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Research tasks on identity in language learning and teaching

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Abstract

The growing interest in identity and language education over the past two decades, coupled with increased interest in digital technology and transnationalism, has resulted in a rich body of work that has informed language learning, teaching, and research. To keep abreast of these developments in identity research, the authors propose a series of research tasks arising from this changing landscape. To frame the discussion, they first examine how theories of identity have developed, and present a theoretical toolkit that might help scholars negotiate the fast evolving research area. In the second section, they present three broad and interrelated research questions relevant to identity in language learning and teaching, and describe nine research tasks that arise from the questions outlined. In the final section, they provide readers with a methodology toolkit to help carry out the research tasks discussed in the second section. By framing the nine proposed research tasks in relation to current theoretical and methodological developments, they provide a contemporary guide to research on identity in language learning and teaching. In doing so, the authors hope to contribute to a trajectory of vibrant and productive research in language education and applied linguistics.

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... While sharing his early schooling experiences, Junaid said: Taking the public school participants' responses collectively, their perceptions of prior schooling and consciousness of the lack of opportunities made them think of themselves as outsiders in the classroom (Lavé and Wenger 1991). Wahdat's decision to be "invisible" seems associated with power relationships (Lavé and Wenger 1991) in a graduate classroom, a social space (Norton and De Costa 2018) where learners' ambivalent behaviors and situational silence regarding speaking the target language could be attributed to the lack of uniform and legitimate power dynamics. In a nutshell, references such as Junaid's "fighting on two fronts" and Wahdat's "silence" or limited participation in classroom discourses are not simply a docile acknowledgment of their disadvantaged schooling background, but also a representation of attentive silence, which symbolizes deficient learners' (often pejorative) rights to speech and powers to impose reception (Bourdieu 1977). ...
... This is possible by introducing teacher training aiming at teaching English to global needs (Galloway and Rose 2018; Prabjandee 2020) and global ownership (Akkakoson 2019) and the potential courses for such training include but are not limited to inclusive classrooms, communication skills, online resources skills, teaching English through literature, creative resource in primary education, etc. An inclusive approach to English learning and teaching at the school level will foster the acknowledgment of students' linguistic needs and will allow legitimate classroom membership for all students (Norton and De Costa 2018). While seeing a university (graduate) classroom as an archetypal microcosm of the larger socio-academic world (Norton and De Costa 2018), learners' earlier facilitation (Brown 2017) of access to English learning experiences would have a noteworthy influence on their dispositions related to classroom activities. ...
... An inclusive approach to English learning and teaching at the school level will foster the acknowledgment of students' linguistic needs and will allow legitimate classroom membership for all students (Norton and De Costa 2018). While seeing a university (graduate) classroom as an archetypal microcosm of the larger socio-academic world (Norton and De Costa 2018), learners' earlier facilitation (Brown 2017) of access to English learning experiences would have a noteworthy influence on their dispositions related to classroom activities. ...
Article
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... The literature on language teacher education, where English language teaching (ELT) and teacher training occupy a salient position, has commonly focused on issues such as competence development and core pedagogical issues in ELT (the teaching of systems and skills, methodologies and techniques, planning, materials design, evaluation and assessment) [1]; as of late, interest in areas such as language teacher identity (LTI) has become more conspicuous [2]. However, the question of language teachers' experiences as speakers and how these interrelate with identity issues has only been broached more recently by researchers working within the burgeoning field of critical language teaching and critical language teacher education, which has placed the focus on the relationship between LTI and issues of power, age, professional status, social status, academic status, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity/origin, religious beliefs and disability [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. From a critical perspective, this article analyzes the narratives of the disenfranchising ☆ Yiyi Lopez Gandara reports financial support was provided by Asociación Universitaria Iberoamericana de Postgrado (AUIP). ...
... Finally, studies that incorporate a critical lens have helped illuminate further the question of LTI. These have gone beyond the focus on linguistic identity to engage with issues of power and other aspects of speaker identity, such as: age; professional, social and academic status; gender and sexual orientation; ethnicity/origin; religious beliefs; and disability [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Furthermore, other studies concerned with speaker identity have recently drawn attention to the complex relationship between speaker identity and place [33] and between language, identity and discrimination [34]. ...
... This is something that has been pointed out by the literature, which has drawn attention to the importance of the social realm [21] and "social interaction with [. . . ] the wider community" [2] for the formative experiences of language teachers, and to the ways teacher identities are played out in the social interactions in which they participate [7,25,59]. ...
Article
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... In the Indonesian ELT context, issues of Indonesian identity as a country having moslem as the majority seem to be lacking attention. Meanwhile, in ELT, particularly EFL context, learners' identity also plays an important part in the success of learning (Norton & De Costa, 2018). Students with an orientation toward their multiple identities in terms of their language are found to have self-perceived proficiency when learning English (Sung, 2020). ...
... The combination effectively increases students' motivation, reduces students' anxiety, and lets students focus on meaning-making, using familiar vocabulary related to their local cultural content (Kristiawana et al., 2022). The findings by Kristian, in corroboration to previous findings by Norton and De Costa (2018) and Sung (2020), highlight identity's important role in English language learning. In the context of Indonesian ELT, Islam as the religion of the majority of the students, may serve as both cultural and religious identity having the potential to be integrated in the teaching of English. ...
Article
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p>Many studies have explored various strategies and approaches to facilitate students’ learning to write in English. However, few studies investigated the potential use of localized, familiar, and more personalized topics to develop students’ English writing skills. Considering Krashen’s comprehensible input hypothesis and Piaget’s constructivist approach, this study aimed to explore whether topics about Islam can better facilitate students' learning to write in English in Indonesian Islamic colleges. A mixed method design, qualitative method through interviews with seven English writing lecturers from four Islamic colleges in Indonesia, and quantitative method using a student survey, which was responded to by 100 students, became the source of data. The findings informed that a process-oriented approach, positive feedback, and freedom of and familiarity with topics were the main contributing factors to students' English writing development. The salient findings suggested that careful consideration of topic selection and vocabulary familiarity should be made when assigning writing tasks using topics about Islam in Islamic colleges.</p
... Teacher identity has long been studied and central to the teaching profession in general education as well as in applied linguistics (De Costa & Norton, 2016;Rodgers & Scott, 2008). However, EMI teacher identity remains an under-researched area in spite of a growing scholarly interest in EMI teacher development (Airey, 2020;Yuan & Yang, 2023). ...
... Tony's anxiousness was eased by Laura's respect toward Tony's disciplinary expertise and constant consultation about content teaching strengthened his expert identity, which otherwise counterbalanced his sense of inferiority felt as an English learner, contributing to his identity construction of an English user. It is thus argued that teacher identity and emotions are intricately connected (De Costa & Norton, 2016). ...
Article
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The burgeoning English‐medium instruction (EMI) programs have aroused worldwide scholarly interest in giving language support for EMI subject teachers and their identity‐informed professional development. This study explored how an EMI subject teacher's identities and emotions were intricately interlinked before and after his co‐teaching practice with an English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher at a university in Midwestern China. Ethnographic tools including interviews, observations, and small talks were used over a 10‐month collaborative program. The findings show that the participant teacher's identities and emotions were interdependent with each other and mediated by collaborative teaching practice. Futhermore, emotional attachment to English enhancement and deep engagement in co‐teaching contributed to (re)construction of teacher identities as a content teacher, a competent English user, and an English learning facilitator. The participant's emotional attachment was explicated by his perezhivanie , or the emotional experience of his previous English learning and the emergent EMI teaching contexts. The study highlights the primacy of reconstructing teacher identities and supporting teacher emotional experiences in EMI teacher training and education programs.
... This inclusion allows individuals who belong to the culture, and those who do not, to understand better the imaginaries and how they see and perceive the world. Educationally, when students' cultures and identities are emphasized and integrated into the curriculum, they learn, understand and make sense of their reality in more meaningful ways (De Costa & Norton, 2016;Norton, 2008;Pavez, 2011;Pereira & Ramos, 2016). ...
... The previous quote summarizes the essence of these textbooks: having students feel mirrored in the images and stories. These textbooks have revealed the importance of acknowledging students' identities as crucial elements for personal development, as the literature has informed (De Costa & Norton, 2016;Norton, 2008). ...
Chapter
This book sheds light on the array of transformative literacies in the Global South, which English language teachers and educators seek to integrate within their pedagogical practices. In English language teaching (ELT), there is an increasing need for a shift away from dominant literacy thinking, knowledge and practices that originate in the Global North. This collection brings together contemporary research and practice on how literacies are theorized, challenged, embedded and enacted in ELT practice in the Global South. It showcases research that focuses on the intersections of multiple literacies and English language pedagogy, and how these fuse with the social, cultural, historical and political realities of contexts where English is a foreign, second or additional language. The authors provide insightful examples of pedagogical research and practice that reinvigorate a wide range of literacies often invisible or silenced in both the ‘North’ and ‘South’. These include multicultural literacy, critical environmental literacy, digital multimodal literacy, the interplay of visual literacy and local culture, multiple literacies in ELT racializing practices, multiliteracies pedagogies for teacher agency and social justice. With a focus on the diverse contexts of South America and Africa, some chapters in this volume leverage their unique socio-cultural and socio-political contexts to foreground the literacies experiences and practices of students, teachers and educators in ELT settings that contribute to improved language learning experiences.
... This is an issue I have addressed in a recent article with Peter De Costa, the current co-editor of TESOL Quarterly, who is also very interested in language, identity, and research (Norton and De Costa, 2018). When scholars want to publish in the TESOL Quarterly, one of the questions that reviewers have to answer is, "Is there a section on practice? ...
... Now, that conversation has really advanced, and there is greater acknowledgment of the multilingual nature of the teaching profession. We see shifts in other areas as well, such as sexual orientation, and issues of race, ethnicity, gender, and religion (Norton and De Costa, 2018). Jinna: ...
... Drawing on the concepts of an imagined community and cultural capital, the investment theory of learning and identity is a powerful tool for uncovering language learners' experiences (Norton, 2022) and, in turn, those of language teachers. It also enables the analysis of teachers' perceptions of students through intersubjectivity (Norton & De Costa, 2018). ...
... Multicultural educators, such as Ms. Sui and her mentor-teacher, continue to challenge the existing inequality of power in second-language education (Norton & McKinney, 2011). In this case, they helped their CLLs invest in a future heritage of becoming bilingual and multicultural individuals emancipated from their raciolinguistic ideologies (Kubota, 2010;Norton & De Costa, 2018). ...
Chapter
INTRODUCTION Higher-education institutions in the United States have categorized Chinese language learners (CLLs) as heritage and nonheritage students for pedagogi- cal purposes, as this allows for different class groupings to meet instructional needs (Chang, 2020). Many Chinese bilingual teachers use these binary terms to describe students’ backgrounds based on American society’s racio- linguistic ideologies (Chang & Qu, 2021), which “[coconstruct] language and race in ways that frame the language practices of racialized communities as inherently deficient” (Flores, 2019, p. 53). Chinese bilingual teachers thus inadvertently impose these deficit perspectives on their CLLs due to their institutional operationalization through class grouping (Chang, 2022).
... Yet another subject that has been the subject of much attention in the field of language education for the last several decades is that of identity (Norton & De Costa, 2018;Liontas, 2020). As ELs are increasingly challenged to express their multifaceted linguacultural identities in English, particularly in new or unfamiliar sociocultural contexts, classroom activities that promote positive identity work may be particularly beneficial for them. ...
... As ELs are increasingly challenged to express their multifaceted linguacultural identities in English, particularly in new or unfamiliar sociocultural contexts, classroom activities that promote positive identity work may be particularly beneficial for them. Expressing their voices in discourse with other (e.g., social, academic) community members may enhance ELs' sense of identity and increase their investment in their language learning (Harlow, 1990;Mina, 2014;Norton & De Costa, 2018). Including identity work in ESL education through activities such as DS may therefore lead to positive real-world outcomes for ELs. ...
Chapter
Digital stories are having an impact in education the world over. From stories worth telling to stories worth sharing , digital storytelling (DS) addresses the core of human communication across time and space. In language education in particular, digital storytelling advances benefits too great to ignore. To frame the issue of digital storytelling in language education, we first offer a synthesis of DS definitions to better contextualize its multifarious uses in ESL education. We then address the most pertinent outcomes of DS projects involving the macro skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing; identity work and expressing voice; intercultural communicative competence and sociopragmatic competence; and digital and multimodal literacies. Pedagogic implications for classroom practice, from employing collaborative DS projects to storyboarding design, are also included to showcase specific ways in which language educators may develop and successfully implement DS projects in their own glocal contexts.
... There may be many questions revolving around the plausibility of the implementation of PAS in English classes. Research states that time-and content-related questions on such plurilingual lesson plans and more questions in terms of teacher training, material use, motivation, identity confirmation, and investment (Cummins, 2006;Darvin & Norton, 2015;De Costa & Norton, 2016) are just some that promptly stand out. ...
Article
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Despite a growing interest in and around multilingualism and plurilingualism in language teaching in school context, many teachers still prescribe to monolingual approaches in their classroom practice. This applies especially to English language classrooms in which English-only policies and native speaker ideologies are still dominant at the expense of leading to feelings of guilt, reluctance, or frustration among students. Therefore, it is crucial to explore practical applications of plurilingual approaches and strategies and what they can offer in classrooms in terms of promoting and advancing a more egalitarian, linguistically just, and pedagogically motivating language instruction. Drawing on a small-scale autoethnographic study, in this article we explore the potential of plurilingual strategies in English language classrooms and how English language teachers can leverage students’ plurilingual abilities. More specifically, the article examines the experiences of a novice teacher implementing plurilingual strategies in a Berlin classroom and the implications for language education policy. It also reveals the teacher’s understanding of plurilingual competence and the various ways that plurilingual strategies can be integrated into English language teaching while in communication and dialogue with the university instructor during the internship. Our findings and understandings suggest that plurilingual strategies can raise awareness of student languages, affirm language identities, and promote more inclusive language classes. 教育現場での言語教育において、多言語主義や複言語主義への関心が高まりつつあるものの、多くの教師が教室内の実践において依然として単一言語アプローチに固執している。この傾向は特に英語教育の現場で顕著であり、英語オンリーポリシーやネイティブスピーカーのイデオロギーが今なお支配的で、その結果として、生徒が罪悪感や消極性、フラストレーションを感じる事態を引き起こすことがある。したがって、複言語アプローチや方略の実践的応用を探り、より平等で言語的に公正で教育学的に動機づけのあるインストラクションを教室内で推進することが重要である。本稿では、オートエスノグラフィー研究に基づき、英語教育の現場における複言語方略の可能性と、英語教師が生徒の複言語能力にどのような影響を与えられるかを探る。とりわけ本稿では、ドイツ・ベルリンの教室で複言語方略を実践した新任教師の経験と言語教育政策への示唆を検証する。また、インターンシップ中に大学講師とのコミュニケーションや対話を通じて得られた教師の複言語能力に対する理解や、英語教育に反映できうる複言語方略を明らかにする。研究結果は、複言語方略が生徒の言語に対する意識を高め、言語的アイデンティティーを肯定し、より包摂的な言語教育を促進する可能性を示唆する。
... A substantial quantity of academic literature has pointed out the importance of investment and identity and how they relate to the experience of learning an additional language (Darvin & Norton, 2015;Norton & De Costa, 2018;Norton & Toohey, 2011). Norton's (2013;2016) analyses of language and identity have culminated in discussions that have centered around three constructs (i.e., identity, investment, and imagined communities) and that help conceptualize language learning as a social practice during which learners construct and reconstruct their identities. ...
Article
Full-text available
Learning additional languages is an experience and a process influenced by numerous aspects. This article presents a qualitative case study focused on the aspects influencing the investment of seven learners of English as an additional language, all of whom are pre-service teachers pursuing bachelor’s degrees in English education. The data under consideration is part of a larger intervention-based action research study that explored the language learning experiences of twenty pre-service teachers enrolled in a teacher preparation program at a public university in Colombia. The study is grounded in Darvinand Norton’s (2015) concept of investment and highlights the significance of communities of practice (Wenger, 2011). We analyzed open-ended interviews using Saldaña’s (2016) coding framework. The findings suggested that the investment of additional language learners can be influenced by their teachers’ pedagogical practices, the learning communities created by teachers, and the learners’ own imagined selves or identities. We discussed the implications of these findings for language teachers, language centers or institutes, and teacher education programs.
... From the perspective of education and teaching, the theory holds that comprehensive teaching methods have better effects than individual skill training. At present, scholars have applied this model to English teaching and carried out relevant studies (Norton & De Costa, 2018). For example, some scholars have used POA theory to design the teaching steps of classroom writing. ...
Article
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This paper discusses the application value of the writing teaching mode combined with the mixed teaching mode in college English writing teaching against the background of big data. Focusing on production-oriented approach (POA) theory, this paper proposes a mixed learning writing model for English teaching and applies the POA mixed learning English writing teaching model to practical teaching by using the cloud classroom platform, collecting students' big data, and analyzing students' seriousness, classroom participation, satisfaction, and English writing performance. Although the overall student engagement is not high, their classroom satisfaction is very high. Research shows that after the teacher adjusted the lesson plan and encouraged students to participate more in class interactions, their scores improved in the second exam but declined in the third exam . The levels of engagement, participation, and satisfaction have significantly decreased across all grades. The POA combined with the blended learning mode has a great application value in practical teaching in the era of big data.
... Impelled by their desires, learners invest in languages that facilitate the fulfillment of those desires. Desire can be extended to the notion of one's imagined identity-learners envision their expected achievements, such as financial security, romance, or a sense of belonging (Darvin & Norton, 2015;Norton & De Costa, 2018). ...
Article
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Extant literature describes challenges faced by international students, including language deficiency, culture shock, and identity crises. However, few studies have investigated international students' second language (L2) learning in non-Anglophone higher education institutions using English as the medium of instruction (EMI), where English is used inside the classroom, and other language(s) are used outside. In a multilingual world, how international students' L2 learning is shaped by their identities and social contexts, as multiple languages interact, is worth investigation. This study reports the L2 learning experiences of international students in Macao. Using semi-struc-tured interviews, the researchers examined 15 participants' routes for and negotiation of L2 learning investment in Cantonese, English, Mandarin, and Portuguese. Three main findings emerged: (a) participants' main L2 learning routes were language courses and daily communication, with more investment in English and Mandarin than in Cantonese and Portuguese; (b) participants were discouraged from investing in L2s other than English, as they used English in Macao, identifying as "foreigners" and "deficient speakers" of other languages; (c) languages competed for participants' limited resources, with English and Mandarin prevailing as more beneficial for their futures. This paper provides a unique perspective on the global language ecology through international student sojourners in a multilingual context.
... In recent decades, language teacher identity (LTI) has been employed as an analytical lens for understanding language teachers' professional lives and practices (Barkhuizen, 2019b;De Costa & Norton, 2016Morgan, 2016;Richards, 2023). LTI can be defined as "an interaction of how we see ourselves as language teachers … and how others see us-a claimed and an assigned identity" (Varghese, 2017, p. 45). ...
Article
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This article provides a systematic review of 46 empirical studies published between 1990 and 2022 on identitiesof non-English-dominant teachers undertaking transnational language teacher education in universities inEnglish-speaking countries. The study characterizes the current state of existing research and conducts a researchsynthesis of existing research to identify themes in the research findings, using identity-in-practice and identity-in-discourse as a theoretical lens. The findings revealed that there is a more dominant presence of themes about identity-in-discourse than those about identity-in-practice in existing research, and that relatively little is known about the links between language teacher identity and language teacher education.
... Additionally, work in this area allows the field to address further how identity impacts language teaching and learning by further refining the field's understanding of this theoretically complex term (see Deters, 2011). Here, we understand identity to refer to both how one positions oneself and is concomitantly positioned by others in terms of age, ability, gender, sexuality, education, labor, language, religious affiliation, and citizenship; more importantly, it is how these different positionings intersect to create and/or limit access to eco-social spaces (see Norton & De Costa, 2018;Sánchez-Martín, 2022). ...
... In fact, despite possessing communicative competence, learners may still face exclusion or be deemed inadequate without this critical legitimacy conferred by those in positions of power. Research on investment has traditionally relied on qualitative methods, allowing for deeper insights into how learners perceive their identities, power dynamics, and legitimacy (Norton & De Costa, 2018). Engagement in online multicultural exchanges has also been shown to improve learners' self-perception and motivation, demonstrating the dynamic nature of L2 investment (Skidmore, 2023). ...
Article
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Learning a second language (L2) is dependent upon numerous external and internal factors, among which motivation plays a relevant role. In fact, motivation has been recognized as crucial in the L2 learning process (Ushioda, 2012). Such has been its importance that interest in L2 motivation has led to the development of theories such as the L2 motivational construct, and the L2 motivational self system (Dörnyei, 2005, 2009). Nevertheless, despite the academic focus on L2 learning motivation (Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2013), the impact of additional L2 lessons on students already engaged in formal L2 instruction at an official educational level (e.g., Higher Education) remaines vastly underexplored. Thus, this study aims to bridge this gap by analyzing the differences between 118 undergraduate EFL students who attended extra L2 lessons and those who did not. Considering the complex nature of the motivational construct, a Bayesian network analysis was used, categorizing motivations into two modules based on attendance of additional L2 lessons. This allowed us to observe the different factors of motivation as a whole construct, and not individually. The findings revealed that students who attended extra lessons are internally motivated toward self-improvement, whereas those who do not attend extra L2 lessons are influenced by external pressures and career aspirations.
... The construct of identity reflects how individuals or communities want to be represented and how others perceive and represent them. Issues of teacher and learner identity have already been relatively prominent lines of inquiry in language (education) studies (e.g., Block, 2014;Yazan & Lindahl, 2020), and emerging facets of identity are envisioned as important topics (De Costa & Norton, 2016). Problematizing identities beyond individual psychological approaches and examining how they relate to issues of power and inequality may be understood as crucially critical endeavors. ...
... Research on the educational benefits of learning multiple languages alongside their associated cultures has shown positive outcomes in both domestic and international settings (Norton, & De Costa, 2018;Maharaja, 2018). Studies on cross-cultural communication by Gregersen-Hermans and Lauridsen (2021) identify various levels of cultural competence, such as cross-cultural, intercultural, transcultural, and intracultural. ...
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This publication is a review of the textbook by Nataliia Semian and Tetiana Druzhchenko, "Exploring Cultural Contrasts: Japan and Ukraine in English Classes" (2024). This textbook was developed for teaching English at the university level using comparative strategies as part of the foreign language curriculum for second- and third-year undergraduate students majoring in Japanese studies. Grounded in an intercultural approach, interdisciplinary connections, and a cognitive-communicative concept of foreign language acquisition, the authors encourage students to explore and analyze cultural contrasts and similarities between Japan and Ukraine. The textbook is designed to provide students with specialized knowledge for practical use in professional English for students of Eastern studies, satisfy their intellectual and cultural needs, and promote the development of their professional competencies. The textbook employs contrast and comparison strategies aimed at developing monologic and dialogic English skills, which can be used in discussions about similar and different cultural objects, daily life, literature, art, and the histories of Ukraine and Japan. By exploring linguistic features and cultural realities, students can enhance their language skills and gain a deeper understanding of the cultural context of communication. Thus, the intercultural approach is not only a tool for scholarly research but also a comprehensive and systematic method of teaching English. It helps students appreciate cultural diversity and ensures their success in their professional and academic growth.
... leveraged MVRs as a means of examining aspects of individuals' identities and ideologies. In LEVERAGING MULTIMODAL VISUALIZATION REFLECTIONS 16 applied linguistics, the topics of learners' and teachers' identities and ideologies have been important constructs during the past two decades (see De Costa & Green-Eneix, 2021;Norton & De Costa, 2018). Within L2 writing, too, researching aspects of learners' identities and ideologies have been important, primarily as a means of understanding why writers make certain choices and why/how they represent themselves in their compositions. ...
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This paper introduces readers to the use of multimodal visualization reflections (MVRs) in applied linguistics research, with special attention paid to its applications for researching various topics within second language (L2) writing. MVRs are a method of data elicitation, in which participants are asked to illustrate something (either in print or digitally) as a means of visualizing a process, an idea, and/or their current knowledge state on a given topic. Participants are then typically asked to describe what their visualization represents, including all parts of their illustration. Although MVRs have been used in a handful of L2 writing studies, their full potential has yet to be realized. Thus, this paper advocates for their use in future studies. The paper opens with a review of the concept of multimodality and its place within contemporary applied linguistics scholarship. Next, discussed is the theoretical support behind leveraging MVRs. Example studies are then outlined, showcasing how MVRs have been leveraged by previous researchers when investigating different phenomena (e.g., L2 learners' genre awareness, identities, ideologies, and issues involving language testing). The article closes with a discussion of future research directions covering how L2 writing scholars might adopt MVRs in future studies.
... Since genre-based pedagogies have become an integral part of many master's and doctoral teacher-training programs and are unquestionably relevant in the domain of English for Academic Purposes (e.g., Li et al., 2020;Schwarz & Hamman-Ortiz, 2020), surveying current teachers' beliefs and practices is important. In this vein, recent scholarship has also reinforced the importance of understanding instructors' practices, including aspects of their identities, awareness, theoretical/conceptual knowledge, and decision-making in L2 pedagogy more broadly (e.g., Norton & De Costa, 2017;Worden, 2019). ...
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In second language (L2) writing, the concept of genre has been an important construct. To date, multiple theories (sometimes referred to as schools or approaches) have driven a considerable amount of genre-based research and pedagogy, including: English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), and the New Rhetoric/Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS) approach. Despite their growing prevalence, studies are needed that investigate the extent to which writing instructors adopt these theories in practice. This study addresses this issue by exploring 1) the genre-based theories that inform writing instructors' pedagogies; 2) the different genres instructors teach in their classrooms; and 3) the types of pedagogical activities practitioners employ. To understand these phenomena, survey data (N = 141) and semi-structured interviews (n = 7) were collected from L2 English writing instructors. Findings show that ESP was the most well-known and adopted approach, followed by SFL and RGS. For written genres, most instructors reported teaching traditional, monomodal genres (e.g., argumentative essays), while digital multimodal genres were rare. This study discusses the implications of these findings, including developing teacher training, expanding pedagogies to include multimodal genres, and forging links between genres used in the classroom and those students will encounter in their lives.
... Identity itself has been a topic of great interest to researchers in numerous fields including both education and applied linguistics (e.g. Block, 2007;De Costa & Norton, 2016;Yuan, 2019). Because of this, it has sometimes been conceptualized and defined differently. ...
Book
This book provides a comprehensive overview of research in applied linguistics involving the intersection of digital multimodal composing (DMC) and second language (L2) writing. It presents a theoretically and methodologically diverse introduction to key theories and scholarship supporting DMC's use, along with practical pedagogical tips and tools for adopting DMC in the L2 writing classroom. This text is the first of its kind to distil current research in the area, including chapters that address research on students' DMC writing processes, evidence of DMC's impact on L2 learning, students' and teachers' perceptions and how DMC affects various individual differences such as motivation, metacognition and identity development. This book serves as a useful resource for both graduate students and faculty in applied linguistics and related fields who are researchers, teacher trainers or language instructors. It is particularly relevant for those working in subfields such as second language acquisition, computer-assisted language learning and L2 writing.
... In recent years, growing recognition of importance of teacher identity has resulted in specifying a fundamental role for teacher identity in teacher education programs (Norton & De Costa, 2018;Varghese et al., 2016). In addition to occupying teachers with technical skills, raising awareness of different aspects of teachers' professional identity and the path to improve it is one of the critical objectives of teacher education programs. ...
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The current study examined the effect of EFL teachers' emotions on different aspects of their identity development including instructional, vocational and local identity as well as their teaching strategies. Following interval-contingent diary writing through a narrative approach, the stories of four novice EFL high school teachers were examined in the course of two months. Through content analysis and theme categorization of participants' diaries, interview data as well as classroom observation results suggested that teachers' emotional experiences affected their identity and instructional approaches that varied across different contexts. The results revealed four main themes: desperation and anxiety about student misbehavior affected teachers' instructional and vocational identity, frustration with low salary and status affected their vocational identity, and frustration with lack of freedom of action as well as feeling of discomfort with school administration behavior influenced teachers' local identity. It was also indicated that the changes in teachers' identity were reflected in their orientation towards students vs. teacher-centered teaching.
... It means that PSTs need to negotiate their second/foreign language (L2) learner, user, speaker, and teacher identities. This requires more nuanced research, particularly with regard to the intersections of these identities (Norton & De Costa, 2018). Notwithstanding that an array of studies has focused on language teacher identity (LTI), a recurrent notion of interest (Chao, 2022, Pennington & Richards, 2016, identity is fluid, multiple, and in a site of struggle, which can be productively harnessed or suppressed by both learners and teachers (Norton, 2019). ...
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When multilingual learners traverse across cross-border and study-abroad contexts, they enter different sociocultural spaces, negotiate conflicting identities, and may or may not invest in these identities. Addressing the lacuna, this longitudinal case study draws upon the model of investment to conduct a long-term, systematic investigation of the identities and investment of Miranda, a multilingual learner, and a pre-service teacher-as she studied, over seven years, as a university student (B.A.) in mainland China, a taught postgraduate student (M.Ed.) in Hong Kong, and a research student (M.Phil. and Ph.D.) in New Zealand. Findings reveal how Miranda negotiated, constructed, and performed multiple identities in shifting contexts and how the way her capital was valued shaped the way she positioned herself and was positioned by others. Attending to the fluidity and complexity of identities, this study provides educational authorities and teachers with implications for helping to chart the path for empowering students across contexts.
... Additionally, work in this area allows the field to address further how identity impacts language teaching and learning by further refining the field's understanding of this theoretically complex term (see Deters, 2011). Here, we understand identity to refer to both how one positions oneself and is concomitantly positioned by others in terms of age, ability, gender, sexuality, education, labor, language, religious affiliation, and citizenship; more importantly, it is how these different positionings intersect to create and/or limit access to eco-social spaces (see Norton & De Costa, 2018;Sánchez-Martín, 2022). ...
Article
Despite the sustained focus towards inclusive language teaching and queer pedagogy in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and language education in recent years, employing an inclusive pedagogical practice and having language teaching resources that respect the gender identity among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) students remain a challenge in many English language teaching (ELT) classrooms throughout the world. Employing an auto‐ethnomethodological approach, in this article the authors present their teaching practice experience in an attempt to queer their ELT classroom and provide a safe space for all gender identities in learning the language through a queer‐informed language teaching framework in an ELT classroom at a university in Thailand. It is the goal of this inquiry to add to the empirical evidence for gender inclusivity in an ELT classroom. Additionally, this study offers language practitioners consideration for having a queer‐informed classroom where there is diversity, inclusion, and engagement and where students are free to discuss their sexual identities, adding to the growing influence of gender perspective and inclusivity in heteronormative language education.
... While they get involved in the internet, social media, game apps and educational apps, they have a great opportunity to communicate with known or unknown users of those digital technologies. Thus, unintentionally or intentionally, students begin to construct or focus on their identity; the way they conceptualize, produce, and reproduce themselves in digital interactions (Barton & Lee, 2012;Darvin & Norton, 2014;Lafkioui, 2008;Norton & Costa, 2018). Briefly, students are in the condition in which they participate in a new dimension of digital literacy practices socalled -dimension of being‖ or -contexts‖ (Hafner et al., 2015;Jones & Hafner, 2012). ...
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The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how student learning in higher education is influenced by both formal and informal experiences. Formal learning occurs as a result of a teacher and/or others structuring a classroom or related activity to assist pupils in achieving specific cognitive, or other, objectives. Teaching isn‘t as vital as learning. If students do not learn as a result of what they are taught, it is pointless to teach. It assists the instructor in determining, evaluating, and refining their educational strategies, as well as in establishing, refining, and clarifying the objectives. The Teaching and Learning Research Initiative aims to improve learner outcomes by strengthening the linkages between educational research and teaching practices. The government established the fund in 2003. Moderation is the process by which teachers share, discuss, and agree on their understanding of the expected levels of student achievement and growth across the curriculum. Moderation is critical for maintaining the integrity of assessment tasks. This method, particularly at the assessment design and point of assessment stages, identifies and improves assessment
... Research tasks [9,10,11]. The main features of the research task: 1) the absence of not only an algorithm, but also various kinds of algorithmic prescriptions; ...
Article
Зерттелетін мәселенің өзектілігі болашақ математика мұғалімдерін әдістемелік даярлау жүйесін талдау көрсеткендей, бұл жалпы студенттерде кәсіби маңызды білім мен дағдыларды қалыптастыруға бағытталған, бірақ оның кез-келген кезеңінде студенттерді математикаға проблемалық-бағдарланған оқытуды практикаға енгізуге байланысты зерттеу дағдыларын мақсатты түрде қалыптастыру мүмкін емес. Мақаланың мақсаты студенттерді проблемалық оқытуда болашақ математика мұғалімінің зерттеу дағдыларын қалыптастыру құралы ретінде педагогикалық университеттегі проблемалық мәселелерді шешудің теориялық және әдіснамалық негіздерін анықтау болып табылады. Зерттеу әдістері: психологиялық-педагогикалық және ғылыми-әдістемелік әдебиеттерді, педагогикалық жоғары оқу орындарының студенттеріне арналған Математика оқулықтарын талдау; педагогикалық жоғары оқу орындарының оқытушылары мен студенттерінен сұхбат алу; мектеп және жоғары оқу орындарының тәжірибесін зерделеу және жалпылау; мектептегі және педагогикалық жоғары оқу орындарындағы өзіндік жұмыс тәжірибесін талдау; математиканы проблемалық-бағдарланған оқытудағы шетелдік мектептердің тәжірибесін талдау; зерттеудің негізгі ережелерін тексеруге арналған эксперименттер. Мақалада проблемалық-бағдарланған оқытуды жүзеге асыру үшін қажетті болашақ математика мұғалімдерінің зерттеу дағдыларының негізгі блоктары және осы блоктардың көмегімен студенттер әзірлейтін жүйелік және іздеу тапсырмалары, сондай-ақ техникалық аспектілерде осы дағдыларды қалыптастыру әдістері көрсетілген. Педагогикалық жоғары оқу орындарының студенттері үшін математикадан проблемалық-іздеу тапсырмаларының жүйесі, олар-дың оқу және зерттеу қызметін дәрістерде, педагогикалық жоғары оқу орындарының оқытушылары қолдана алатын практикалық сабақтарда ұйымдастыру мысалдары ұсынылған және қолданылады.
... Diverse cultural and disciplinary considerations within EFL education warrant attention. In this context, language acquisition intertwines with cultural understanding and identity formation (Norton and De Costa, 2018). Thus, teacher-student relationships not only aid language learning but also shape students' emotional connection to language acquisition and cultural integration. ...
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Introduction Within the realm of Chinese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education, this research endeavors to explore the intricate interplay among teacher-student relationships, learning enjoyment, and burnout. It specifically aims to investigate the potential mediation role of emotional intelligence. The study delves into the experiences of 806 EFL students to comprehensively scrutinize these dynamics. Methods Employing Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), this study conducts a thorough analysis of the relationships between teacher-student dynamics, learning enjoyment, and burnout among EFL students. The primary objectives involve uncovering correlations among these factors and elucidating the potential mediating impact of emotional intelligence. Results The findings underscore robust associations between positive teacher-student relationships, heightened learning enjoyment, and reduced levels of burnout among EFL students. Noteworthy is the pivotal role of emotional intelligence, acting as a mediator, offering insights into the intricate ways in which teacher-student relationships and learning enjoyment influence burnout levels. Discussion These outcomes highlight the significance of nurturing students’ emotional intelligence as a protective factor against burnout, advocating for tailored educational interventions. The research advocates for proactive measures to enhance emotional intelligence among EFL students, emphasizing its potential to mitigate burnout. Moreover, it suggests pedagogical strategies and institutional support prioritizing emotional intelligence to foster the well-being and academic success of Chinese EFL students.
... Before presenting our joint reflection, we should acknowledge that our experiences should be interpreted in light of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989;Norton & De Costa, 2018). The experiences that we had intersect with other aspects of our backgrounds (e.g., race, religion, gender, prior jobs); not all NNESTs having gone through similar training or PD might have the same experience as we did. ...
... Where are the conscious, intersectional, and more collaborative inclusive approaches towards in our case literacy learning, related to ability, gender, age, and language issues? New questions have also risen about how and why power is clustered around some disability categories and not others, a question to study further and analyze both intersectionally and intrasectionally [19]. In a geopolitical space as Sweden with few millions of Swedish language speakers, which are the possibilities for organizations to support their populations in literacy learning? ...
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The backdrop to this project is earlier studies showing a plateau in children’s, with severe speech and physical impairment (SSPI), literacy learning at beginner’s phases. The study has a transformative, participatory, and inclusive research approach. Research questions focus on what contributed the most to continued lifelong literacy development, according to existing research, and a young woman’s narrative. Her chosen significant experiences and processes were investigated through a narrative inquiry in an e-mail dialog. A contextual case-based analysis was made by the first author with member checking with the participant/co-author. Findings are the importance of lifelong identity building, functional assistive technology at school and home, communicative relationships, creative expressions and long-term hopes, goals, and dreams. Conclusions for literacy learning struggles and possibilities of inclusive educational adaptations are discussed and at last, there are recommendations for future research.
... Building upon Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital (Norton & De Costa, 2018), Norton's investment theory (2013, 2018) serves as a valuable tool to uncover language attitudes and ideologies when examining immigrant parents' views on bilingual education. Investment theory allows researchers to characterize immigrant parents' ideologies and to conceptualize their ethnic identity development in relation to language and culture as they pass on their linguistic and cultural capital across generations. ...
Article
Immigrant parents have varied yet comparable language ideologies, perspectives, and experiences. In this qualitative case study, 67 immigrant parents were interviewed, 37 Chinese and 30 Latinx, whose children were enrolled in Mandarin–English and Spanish–English bilingual after-school programs at two urban public elementary schools in the U.S. Northeast megalopolis. Critical discourse analysis of the interview transcripts revealed parents’ encompassing beliefs in bilingual education as a sociocultural investment in learning Chinese and Spanish. The study identifies three types of sociocultural investment: enrichment, empowerment, and emancipation. Enrichment is premised on the immigrant parents’ expectations of additive bilingual development in their child’s education. Empowerment is rooted in the immigrant parents’ agentic motivations to instrumentalize their child’s non-English language and provide cultural capital for immediate and transnational contexts. Emancipation emerges from immigrant parents’ experiences of liberation from subtractive bilingualism, limited educational experiences, and negative associations of ethnolinguistic identity institutionalized by the dominant (White) English-speaking society. These findings indicate that the cultures and languages transmitted through immigrant parents’ sociocultural investment in bilingualism are equally transmissible through investment in bilingual education.
... Thus, the learners resisted the assigned identities and created new identities for themselves by making effective use of available resources. The concept of agency highlights how learners can exert power to change the social world in which they live (Norton & De Costa, 2018) through their intentions, self-regulation, and self-efficacy. ...
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This research aims to explore the expectations of English Language Education Study Program students at IAIN Parepare regarding the components of learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL). There were ten English Language Education Study Program students were interviewed, spesifically seven of them were the third semester and three others from the fifth semester and the researcher got the saturated data within two months of research. Using a qualitative approach with a case study design, this research examines in-depth students’ expectations of EFL lecturers. The data collection method was conducted through in-depth interviews with students to understand their expectations regarding the English language learning process. Research findings reveal that students have comprehensive expectations for the quality of teaching. They want professional lecturers, who have a deep understanding of the material and can create an interactive and fun learning environment. Learning methods are expected to be creative and practical, including a student-centered approach, discussion, role-play, communicative games, and technology integration. The feedback aspect is of particular concern, with students expecting to receive detailed explanations of mistakes, motivational feedback, and appreciation for their efforts. This research concludes that students want an English learning experience that is interactive, meaningful, and supports holistic competency development. The research findings provide important insights for curriculum development, improving the quality of teaching, and adapting learning strategies that are more aligned with student needs and expectations in today's higher education context.
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Second Language Acquisition (SLA) in children is a complex interplay of internal and external factors that significantly influence learning outcomes. This study explores the multifaceted nature of SLA, emphasizing critical variables such as motivation, cognitive abilities, personality traits, age, and emotional states. External determinants, including instructional quality, sociocultural context, and family involvement, are also highlighted. Employing a library research methodology, the study synthesizes insights from diverse academic resources to identify how these factors collectively shape language acquisition trajectories. Findings underscore the dynamic interdependence of internal and external influences, emphasizing tailored instructional strategies and the importance of supportive learning environments. The implications extend to pedagogical practices, parental engagement, and the integration of sociocultural elements to foster effective SLA. The study concludes with recommendations for future research to empirically validate theoretical models and explore innovative approaches in language education.
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Introduction. Foreign students at Russian universities learn to use the Russian language for various communication purposes, the success of which depends on the level of development of the secondary linguistic personality, and the search for effective pedagogical conditions for the formation of the secondary linguistic personality remains largely controversial. The purpose of the study is to describe and substantiate the model of secondary linguistic personality formation of a foreign language student, a future teacher of Russian as a foreign language, on the basis of technologies of textual activity. Materials and Methods. During the study, a diagnosis of the level of development of linguistic, communicative and intercultural competences of 48 foreign language students of the 1st and 3rd year was made. On the basis of the initial and final questionnaires, a pedagogical experiment using the technology of productive reading and interactive technologies, and a quantitative and qualitative comparative analysis, data were obtained on the dynamics of the development of a secondary language personality under the influence of selected pedagogical techniques. Results. As a result of the study it was found out that the use of a complex of pedagogical technologies with an authentic text with communicative value and cultural information opens great opportunities for successful work on the development of secondary linguistic personality of foreign language students. A quantitative and qualitative comparative analysis of the initial and final questionnaires in the experimental and control groups allows us to speak about the positive dynamics of linguistic, communicative and intercultural competences characteristic of a secondary linguistic personality. Discussion and Conclusion. The obtained results indicate that the process of secondary linguistic personality development of a foreign student at a Russian university is positively influenced by a teaching model based on the synthesis of interactive and text-based technologies. The presented materials can be used by researchers of linguistic personality, methodologists in the field of teaching Russian as a foreign language, and teachers implementing an intercultural approach to teaching various subjects.
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Due to growing interest in less common languages, Portuguese as an additional language has seen a rise in popularity, particularly in academic settings. Despite this, research on foreign graduate students learning Portuguese in Brazil remains scarce. This study investigates the cultural and identity (re)construction of one such student. Grounded in Vygotsky’s (1978) theory and informed by the Sociocultural Theory of Second Language Development (Lantolf, 2013) and investment theory developed by Bonny Norton (1995), which emphasize identity and motivation, we explore the experiences of a foreign graduate student at a southern Brazilian public university. Our analysis reveals a complex interplay between language development and cultural integration, ultimately suggesting the participant achieved his academic and professional goals - including successful completion of Portuguese courses - through language proficiency. By recollecting Abdul’s Muslim identity, it becomes clearer how social identities are constructed and reconstructed in and from social interactions. This highlights the limitations of simplistic views about learning - they are far more intricate than we often realize. The interplay between social interactions, power dynamics, and language development becomes clear: these elements are fundamentally linked. Keywords: Portuguese as an additional language; identity theory; sociocultural theory; exchange graduate students
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In this study, I explore the relationship between the perceived accentedness of French-language learners (FLLs) and its impact on their identity and investment in pronunciation skills. I draw on the concept of learner investment (Norton Pierce, 1995; Norton, 2013) as a key aspect of language learning research focused on identity and in connection to pronunciation. This paper's primary goal is to explore the link between the perceived accentedness of FLLs and their identity. I also examine the repercussions of accentedness on FLLs' investment in their pronunciation skills. To address these questions, I focused on four participants' replies to an online survey and examined the semi-structured interviews through Analysis of Narratives. This case study highlights that positive or negative implications on their identity may arise depending on their perception of their accentedness, driving their desire to invest in pronunciation.
Article
This study is contextualized onto three levels- the macro-level globalized context, the meso-level national context, and the micro-level of school contexts. Under the influence of these different contexts, this study is designed as a phenomenological study with the aim to understand the phenomenon of English learning and using perceptions, investment, and identity constructions of ten English major students in China through semi-structured interviews. In order to fulfill that goal, Darvin and Norton (2015)’s model provides a solid theoretical foundation for the researcher to investigate this critical educational phenomenon. The findings of the study include not only how participants reflect on their English learning experiences at different learning stages, but also how they exert their sense of agency and re-construct their English language identity in new environment. Findings also show the power of native English as a form of capital and the influence of authoritative voices on students’ perceptions and language identity while students enter and transfer their English learning to teaching trajectories. By providing a critical and multi-layered approach, this study demonstrates how Chinese educational system institutionalizes native English and thus shapes English major students in China.
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The discourse on linguistic diversity, relativity and pluralism is currently dominant in sociolinguistics. By extension, arguments for universalism are currently unfashionable in the field, particularly within its interpretivist strand. This paper claims that interpretivist sociolinguistics promotes conflicting, often lukewarm, and at times antagonistic views on universalism as a core emancipatory value. In response, the argument is made that appreciating universalism requires a layered social ontology afforded by critical realism. To build this critique, the paper first surveys how universalism has been neglected by prominent interpretivist sociolinguists to date. It then provides a conceptual account of critical realism’s layered social ontology and its relation to sociolinguistics. A discussion on the nature and importance of values in social science and sociolinguistics follows. Finally, the paper discusses universalism as a core emancipatory value, its critique, and its relation to sociolinguistics.
Article
This study explores the application of big data in the field of English learning, focusing on its influence on the analysis of English learning behavior and the effect of teaching intervention. Through experimental design and data analysis, the research results show that big data analysis can reveal the learning behavior pattern of learners, and provide personalized teaching intervention according to individual characteristics, so as to improve the learning effect. The study also found that the experimental group received personalized teaching intervention, English learners’ academic performance and learning motivation significantly improved. However, this study faces the limitations of sample representativeness and consistency of teaching interventions. Future studies can further expand the sample size and strengthen teacher training to improve the generalization and reliability of research results.
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The spread of English and its increasing importance in intercultural encounters have challenged essentialist perspectives of culture in English language teaching. In addition to using English as a means of communication, students are expected to develop intercultural awareness, which allows them to analyse and reflect on their intercultural encounters and to participate in social activities. Such a need draws great attention to language teachers' perceptions of and engagement in intercultural teaching. As a narrative inquiry, this paper examines the reflections of English language practitioners who have returned from an overseas study experience and have become English language teachers in China. It focuses on their study abroad experiences, encompassing both their achievements and challenges in the context of intercultural learning, and examines how these experiences have influenced their current involvement in intercultural teaching. The findings help shed light on the shifts in teachers' perceptions of intercultural encounters and how the processes of making sense of intercultural experiences inform their orientation towards intercultural learning. The paper considers the importance of helping teachers use their experiential understanding of language and culture to generate a critical pedagogical stance to promote intercultural education.
Article
Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of computer-assisted language learning on cultural adaptation and language learning in non-traditional classroom settings. Design/methodology/approach The data of this study came from extended periods of observation, multiple rounds of semi-structured interviews and home visits. Using narrative inquiry, it analyzes an immigrant's journey of language learning and cultural adaptation within a virtual knowledge community. Findings The findings of this study reveal the profound impact of virtual knowledge communities on enhancing second language learning and facilitating cultural adaptation. Originality/value This study offers original insights by demonstrating the transformative power of virtual knowledge communities for the purpose of second language acquisition and cultural adaptation.
Article
Employing membership categorization analysis and conversation analysis, we uncover how students performing classroom discussion tasks for language learning locally ascribe themselves and others to various identity categories within single discussion activities. Data consist of 126 hours of video‐recorded small‐group discussions for second language learning collected in Japanese universities. Analysis unveiled the members' methods by which students themselves construct their identities in invoking various membership categories. In addition to sequential identities that are relevant at any point during the discussions, participants overwhelmingly oriented to hypothetical identities set up by the tasks. These identities were layered over the omnirelevant identities of Japanese language speakers, second language speakers, and students. Through publicly observable orientations to membership categories, these interactants manifested their collective understanding of the aims and motivations of the educational activities and institutional environment. The findings show how learners orient to their own and co‐participants' multiple identities as they accomplish language‐learning tasks and how these varied layers of identity contributed to language‐learning affordances in different and unique ways. We then suggest some implications for task‐based language learning.
Article
The existing literature in TESOL has revealed the multilayered, dynamic, and situated nature of teacher identity, but how language teachers construct their identities during curriculum reforms receives relatively limited attention, particularly in the context of teaching English for specific purposes (ESP). Theoretically anchored by the notion of contradiction in activity theory, this study investigates an ESP teacher's identity transformation in a Chinese university. Drawing on data from semi‐structured interviews, classroom observations, and artifacts (policy documents and course materials), the findings reveal that the participant constructed her identities including “a skiff drifting in the dark,” “an optimistic warrior,” and “a nonconformist” through the teaching reform mediated by the corporatized culture and accountability system in higher education. The process of identity transformation was accompanied by her identity‐driven efforts to resolve various contradictions and seek the delicate equilibrium between her agency and object‐oriented reform. The study offers practical recommendations on teacher development and curriculum reforms for both language teachers and other stakeholders (e.g., teacher educators and school leaders) in different educational contexts.
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Despite their centrality to undergraduate teaching in U.S. universities, few studies focus on ITA’s and their experiences within ITA training classes. Through a multiple case study of two In-Service ITA’s (China, Taiwan) investments (Darvin & Norton, 2015) in one such class, it became clear how idiosyncratic are perception of these courses: one ITA’s profound negativity involved accusations of institutional racism, yet another flourished through the class. Data included journaling, interviews/ stimulated recalls, course assignments, and classrooms (ESL and departmental) observations. Findings, presented as narrative then as conceptual configurations of investments, explained their experiences bifurcated due to their disparate teaching experiences and to policies decisions made within one’s home departments. This study expands the scope of ITA and investment research by connecting macro and micro-level aspects. Pedagogical implications are to center pedagogy on learners’ investments, utilizing reflexive activities to prevent misaligning the course with learners’ identities, ideologies and desired capital.
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This chapter discusses questions regarding linguistic and cultural changes as the effect of migration among Indigenous people in Ecuador. We explore how transmigration and the formation of transnational communities affect those who do not leave.
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We describe videomaking projects in Canada, India, and Mexico in which second language learners were asked to show the children in the other countries what their lives were like. We consider how this form of expression might contribute to second language learning and allow children to make use of in and out-of-school resources. We also raise questions about the affordances and constraints of the videomaking process and explore how teachers might approach such multimodal literacy activities with children.
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Posthumanism urges us to reconsider what it means to be human. From proclamations about the death of ‘Man’ to investigations into enhanced forms of being, from the advent of the Anthropocene (human-induced planetary change) to new forms of materialism and distributed cognition, posthumanism raises significant questions for applied linguistics in terms of our understandings of language, humans, objects, and agency. After reviewing the broad field of posthumanist thought, this paper investigates—through an overview of a series of recent research projects—the notion of repertoire, to show how this can be better understood by stepping out of the humanist constructs of the individual and the community and looking instead at the notion of distributed language and spatial repertoires. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of posthumanism for applied linguistics, in particular the ways we understand language in relation to people, objects, and place.
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Our interest in poststructuralism in applied linguistics arises from our work as language teachers and researchers, and our mutual desire to promote a productive relationship between social theory and classroom practice.
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Disciplinary Identities uses findings from corpus research to present fascinating insights into the relationship between author identity and disciplinarity in academic writing. Ken Hyland draws on a number of sources, including acknowledgements texts, academic homepages and biographies, to explore how authors convey aspects of their identities within the constraints placed upon them by their disciplines' rhetorical conventions. He promotes corpus methods as important tools in identity research, demonstrating the effectiveness of keyword and collocation analysis in highlighting both the norms of a particular genre and an author's idiosyncratic choices. Identity is conceived as multi-faceted and socially negotiated, and writing is seen as the contextualised performance of the author's identity to a community of readers. Hyland concludes by outlining a way forward for encouraging individuality as well as conventionality in students of EAP.
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Human language has changed in the age of globalization: no longer tied to stable and resident communities, it moves across the globe, and it changes in the process. The world has become a complex 'web' of villages, towns, neighbourhoods and settlements connected by material and symbolic ties in often unpredictable ways. This phenomenon requires us to revise our understanding of linguistic communication. In The Sociolinguistics of Globalization Jan Blommaert constructs a theory of changing language in a changing society, reconsidering locality, repertoires, competence, history and sociolinguistic inequality.
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Language as a Local Practice addresses the questions of language, locality and practice as a way of moving forward in our understanding of how language operates as an integrated social and spatial activity. By taking each of these three elements language, locality and practice and exploring how they relate to each other, Language as a Local Practice opens up new ways of thinking about language. It questions assumptions about languages as systems or as countable entities, and suggests instead that language emerges from the activities it performs. To look at language as a practice is to view language as an activity rather than a structure, as something we do rather than a system we draw on, as a material part of social and cultural life rather than an abstract entity. Language as a Local Practice draws on a variety of contexts of language use, from bank machines to postcards, Indian newspaper articles to fish-naming in the Philippines, urban graffiti to mission statements, suggesting that rather than thinking in terms of language use in context, we need to consider how language, space and place are related, how language creates the contexts where it is used, how languages are the products of socially located activities and how they are part of the action. Language as a Local Practice will be of interest to students on advanced undergraduate and post graduate courses in Applied Linguistics, Language Education, TESOL, Literacy and Cultural Studies.
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The volume explores how new millennium globalization mediates language learning and identity construction. It seeks to theorize how global flows are creating new identity options for language learners, and to consider the implications for language learning, teaching and use. To frame the chapters theoretically, the volume asserts that new identities are developing because of the increasingly interconnected set of global scapes which impact language learners' lives. Part 1 focuses on language learners in (trans)national contexts, exploring their identity formation when they shuttle between cultures and when they create new communities of fellow transnationals. Part 2 examines how learners come to develop intercultural selves as a consequence of experiencing global contact zones when they sojourn to new contexts for study and work. Part 3 investigates how learners construct new identities in the mediascapes of popular culture and cyberspace, where they not only consume, but also produce new, globalized identities. Through case studies, narrative analysis, and ethnography, the volume examines identity construction among learners of English, French, Japanese, and Swahili in Canada, England, France, Hong Kong, Tanzania, and the United States. © 2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston. All rights reserved.
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This volume provides a state-of-the-art snapshot of language and education research and demonstrates ways in which local and global processes are intertwined with language learning, use, and policies. Reflecting but also expanding on Nancy Hornberger’s ground-breaking contributions to educational linguistics, this book brings together leading international scholars. Chapters present new research and cutting-edge syntheses addressing current theoretical and methodological issues in researching equity, access, and multilingual education. Organized around three central themes --- bilingual education and bilingualism, the continua of biliteracy, and policy and planning for linguistic diversity in education --- the volume reflects the holistic and dynamic perspective on language (in) education that is the hallmark of educational linguistics as a field. © 2011 Francis M. Hult, Kendall A. King and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved.
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Style, Identity and Literacy: English in Singapore is a qualitative study of the literacy practices of a group of Singaporean adolescents, relating their patterns of interaction - both inside and outside the classroom - to the different levels of social organization in Singaporean society (home, peer group and school). Combining field data gathered through a series of detailed interviews with available classroom observations, the study focuses on six adolescents from different ethnic and social backgrounds as they negotiate the learning of English against the backdrop of multilingual Singapore. This book provides social explanations for the difficulties and challenges these adolescents face by drawing on current developments in sociolinguistics, literacy studies, English language teaching and language policy.
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Racialized Identities in Second Language Learning: Speaking Blackness in Brazil provides a critical overview and original sociolinguistic analysis of the African American experience in second language learning. More broadly, this book introduces the idea of second language learning as “transformative socialization”: how learners, instructors, and their communities shape new communicative selves as they collaboratively construct and negotiate race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and social class identities. Uju Anya’s study follows African American college students learning Portuguese in Afro-Brazilian communities, and their journeys in learning to do and speak blackness in Brazil. Video-recorded interactions, student journals, interviews, and writing assignments show how multiple intersecting identities are enacted and challenged in second language learning. Thematic, critical, and conversation analyses describe ways black Americans learn to speak their material, ideological, and symbolic selves in Portuguese and how linguistic action reproduces or resists power and inequity. The book addresses key questions on how learners can authentically and effectively participate in classrooms and target language communities to show that black students’ racialized identities and investments in these communities greatly influence their success in second language learning and how successful others perceive them to be.
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In Disrupting Boundaries in Education and Research, six educational researchers explore together the potentialities of transdisciplinary research that de-centres human behaviour and gives materiality its due in the making of educational worlds. The book presents accounts of what happens when researchers think and act with new materiality and post-human theories to disrupt boundaries such as self and other, human and non-human, representation and objectivity. Each of the core chapters works with different new materiality concepts to disrupt these boundaries and to consider the emotive, sensory, nuanced, material and technological aspects of learning in diverse settings, such as in mathematics and learning to swim, discovering the bio-products of 'eco-sustainable' building, making videos and contending with digital government and its alienating effects. When humans are no longer at the centre of the unfolding world it is both disorienting and exhilarating. This book is an invitation to continue along these paths. © Suzanne Smythe, Cher Hill, Margaret MacDonald, Diane Dagenais, Nathalie Sinclair, Kelleen Toohey 2017. All rights reserved.
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Drawing on a range of contexts and data sources from urban multilingualism to studies of animal communication, Posthumanist Applied Linguistics offers us alternative ways of thinking about the human predicament, with major implications for research, education and politics. Exploring the advent of the Anthropocene, new forms of materialism, distributed language, assemblages, and the boundaries between humans, other animals and objects, eight incisive chapters by one of the world’s foremost applied linguists open up profound questions to do with language and the world. This critical posthumanist applied linguistic perspective is essential reading for all researchers and students in the fields of Applied Linguistics and Sociolinguistics.
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This book examines how urban adolescents attending a non-mainstream learning centre in the UK use language and other semiotic practices to enact identities in their day-to-day lives. Combining variationist sociolinguistics and ethnographically-informed interactional sociolinguistics, this detailed and highly reflexive account provides rich descriptions and discussions of the linguistic processes at work in a previously underexplored research environment. In doing so, it reveals fresh insights into the changes taking place in urban British English, and into the difficulties of undertaking ethnographic, sociolinguistic research in a challenging context using a combination of methods and approaches. This interdisciplinary work will appeal to students and scholars from across the fields of sociolinguistics, ethnography, and education; as well as providing a valuable resource for teachers and trainees.
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This ethnographic case study of a male Hmong refugee, Vue Lang, is situated against a backdrop that is characterized by a burgeoning immigrant population in the United States and a growing need to provide them with English language instruction. The Bourdieusian concepts of capital, habitus, and field (Bourdieu, 1991) are used to explicate Vue Lang's development while enrolled in a community English as a second language (ESL) project. By drawing on data sources that included videotaped classroom lessons, field notes, and written artefacts, I demonstrate how, over the course of 6 months, he developed participation, curricular, and institutional competence. The article closes with implications for both practice and research. For classroom practice, it suggests the need for teachers to (a) facilitate habitus transformation, (b) be aware that the ESL classroom is a site of cultural politics, and (c) tap the personal experiences of learners by bringing the outside in (Baynham, 2005). For policy and research, this study highlights the importance of using case studies to trace the trajectories of language learners.
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In this article, we survey the debates and questions relating to scalar approaches in the social sciences. Based on a critical review of emergent scholarship, we propose the adoption of scales as a category of practice, arguing that how scales are defined, their relationships conceived, and related to other social categories should be based on how people and institutions adopt scales in relation to their contexts and interests. Based on this position, we review the application of scales in educational linguistics and outline the questions that need to be further explored to make more constructive contributions to the appropriate unit of analysis, the relationship between context and language, and the connections between language and other semiotic resources in learning.
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In light of the growing importance of identity work in second language acquisition (e.g., Block, 2006a, b) in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) as well as calls for SLA and World Englishes (WE) scholars (e.g., Y. Kachru, 2005) to work together, I examine how identity has been conceptualized in research on the global use of English. While such research finds its roots in the WE paradigm (e.g, B. Kachru, 2005), it has undergone contestation in recent years. Such contestation has emerged as a result of two new conceptualizations of English: English as a lingua franca (e.g., Jenkins, 2007; Seidlhofer, 2006) and a postmodern approach to English (e.g., Canagarajah, 2006; Pennycook, 2007, 2010), which views it in hybrid and fluid terms. This paper explores how identity has been embodied in the literature on the global use of English with a view to analyzing how future SLA research related to identity should take shape in the face of changes brought about by globalization.
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This critical ethnographic school-based case study offers insights on the interaction between ideology and the identity development of individual English language learners in Singapore. Illustrated by case studies of the language learning experiences of five Asian immigrant students in an English-medium school in Singapore, the author examines how the immigrant students negotiated a standard English ideology and their discursive positioning over the course of the school year. Specifically, the study traces how the prevailing standard English ideology interacted in highly complex ways with their being positioned as high academic achievers to ultimately influence their learning of English. This potent combination of language ideologies and circulating ideologies created a designer student immigration complex. By framing this situation as a complex, the study problematizes the power of ideologies in shaping the trajectories and identities of language learners.
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Human language has changed in the age of globalization: no longer tied to stable and resident communities, it moves across the globe, and it changes in the process. The world has become a complex 'web' of villages, towns, neighbourhoods and settlements connected by material and symbolic ties in often unpredictable ways. This phenomenon requires us to revise our understanding of linguistic communication. In The Sociolinguistics of Globalization Jan Blommaert constructs a theory of changing language in a changing society, reconsidering locality, repertoires, competence, history and sociolinguistic inequality. • There is great interest in the issue of globalization and this book will appeal to scholars and students in linguistics, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics and anthropology • Richly illustrated with examples from around the globe • Presents a profound revision of sociolinguistic work in the area of linguistic communication
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What is the relationship between learners' identities and their language-learning experiences? How are identities constructed in language classrooms and what does this imply for students and teachers? Over the last decade, applied linguists have paid increasing attention to questions such as these, as have scholars in such related fields as second language acquisition (SLA), language education, and sociolinguistics. Studies examining the links between learner identities and language-learning contexts have revealed that the ways learners define themselves, are defined by others, and are positioned in social interaction have an observable impact on their learning experiences. This body of scholarship has contributed to advancing new theoretical insights on identity construction in language-learning situations. Keywords: language teaching; language in the classroom; identity
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Before introducing the topic of this entry, it needs to be clarifi ed that the term discourse is employed here to refer to language in use as organized and culturally shaped ways of talking embedded in concrete social practices (see Gee, 1996, p. 131, on this point).
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This is an ambitious work, covering the whole breadth of the field from its theoretical underpinnings to research and teaching methodology. The Editors have managed to recruit a stellar panel of contributors, resulting in the kind of 'all you ever wanted to know about instructed SLA' collection that should be found on the shelves of every good library. " Zoltán Dörnyei, University of Nottingham, UK The Routledge Handbook of Instructed Second Language Acquisition is the first collection of state-of-the-art papers pertaining to Instructed Second Language Acquisition (ISLA). Written by 45 world-renowned experts, the entries are full-length articles detailing pertinent issues with up-to-date references. Each chapter serves three purposes: (1) provide a review of current literature and discussions of cutting edge issues; (2) share the authors' understanding of, and approaches to, the issues; and (3) provide direct links between research and practice. In short, based on the chapters in this handbook, ISLA has attained a level of theoretical and methodological maturity that provides a solid foundation for future empirical and pedagogical discovery. This handbook is the ideal resource for researchers, graduate students, upper-level undergraduate students, teachers, and teacher-educators who are interested in second language learning and teaching.
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The African Storybook (ASb) is a digital initiative that promotes multilingual literacy for African children by providing openly licenced children's stories in multiple African languages, as well as English, French, and Portuguese. Based on Darvin and Norton's (2015) model of identity and investment, and drawing on the Douglas Fir Group's (2016) framework for second language acquisition, this study investigates Ugandan primary school teachers’ investment in the ASb, its impact on their teaching, and their changing identities. The study was conducted in a rural Ugandan school from June to December 2014, and the data, which focus on one key participant, Monica, were drawn from field notes, classroom observations, interview transcripts, and questionnaires, which were coded using retroductive coding. The findings indicate that through the ASb initiative and its stories, Monica and other teachers began to imagine themselves as writers, readers, and teachers of stories, reframing what it means to be a reading teacher. Teachers’ shifts of identity were indexical of their enhanced social and cultural capital as they engaged with the ASb, notwithstanding ideological constraints associated with mother tongue usage, assessment practices, and teacher supervision. The authors conclude that the enhancement of language teacher identity has important implications for the promotion of multilingual literacy for young learners in African communities.
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This chapter introduces the developing field of linguistic ethnography. The work of scholars who are particularly influential in linguistic ethnography is discussed – in particular, Hymes, Gumperz, Goffman, and Erickson – and linked to the work of scholars currently working in this field, including Creese, Roberts, Rampton, and Lefstein and Snell. Drawing on contextual realities and mainly North American historical antecedents, it explains why linguistic ethnography is mainly a European endeavor and why it has emerged at this point in time. In particular, the chapter suggests that the formation of the linguistic ethnography forum (LEF: www. lingethnog. net) is centrally important in providing a community of practice for researchers using ethnography and linguistic analysis in their work. The chapter also points to the increasing impact of interdisciplinarity on the development of linguistic ethnography. It argues that its democratic approach to participation and interpretation of local perspectives is often a good starting point around which interdisciplinary teams can cohere. In conclusion, the chapter suggests that the ability to work collaboratively with professional groups and like-minded researchers has been one of the main benefits of the development of the field and that it is this breadth and reach which hold the most promise for linguistic ethnography.
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This book brings together three important areas in language teaching and learning research by exploring the impact of study abroad on student’s second language identities through narrative research. © Phil Benson, Gary Barkhuizen, Peter Bodycott and Jill Brown 2013. All rights reserved.
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Investing in literacy: social identities and symbolic capital This paper discusses the way multilingual individuals understand their investment in learning literacy practices – especially reading – in foreign languages (French and Spanish). It uses a qualitative and ethnographic methodology to analyze data from the written and spoken discourse of three participants learning French as a foreign language in a Swiss University: one Swiss-Italian and two Canadian-anglophone students. The data show that the participants are conscious of two types of symbolic capital, related to their social positioning and identities: a cultural and linguistic capital, and a communicative capital. This typology influences the way the students learn and orient their investment towards different language practices, notably in the area of literacy.
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Over the past three decades, our conceptualizations of literacy and what it means to be literate have expanded to include recognition that there is a qualitative difference in how we communicate through modalities such as the visual, audio, spatial, and linguistic and that different modes are combined in complex ways to make meaning. The field of multimodality is concerned with how human beings use different modes of communication to represent or make meaning in the world. Despite the rapid growth of international research in this area, accounts of a broader range of global sites, particularly economically under-resourced and culturally diverse contexts such as Sub-Saharan Africa, remain under-researched and under-represented in the literature. This book contextualizes a range of literacies including health literacies, community literacies, family literacies, and multilingual literacies within broader modes of communication, most specifically play and the visual. The claim is that powerful pedagogies, methodologies and theories can be constructed by taking a more detailed look at multimodal meaning-making in diverse contexts. By describing and analyzing multimodal practices and texts across a diverse range of contexts, the book highlights different constructs, issues and emerging questions dealing with the study of literacies and multimodality.
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As the first chapter in Part II, this chapter turns its attention to education. Focusing on the growing multilingualism in schools, the chapter reviews traditional definitions and types of bilingual education. It frames foreign/second language education, as well as bilingual education, as ways of enacting parallel monolingualisms, and then reviews ways in which this is resisted in classrooms all over the world. It also presents ways in which educators are promoting flexible languaging in teaching, transgressing the strict structures of dual language bilingual classrooms, as well as going beyond the traditional view of separate languages literacies.
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SLA research on age in naturalistic contexts has examined learners' ultimate attainment, while instructed research has emphasized the rate of learning (Birdsong 2014. Dominance and age in bilingualism. Applied Linguistics 35(4). 374-392; Muñoz 2008. Symmetries and asymmetries of age effects in naturalistic and instructed L2 learning. Applied Linguistics 29(4). 578-596). However, both streams of research, which view age as a biological construct, have overlooked this construct through an ideological lens. To address this gap, and in keeping with Blommaert's (2005. Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) call to examine language ideologies and related ideologies in an era of superdiversity, our paper explores the ideology undergirding age-based research and examines it in conjunction with the practice-based approach to better understand the use of Burmese as a heritage language, a language characterized by a hierarchical and an age-determined honorific system. Drawing on data from a larger ethnographic study involving Burmese migrants in the US, analyses of the bilingual practice of address forms of generation 1.5 Burmese youth demonstrated that age was relationally constructed. While these youth strategically adopted 'traditional' linguistic practices ratified by Burmese adults when interacting with their parents, such practices were invoked and subverted in interactions involving their siblings and other Burmese adults less familiar to them. In focusing on the social and linguistic struggles encountered by these transnational multilingual youth, this paper also addresses the complexities surrounding heritage language learning.
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'Higher Education in a Global Society should be of tremendous practical value to deans and provosts contemplating an international partnership or program. Written in a most accessible style by a combination of higher education scholars and veteran academic administrators, it provides a nuanced understanding of both the pitfalls and unanticipated benefits from such programs.' - Charles T. Clotfelter, Duke University, US.
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Identity and Language Learning draws on a longitudinal case study of immigrant women in Canada to develop new ideas about identity, investment, and imagined communities in the field of language learning and teaching. Bonny Norton demonstrates that a poststructuralist conception of identity as multiple, a site of struggle, and subject to change across time and place is highly productive for understanding language learning. Her sociological construct of investment is an important complement to psychological theories of motivation. The implications for language teaching and teacher education are profound. Now including a new, comprehensive Introduction as well as an Afterword by Claire Kramsch, this second edition addresses the following central questions: -Under what conditions do language learners speak, listen, read and write? -How are relations of power implicated in the negotiation of identity? -How can teachers address the investments and imagined identities of learners? The book integrates research, theory, and classroom practice, and is essential reading for students, teachers and researchers in the fields of language learning and teaching, TESOL, applied linguistics and literacy.
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This book is the first to explore the constitution of language learner agency by drawing on performativity theory, an approach that remains on the periphery of second language research. Though many scholars have drawn on poststructuralism to theorize learner identity in non-essentialist terms, most have treated agency as an essential feature that belongs to or inheres in individuals. By contrast, this work promotes a view of learner agency as inherently social and as performatively constituted in discursive practice. In developing a performativity approach to learner agency, it builds on the work of Vygotsky and Bakhtin along with research on 'agency of spaces' and language ideologies. Through the study of discourses produced in interviews, this work explores how immigrant small business owners co-construct their theories of agency, in relation to language learning and use. The analysis focuses on three discursive constructs produced in the interview talk–subject-predicate constructs, evaluative stance, and reported speech–and investigates their discursive effects in mobilizing ideologically normative, performatively realized agentive selves.
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They argue that the role of oral language is almost always entirely misunderstood in debates about digital media. Like the earlier inventions of writing and print, digital media actually “power up” or enhance the powers of oral language.