Language teachers’ identity research has grown exponentially over the past decade. Existing scholarship has proved that the construction of language teachers’ identity is a multifaceted and constantly shifting process which has been infl uenced by a wide range of personal, professional and contextual factors. Notwithstanding the copious research on language teachers’ identity, fewer studies have been conducted to examine secondary EFL teachers’ professional identity construction, and little is known about professional identity development of teachers in rural elementary or secondary schools in regions of multiethnic groups in China. In order to fill the gaps in literature, this study aims to explore secondary school EFL teachers’ professional identity development, and to examine the factors that might influence the process of teachers’ professional identity construction.