The current study utilises the history-in-person theoretical framework, developed by Holland and Lave to explore the personal history and history in institutional struggles of pre-service teachers who, upon enrolling in a Master's programme of pre-school and early teacher education at a public university in Poland, have an unfavourable attitude to taking on the responsibility for early English teaching. Our aim was to investigate the influence of trainees' personal experiences of language education upon the perspectives on becoming early language teachers as well as contentious practices enacted by the trainees as they take on language teaching responsibilities. The data encompasses trainees' autobiographical accounts, blogs, portfolio entries, lesson plans, and interviews. Our study offers insights for early language teacher education contexts emphasising the variety of needs that should be considered by teacher educators when preparing future teaching cadres.