<![CDATA[Vocational higher education institutions (VHEIs) increasingly hire English Language Teaching (ELT) lecturers for English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses and sometimes for content subjects in disciplines other than English, even though the lecturers are not formally qualified or trained. Much work has examined the pedagogical challenges of such teaching, but relatively few conceptual studies have explored how multiple experiences of teaching outside one's own discipline change a lecturer's understanding of professional self. This paper takes the above gap as its point of departure by presenting a synthesis of three theory traditions: Out-of-Field Teaching, Boundary Crossing Theory, and Language Teacher Identity as an integrated conceptual model called the Disciplinary Boundary-Crossing Identity Reconstruction (DBIR) Model. The paper adopts a conceptual, literature-synthesis approach, synthesizing over forty studies conducted in the past few years on out-of-field teaching, English-medium instruction, and ESP practitioner identity, along with foundational theories in each tradition. The synthesis shows that identity reconstruction can occur in three recursive phases: contextual disruption, boundary negotiation, and integrative identity work. Five theoretical propositions are proposed to help guide empirical validation. Finally, it is suggested that disciplinary crossing, as a process of support rather than hardship, may make current policy pressures a true source of interdisciplinary expertise for vocational ELT lecturers.]]>
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