestic and international research have employed ecological models. However, compared with many international literature, Chinese scholars place greater emphasis on the collective dimension of institutions and the significant impact brought by top-down policies. Most of the time, Chinese research highlights certain factors, such as school teams, departmental groups, and reform efforts guided by the state, which are all key factors in understanding the role of teachers in education. The collective agency of teachers can be demonstrated through their participation in various organizations, including research groups, curriculum research groups, and joint curriculum development committees, etc. With the promulgation of national curriculum policies, empirical data collected from the EFL field in China show that teachers will collaborate with their peers to develop practical methods suitable for the local classroom environment. Whereas international research has highlighted the contradiction between teachers’ individual professional autonomy and performance accountability systems, such as standardized tests and authoritative checks. It has studied how teachers construct their professional identities and participate in reflective practices to mediate external control and imposed demands. However, recent research conducted from an international perspective indicates that these problems are actually issues of degree rather than fundamental differences. In fact, there are no particularly prominent differences between the viewpoints of the West and China.

Although scholars have different understandings and interpretations of teacher agency, there are similarities when defining the concept of teacher agency. First, teacher agency is multi-faceted, encompassing aspects such as the individual, society, and time. Secondly, its manifestation is not only explicit choices, decisions and actions, but also includes implicit teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, emotions, motivations, reflective consciousness and inner values. Thirdly, teacher agency is formed by the complex interaction between individuals and society, and will gradually evolve over time. It is based on the dynamic interaction between individuals and the environment. These interactions foster conditions that enable teachers to determine their own career development goals, carry out professional teaching activities, and take appropriate actions based on these preset goals. The primary interest of English teachers lies in participating in curriculum reform and applying diverse educational technologies to enhance student learning. Domestic research indicates that teacher agency not only includes individual behaviors. It also includes cognitive elements, such as teachers’ beliefs, values, emotions, and reflections embedded in these behaviors. This has driven the interaction between teachers and the environment, as external demands and internal factors converge in a constantly changing context. These dynamics are gradually emerging in the major challenges faced by ongoing reforms, including the growing demand for teachers’ digital literacy and the evolving role of them as agents in curriculum design and implementation.

To date, many researchers have examined how individual and internal factors, together with external organizational and social factors, coexist and interact within a multi-level framework. Nevertheless, a further investigation of their respective roles and impacts is an important dimension that remains under-examined. Specifically, the inter-dependency among individual agency, identity, and autonomy requires empirical study. Although a few studies have examined teacher agency and emotions, many have not yet investigated how students’ emotions influence their agency. In studies of teacher agency, contemporary researchers primarily employ either qualitative or quantitative approaches. Since teacher agency is generally regarded as highly subjective, multidimensional, and context-specific, narrative research perspectives have gained increasing scholarly popularity. As a typical qualitative method, narrative inquiry offers effective frameworks to explore, understand, and depict teacher agency in a nuanced manner. By depicting key events at various stages of a teacher’s career, researchers can more readily understand the dynamic nature of teacher agency during vivid episodes, the negotiation processes between teachers and others, and the construction of teachers’ professional identities alongside their decision-making.

Although some studies have employed large-scale quantitative surveys to explore the intrinsic relationships among personal factors such as self-efficacy, autonomy, role positioning, beliefs, and agency, there remains a lack of research integrating quantitative methods with qualitative narrative approaches to comprehensively explain how foreign language teachers in higher education effectively enact professional agency in their careers. The digitalization trends in educational contexts highlight that the classroom remains essential for students’ progress in learning foreign languages. In this setting, both teachers and students participate in interactive activities that enhance their language skills and comprehension. Although teacher agency is enacted through classroom communications and activities, it remains underexplored. Techniques such as Conversation Analysis and Interaction Analysis are rarely used, which could have allowed for a deeper understanding, evaluation, and development of classroom interactions. Combining these methods with more established approaches, such as interviews and diary analyses, may provide a better understanding of teacher agency.

At present, most of the research on teacher agency focuses on the group of secondary or vocational school teachers. There are relatively fewer studies on foreign language teachers in higher education. As for the role that foreign language teachers play in the digital transformation of university education, research is still very limited. The existing theories mainly developed in the cultural and institutional environment of the West. However, most of the time, these theoretical frameworks fail to accurately reflect the actual situation and reality in China. To a large extent, they ignore the broader cultural and social background factors. Generally speaking, these theories often only emphasize the individual factors that affect teacher agency, but do not fully consider the impact of the macro-level background. With the continuous integration and expansion of technology and teaching, some key issues have not been fully resolved up to now, such as the professional authority of teachers, the autonomy of teaching decision-making, and moral issues in digital teaching, etc.

The conclusion drawn in this review is that to strengthen teacher agency, it requires the joint efforts of multiple levels. At the classroom level, this includes promoting reflective practical activities among teachers and facilitating cooperation among them to encourage teachers to carry out intentional teaching that effectively meets students’ needs. At the institutional level, relevant policies need to be implemented to foster professional trust and to apply courses flexibly. Supportive leadership can create a suitable environment where teachers can become agents of change. Against the backdrop of the central government’s guidance on reform in China, it can promote the development of school-based research teams and course learning groups, and perhaps also align the country’s standardization goals with teachers’ expectations for professional autonomy. Therefore, promoting teacher agency requires a systematic framework so that EFL teachers can effectively cooperate within the community.

Under the backdrop of the digital transformation of education, it is highly necessary to explore how college English teachers can balance their own development and the external environment in the complex educational ecosystem. Studying how teachers actively exercise their agency and analyzing the strategies they adopt in response to these changes is crucial for promoting their continuous and long-term professional development. This academic field also merits further scholarly attention.