The Affordances of Identity Texts with Adult Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education身份認同文本對於有限或中斷正規教育成人學生的可供性

Abstract

Working with adult Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (SLIFE) requires teachers to develop a knowledge and understanding of a complex range of matters related to pedagogy, language and literacy acquisition and the practical and socio-emotional challenges of resettlement. Limited research has focused on how teachers can support students’ literacy practices and the expression of students’ rich life experiences and knowledge systems through language learning. Using a design-based framework and undertaken across 10 weeks, this research investigated the pedagogical potential of identity texts when working with adult SLIFE in the Australian context. The collaborative research design involved teachers and teacher educators participating in ongoing professional learning sessions as a range of identity texts were integrated into lessons. Data collected included classroom recordings, recordings from professional learning sessions and formal interviews with teachers and materials produced by learners during the project. A thematic analysis of the data highlighted the transformative potential of the use of identity texts in creating more inclusive, student-centred learning environments and greater learner agency. Further work is needed to better understand the necessary pace, tempo and utility of a range of identity texts in adult SLIFE language learning contexts.

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https://doi.org/10.1007/s42321-024-00184-x
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ORIGINAL PAPER
The Affordances ofIdentity Texts withAdult Students
withLimited orInterrupted Formal Education
身份認同文本對於有限或中斷正規教育成人學生的可供性
YvetteSlaughter1 · JulieChoi1
Received: 27 September 2023 / Revised: 10 June 2024 / Accepted: 17 June 2024
© The Author(s) 2024
Abstract
Working with adult Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (SLIFE)
requires teachers to develop a knowledge and understanding of a complex range of
matters related to pedagogy, language and literacy acquisition and the practical and
socio-emotional challenges of resettlement. Limited research has focused on how
teachers can support students’ literacy practices and the expression of students’
rich life experiences and knowledge systems through language learning. Using a
design-based framework and undertaken across 10 weeks, this research investigated
the pedagogical potential of identity texts when working with adult SLIFE in the
Australian context. The collaborative research design involved teachers and teacher
educators participating in ongoing professional learning sessions as a range of iden-
tity texts were integrated into lessons. Data collected included classroom recordings,
recordings from professional learning sessions and formal interviews with teachers
and materials produced by learners during the project. A thematic analysis of the
data highlighted the transformative potential of the use of identity texts in creating
more inclusive, student-centred learning environments and greater learner agency.
Further work is needed to better understand the necessary pace, tempo and utility of
a range of identity texts in adult SLIFE language learning contexts.
摘要
教導受過有限的正規教育或正規教育中斷的成人學生 (SLIFE) 時, 教師需要
對教學法、語言和讀寫能力的習得以及重新安置的實際和社會情感挑戰相關
等一系列複雜的問題有所了解和認識。關於教師如何透過語言學習來支持學
生的讀寫實踐以及表達學生豐富的生活經驗和知識體系的研究並不多。本研
究採用設計架構且耗時十週,探究了澳洲成人SLIFE身份認同文本的教學潛
力。協同研究設計包含了教師和師資培育者參與持續進行中的專業學習課程,
同時將一系列身份認同文本融入課程中。研究資料包含了課堂錄影、專業學
Extended author information available on the last page of the article

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習課程錄影、與教師的正式訪談以及學習者在計畫期間製作的作品。本研究
對資料進行了主題分析,凸顯出身份認同文本的使用在創造更具包容性、以學
生為中心的學習環境和提升學習者自主性方面的轉型潛力。未來需要進一步
的研究來更好地理解成人 SLIFE 語言學習環境中一系列身份認同文本的必要
步伐、節奏和實用性。
Keywords Adult learners· Identity texts· TESOL· Literacy· Language teacher
education· Collaborative research
關鍵詞 成人學習者 · 身份認同文本 · TESOL · 讀寫 · 語言師資培
育 · 協同研究
Introduction
Working with adult Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (SLIFE)
requires teachers to develop a knowledge and understanding of a complex range of
matters related to pedagogy, language and literacy acquisition and the practical as
well as socio-emotional challenges of resettlement (Choi & Najar, 2017; DeCapua
& Marshall, 2015; Riggs etal., 2012; Watkins etal., 2012). Teachers of adult SLIFE
can be faced with the challenge of teaching English language and literacy to learners
who have low literacy in a first language, little exposure to print-based literary tra-
ditions and practices and/or limited experience of schooling itself. It is imperative,
then, that teachers develop an understanding of specialised and innovative pedago-
gies and strategies that can support language learning, particularly as having limited
print literacy skills can impact on teachers’ and learners’ abilities to utilise many
typical language learning strategies (Blackmer & Hayes-Harb, 2016).
To support teachers in their work, a growing body of research is focusing on the
under-researched area of adult literacy (Young-Scholten, 2015), including teacher
practice and pedagogy when working with adult SLIFE students of English. This
research has focused, for example, on different models of reading instruction,
including the roles played by phonological awareness, vocabulary recognition and
syntactic processing in supporting literacy development, as well as the importance
of rich literacy practices (Blackmer & Hayes-Harb, 2016; Burt etal., 2003; Montero
etal., 2014). Other research has focused on alternative pedagogical approaches for
learners who are new to schooling (DeCapua & Marshall, 2011, 2015), including
the importance of incorporating scenarios that are pertinent to everyday life and
have relevance to social contexts (Choi & Najar, 2017; DeCapua & Marshall, 2015).
However, limited research to date has focused on the complex relationship between
language and identity for adult SLIFE, that is, the relationship between developing
literacy skills and an evolving expression of self, and how this can be scaffolded
pedagogically (see e.g. Bigelow & King, 2015). In fact, Cummins etal. (2005) con-
tend that critical preconditions for learning, including engaging with background
knowledge and learning experiences, need to be met for effective language learning
to occur, with Paris (2012) arguing that the failure to “make teaching and learning

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relevant and responsive to the languages, literacies and cultural practices of students
across the categories of difference and (in)equality” (p. 92) perpetuates student dis-
engagement and undemocratic practices within education systems.
The concept of “identity texts” (Cummins & Early, 2011, p. 3) as a tool to
explore this relationship between language and identity is playing a critical role in
this area, moving the conceptualisation of literacy beyond traditional definitions of
“linear print-based reading and writing skills” (Cummins etal., 2015, p. 557) to one
which incorporates multimodal and multilingual literacies and forms of expression.
An identity text is an artefact, usually a creative work produced by a learner, which
“holds a mirror up to students in which their identities are reflected back in a posi-
tive light” (Cummins & Early, 2011, p. 3). Research exploring the affordances of
identity texts from a pedagogical perspective has expanded rapidly in recent years,
incorporating identity texts in a range of forms including visual, spatial, signed, spo-
ken, written and artistic modes of expression (e.gBusch, 2021; Choi & Slaughter,
2021; Cummins & Early, 2011; de Bres & Franziskus, 2013; Kalaja & Melo-Pfeifer,
2019; Lypka, 2022; Muller, 2022; Watson, 2015). Extending this work into language
teaching with adult SLIFE is critical given that the ability to explore, understand and
engage with the lived experiences of adult SLIFE as part of their language learn-
ing journey requires innovative and accessible tools and literacy strategies for both
teachers and students.
The research project reported here represents a collaboration between university-
based teacher educators and TESOL teachers working in an adult education cen-
tre in Australia. It draws on “teachers’ experience and knowledge of their context”
(Tian & Shepard-Carey, 2020, p. 1132), as well as teacher educators’ expertise in
contemporary theoretical and conceptual knowledge to further research into Sec-
ond Language Acquisition (SLA) praxis. Using a design-based research framework
and undertaken across a 10-week period of teaching, this research investigates what
we can learn about the pedagogical potential of identity texts when working with
adult SLIFE. Framed through an ongoing conversation between teachers and teacher
educators, this paper reports on both how the identity texts were used in practice,
and their affordances for teacher practice. That is, the usefulness and limitations of
the devices in supporting teachers to scaffold student learning. While the research
acknowledged limitations associated with the use of identity texts, such as poten-
tial constraints on their applicability or effectiveness, it also highlighted notable
strengths. Among these strengths was the finding that the integration of identity
texts supported culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogies, enabled the cul-
tivation of a more student-centred learning environment, and encouraged teaching
practices that fostered greater student agency.
Navigating aNarrowing Terrain
In 2009, Kramsch argued that within the field of SLA, research into how people
learn languages had led to a separation of the cognitive processes of language learn-
ing from the individual language learner, with research predominantly focused
on the acquisition process rather than the learner. This had led, Kramsch (2009)

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claimed, to language being taught as a “tool for rational thinking, for the expression
and communication of factual truths and information” rather than as “a symbolic
system that constructs the very reality it refers to” (p. 2). The multilingual turn in
SLA research has helped shift the pendulum towards a framing of language as a
social practice. Such a framing recognises the complex relationship between linguis-
tic resources and communicative interactions and the social context within which
interactions take place (García etal., 2017).
At the theory–practice nexus, a substantive body of research has investigated the
affordances of heteroglossic perspectives in ameliorating educational inequities (e.g.
García & Kleyn, 2016, Mendoza etal., 2023) and in advancing language teaching
pedagogy (e.g. Galante et al., 2019; Slaughter & Cross, 2021; Tian & Shepard-
Carey, 2020). This work has included the use of methodological and pedagogical
tools that centre Spracherleben or the lived experience of language in the language
learning process (Busch, 2018). These perspectives on language teaching and learn-
ing argue that language learning “is not a purely cognitive process, and that a posi-
tive emotional experience of language, the chance to project oneself as a speaker of
the new language, is of vital importance for the appropriation of a new language”
(Busch, 2018, p. 354).
However, despite this paradigmatic shift, significant pressures continue to impose
restrictive monolingual frameworks on language programming. At the school level,
for example, the teaching and learning of English is still used in many contexts as an
academic exercise to stream students or to determine entry into tertiary education,
impacting on language teaching and learning and language learning motivation (e.g.
Dong etal., 2023; Rahman, etal., 2021). For migrant adult education — the focus
of this research project — teaching and learning approaches are heavily influenced
by the need for learners to acquire functional proficiency in the majority language
so that they can best access government services and employment opportunities
(Moore, 2022; Playsted, 2022; Scanlon Institute, 2019).
There is no doubt as to the critical importance of English language proficiency
for migrants and refugees. Low levels of language and literacy skills can create a
significant barrier to participation in the workforce and society more broadly, with
increasingly limited educational pathways and life opportunities available for those
who struggle to develop requisite language and literacy skills (Deng & Marlowe,
2013; Jenkinson etal., 2016). In the Australian context, newly arrived migrants and
refugees from non-English speaking backgrounds have access to a minimum of 510
hours of English language education through the Adult Migrant English Program
(AMEP), with further instruction available through a range of support programs.
However, although the AMEP program has been running for over 70 years in Aus-
tralia, there are numerous challenges in learners effectively accessing and engaging
with AMEP programs, with a recent review of the programs finding that only 7% of
migrants and refugees who study in the AMEP program achieve functional English
proficiency (Scanlon Institute, 2019).
Part of the challenge is the modifications the program has undergone over many
decades, including budgeting changes and shifts in learning focus (Scanlon Institute,
2019). The 2019 Scanlon Institutereport into the teaching of English to migrants
in Australia argues that one of the most significant recent failings of the AMEP

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program has been a move away from assisting migrants with their broader reset-
tlement experiences to a narrow focus on the teaching of English for employment
opportunities (Scanlon Institute, 2019). This shift is in line with national govern-
mental policies, which have emphasised the role of migration for economic pur-
poses, downplaying previous narratives focused on “the building of a nation and its
people” (Scanlon Institute, 2019, p. 28). At the same time, patterns of migration
have also changed, with Australia increasingly taking in refugees from cultures with
stronger oral rather than written traditions, and who arrive with interrupted school-
ing experiences due to prolonged stays in refugee camps. Technological advances
also mean that refugees and migrants can stay connected with family and communi-
ties in their home countries, with easy access to media and entertainment content
in languages other than English. These factors, the Scanlon Institutereport (2019)
claims, also contribute to delays in learning English.
Within this research project, our understanding of adult migrant English educa-
tion thus needs to be situated in relation to Australia’s dynamic socio-political envi-
ronment and discourses around migration (Chiro, 2014), radical advances in tech-
nology and connectedness, and the limited and often intermittent time teachers have
with adult SLIFE. This research investigates what the affordances of identity texts
might be in supporting pedagogical practice and development when teaching adult
SLIFE. As outlined below in “Method”, a significant amount of data was collected
for this project, and the collaborative and agentic nature of the research enabled
the teacher-researchers to take the project in directions that best suited their pro-
fessional learning needs, with some of these findings reported elsewhere (Slaughter
etal., 2020). This article focuses on the introduction of identity texts, the ongoing,
dynamic conversations between the researchers and the findings in relation to the
affordances of the tools. Specifically, we ask,
What are the affordances of identity texts for teachers when working with adult
SLIFE learners?
Method
Co‑Navigating aChanging Terrain
The extent to which SLA research has been able to directly impact teaching peda-
gogy has been an issue of contention for many decades (Nassaji, 2012; Spada, 2013).
Part of the challenge is the practicality of educators and researchers working through
the “messy” and “fluid” (p. 67) nature of collaborative research, which must attend
to the constraints of teaching contexts and the differing interests or needs of aca-
demics and practitioners (Burns & Edwards, 2014). For teacher educators, there is
a fundamental need to understand the relationship between what pre-service teach-
ers learn in formal teacher education, their experiences in practice and how they
subsequently interpret and enact language teaching principles (Freeman & Richards,
2002). For TESOL teachers, tensions can exist between the broader pedagogical
knowledge gained through tertiary studies and the specific pedagogical knowledge
required once their working context is determined and as it changes (DeCapua etal.,

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2018; Grierson, 2010; Slaughter et al., 2020). In addition, when starting to work
with low literacy adults, a sense of under-preparedness is not an uncommon experi-
ence (Ledger &Montero, 2022; Montero etal., 2014; Perry & Hart, 2012).
Collaborative research, therefore, plays a crucial role in bridging the theory–prac-
tice divide and in ensuring that research reflects the reality of classroom dynam-
ics, engages with the concerns of the practitioner and is responsive to the situated
nature of language teaching and learning. The collaborative design of this research
project was embedded from project conception and funded through a grant awarded
by a teacher professional association. The grant conditions require academics and
teachers or educational stakeholders to engage in collaborative research to develop
or enhance the teaching of English to speakers of other languages.
This project involved five co-researchers — two university teacher educators (the
authors of this paper) and three TESOL teachers working in a Foundation program
for adult migrants and refugees at a not-for-profit Registered Training Organization
(RTO). All three teachers in this study have substantial teacher training qualifica-
tions, being qualified as primary or secondary school teachers (Masters-level qual-
ification) and having also undertaken further post-graduate studies in the field of
TESOL — Hayley, a Master of TESOL, Han, a post-graduate certificate in TESOL
and Rebecca, a graduate diploma in TESOL. Despite their training, all three argued
that a focus on teaching adults with low literacy was absent in their courses and
viewed the research project as an opportunity to develop professionally.
In addition to feeling underprepared for working with adult SLIFE, the teachers
were also motivated to participate in the research project to better understand how
to work with the significantly different needs of students often present within any
one class. While some students have had experience with schooling and established
literacy skills in their first language, others have had no schooling or interrupted
schooling and less exposure to literacy practices. In Han’s classroom, for example,
some students had strong levels of oracy in English but could not read or write and
had to focus on letter formation in writing sessions, while other students had estab-
lished writing skills but lower oracy skills, including pronunciation challenges.
Additionally, the teachers also wanted to better understand how to engage and
motivate their students, many of whom were attending classes through mandated
workplace programs linked to employment benefits. The requirement to attend Eng-
lish language classes was frustrating for those who wished to secure further employ-
ment. As one of the teachers, Hayley, explained,
We’ve got a lot of Vietnamese who have lived in Australia for very, very long
time. They used to work in all the factories around Richmond that are not there
anymore. They don’t have enough language to get another job, so they study
because their language is so low…And that’s, I think, really challenging for
them, personally, emotionally, to come and sit in a class, a beginner level lan-
guage class, when they’ve got a lifetime of experience.
It was, therefore, within the context of a diverse student group, with a diversity of lan-
guage and literacy skills and needs that the teachers implemented a range of multimodal,
speaker-centred activities with the aim of engaging with their identified challenges.

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Research Participants
Research was undertaken across three classes with 46 students who had been stud-
ying at the RTO for between 6 months and 4 years, but on average for around 2
years. Some students had never attended formal schooling, while others had some
experience of primary and secondary schooling. Although they were in Foundation
classes, the students had been in Australia for between 1 and 45 years, averaging 16
years in Australia, with most learners having arrived on refugee visas. The age range
of learners was between 32 and 65 years old, averaging approximately 50 years old,
with women representing over 90% of the learners. Country of birth included Cam-
bodia, China, East Timor, Ethiopia, Hong Kong, Iran, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan,
Tibet and Vietnam. Some students, however, did not know their country of birth,
date of birth or visa status. Participant data was anonymised and coded alphabeti-
cally from A to TT, although pseudonyms were created for this article.
Data Collection andAnalysis
To understand the affordances of identity texts in language learning, five identity
texts were introduced into classes over a 10-week period and expanded into seven
different class activities. The tasks included the use of “Language learning trajectory
grids” and “Places I have lived grids” (Choi & Slaughter, 2021); “visual poetry”
(Watson, 2015); “language portraits” (Busch, 2021), and “language diaries” (de
Bres & Franziskus, 2013), with students free to use any linguistic resources to com-
plete the activities. Associated pieces of writing, predominantly written in English,
were also collected as data. Class attendance was not consistent across the 10-week
period, with some students attending intermittently, studying part-time or across dif-
ferent English language programs. As a result, only one student completed all seven
of the tasks that were associated with the identity task activities. Most students com-
peted between one to four of the tasks, with four students completing five or six
tasks.
To capture how teachers introduced and used the identity texts in their classes
as well as engagement with the activities by students, video and audio recordings
of classroom activities were collected. A video camera was set up at the back of
each classroom and go-pro cameras were set up on each table. The teachers and
students also used their phones to record activities and reflections. The use of audio
and video recordings was selective, with approximately 500 min recorded across
14 periods of teaching where identity texts were introduced, and scaffolding was
provided. Recordings were regularly uploaded to a shared, secure online folder,
ensuring consistency in data collection procedures and protocols as well as ena-
bling one of the teacher educators to provide immediate and ongoing feedback on
the classroom activities via phone calls, emails and classroom visits. The recordings
were also curated and selectively translated where needed to capture key points in
teaching and learning. Extended, half-day professional learning sessions were then
held between the teacher educators and teachers at three points across the project,

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based on the curated materials and other concerns of the researchers. These sessions
allowed for ongoing conversations around which identity texts should be introduced
and how they could be or were used in the classes, thus providing opportunities both
for reflection and forward-planning. This iterative process also served as a form of
member checking of the data to address any bias in interpretation of the findings.
Samples of the identity texts and writing tasks were collected from all learners who
undertook each activity, along with targeted video recordings of teachers and learn-
ers discussing their responses to the identity texts. Final interviews of 60 to 90 min
were recorded with each teacher.
As stated earlier, a significant amount of data was collected for this project, illus-
trating rich teaching and learning practices within the adult SLIFE classes, includ-
ing the extensive use of digital technologies and tools. The data set analysed for
this paper focused specifically on the identity texts and their affordances for lan-
guage teachers. The dataset was therefore narrowed to recordings and interview data
directly related to the use and effectiveness of identity texts, including in the final
interviews and teacher reflections on their utility in the classroom. A thematic analy-
sis (Lapadat, 2010) was used to look for the strengths and limitations of identity
texts to support educators’ teaching practices. The dominant themes that emerged
in relation to the affordances of identity texts included insights into the students’
cultural and linguistic lives and the knowledge and experiences that they bring to
their language learning journeys, their knowledge of literacy and literacy practices
and the adaptability as well as the limitations of the tools. Interview data and student
work samples have been integrated to illustrate underlying narratives for each theme
(Figs.1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6).
Findings
Entry Into Students’ Worlds
As identified by all three teachers, a significant benefit of using the identity texts was
that through their use, teachers were able to create learning spaces which enabled
students to reflect on and bring their lived experiences and knowledge systems into
the classroom. This allowed the teachers and fellow classmates to develop a deeper
understanding of each student’s journey into the classroom, the struggles in their
lives, and their hopes for the future, including the development of their English lan-
guage proficiency.
When students arrive at the RTO, they undertake a short interview with the pro-
gram coordinator and a class teacher so that they can gain some understanding of
the students and their learning needs. However, within such a limited time frame,
only simple, predominantly administrative information is gathered from the stu-
dents. With low levels of English language proficiency and literacy skills, teachers
reported finding it difficult to create activities and spaces through which students
can express themselves. The teachers found that the identity text activities, includ-
ing the use of multilingual instructions as best determined by the teachers and stu-
dents, provided an opportunity for students to articulate verbally and/or through

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visual representations their personal histories, their language learning experiences
and their future hopes. Integrating this new understanding of students’ lives and
revisiting the ideas across several tasks enabled students to think more abstractly
about their lived experiences and to gain confidence in expressing and writing about
a wide range of ideas in relation to personal histories. As Hayley describes,
I think each text opened up something more…it’s like each time a little bit
more came up and I think it became a different type of sharing. It’s like we cre-
ated a space where they had to bring something in. So, I think I didn’t realise
Fig. 1 Places I have lived trajectory grid and audio transcript (Nyamal: 55–60 years old, 14 years in Aus-
tralia)

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how low some of the students were, like they have never been to school before!
Histories of really disrupted schooling, and then, some of them are studying
for the first time ever…Some spoke about their previous jobs, others talked
about where they lived, family and even personal issues of depression and the
death of family members and losing a child.
In analysing 30 grids (Language learning trajectories and Places I have lived)
from across two classes, Hayley mapped the themes that students talked about
through the grids, also noting the positive and negative emotions linked to key
events in their lives. Students shared a wide range of stories covering language
learning challenges and the challenges of having limited English proficiency;
Fig. 2 Writing based on body
portrait exercise (Nyamal)
Fig. 3 Writing task based on identity texts (Armana: 55–60 years old; 23 years in Australia)

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family and relationships, including the loss of loved ones, experiences of loneli-
ness, cultural differences, cultural dissonance as experienced with and by their
children and life events such as war and displacement. The breadth of topics
across the tasks provided the teachers with insights into how and why students
came to be in their classes and the factors which interact with their language
learning journeys, as well as illustrating the knowledge and ideas students bring
forward when more student-centred approaches are utilised by teachers.
Fig. 4 Writing task based on identity texts (Thu: ages: 45–49 years old, 25 years in Australia)

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Literacy From Different Directions
The identity text activities also enabled students to engage with literacy in differ-
ent ways, providing teachers with a new understanding of the literacy knowledge
and experience of students. For example, the activities provided greater insights
into simple literacy concepts, such as page navigation, that students struggled
with in relation to the introduction of identity texts and the grid-based activities
in particular. As Hayley argues,
Fig. 5 Writing task based on
identity texts (Li: ages: 55–59
years old, 8 months in Australia)
Fig. 6 Students’ body portraits as a writing prompt, Hayley’s class

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It’s easy to think that they are understanding what’s going on, and yet, all
the time you kind of realise, oh wow, like, page navigation. They are not
even sure where to start on the page…And because some of them don’t
have the same confidence with their literacy, I think that page was scary -
yeah, like – ‘What if I make a mistake?’ So, there’re a lot of questions like
‘Here or here?’ and ‘Yes,’ and ‘What do you think?’ and it was great to see
because I really saw how long it took to complete something like this, to do
it thoroughly.
Having students think about their life experiences and associated emotional
experiences and express these ideas orally and in writing, therefore, provided
a rich avenue for the students to share information that they had struggled to
express in the past. This process was facilitated by undertaking the activities in
pairs or small groups, unpacking, and discussing ideas in languages other than
English, taking up the opportunity to translate instructions into other languages,
and using bilingual dictionaries and translation tools.
For example, Fig.1 and the accompanying text illustrate the journey of one
student who has been in Australia for 14 years but who has low literacy and Eng-
lish language skills. Hayley sat with the student (in a paired activity with another
student) for 1 and a half hours to work through the activity and commented,
They both are quite low, very low [in literacy levels]. She [Nyamal, Fig-
ures 1 and 2] doesn’t really know the letters. She tries, she might know
them individually, but she couldn’t string them together to make a word.
So, it was amazing to sit with them. It took like an hour or an hour and a
half…They kept asking me so many questions. I learnt a lot about what
they could and couldn’t do…So, the visual representation of time but then
the emotions as well is quite abstract. And they got it. So, they got, like,
‘How did you feel?’ You know, ‘Up, not good.’ They understood that but
weren’t sure how to plot it when it came to put pen on paper. It’s quite a
big thing.
The students discussed and undertook the activity in Dinka and Arabic, bring-
ing their ideas into English in conversation with Hayley. Figure1 provides some
links between the conversations with Nyamal as she undertook the Places I
have lived task. Select comments from the conversation around the identity text,
mapped to the task sheet, illustrate the complexity of ideas the student was able
to articulate verbally during the activity, including discussions around life events,
migration, the challenges of cultural adaptation, and the joy of learning to write
in English. Figure2 provides a sample of the student’s work after multiple drafts
as they reflect on their languages and language learning experiences. The two fig-
ures offer a stark contrast between the complexities of ideas that the student was
able to express through the visual/oral literacy methods as opposed to the written
literacy task. Both methods play an important role in language and literacy devel-
opment, providing space for both identity and language development to occur
(Cummins etal., 2005; Kalaja & Melo-Pfeifer, 2019) and serving to illustrate to
the teachers the affordances of different types of literacy engagement.

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Accommodating Transient Cohorts
As experienced at many RTOs, student turnover is high, posing challenges for
teachers in scaffolding linguistic development amidst irregular attendance. The
identity tasks, however, did enable the possibility of continuing with the same
activities, even as new students came on board, as illustrated in the following
quote from Hayley,
And also, it’s about them, so everyone could do it, even if someone walked
in that day, I could still say, ‘What language do you speak? Can you colour
that in?’ And I find that hard when I’m trying to teach like a progress of
language, which I’m not really good at, when a new person walks in. So, for
example I had a student that came in and can’t hold a pen, you know, and
we’re trying to teach verbs and small sentences. Do you go back to basics
with that student? So, this way everyone could do it, to some extent.
As we noted in “Data Collection and Analysis”, students completed between
one and seven of the tasks the teachers utilised but were able to engage with the
tasks regardless of their attendance patterns. Figures 3, 4 and 5 represent the
work of students who were in the class for different periods of time, completing
a different number of activities. For Fig.3, the student completed one task linked
to the identity text activities. For Fig.4, the student completed 4 tasks, while for
Fig.5, the student completed 6 tasks.
Shifting Centredness
The use of identity texts also prompted reflection on and changes in pedagogy,
including shifting from a teacher-centred and curriculum-centred approach to
a student-centred approach, where the works that came out of the identity text
exercises were used as ongoing resources and practices to support students. Mov-
ing from teacher-centred modelled tasks can be challenging in low-literacy class-
rooms (Ledger & Montero, 2022), but Hayley claims that the activities revealed
to her a stark contrast between modelled tasks that she oftentimes employed and
opened-ended tasks representative of the identity text activities. She argues,
So, I think I was doing a lot of cloze text. I spent hours creating worksheets,
but really, when someone just fills it in, where’s the learning here? It would
be lots of images trying to teach vocab, probably more than language struc-
ture, so I don’t think there was an opportunity for students to really bring in
their stories and bring in, like make meaning themselves.
Hayley also changed her approach to revisiting and building on classroom
work by recycling the texts visually (Fig.6) so that students could use the texts
as prompts when they were writing, an approach that Hayley argues resulted in “a
huge jump in what they were producing.”

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English Teaching & Learning
This approach also allowed Hayley to change the way that she engaged with
students during activities, with less direct teacher instruction and more facili-
tation of learning. As Hayley articulates, “I could ask students questions in the
moment when they were doing their work. I could mediate their learning by ask-
ing guiding questions based on their work, to extend them. These discussions
were dynamic. These moments were really rich.”
For Rebecca, the collaborative research illustrated to her that students needed
clearer instructions and were often unsure about what to do. To assist students in
developing a greater sense of agency in the learning process, particularly when they
were unsure about what to do, Rebecca worked with the students to collaboratively
develop multilingual assistance and clarification posters to be displayed around the
classroom. Rebecca felt that the biggest change in her class came through the integra-
tion of students’ first languages, with her feeling more confident that students knew
what to do; the outcome being “richer, more considered and thoughtful answers.”
By referring students back to the multilingual posters whenever they looked unsure,
Rebecca was focused on reinforcing students’ development of skills in this area.
Challenges ofWorking withIdentity Texts
The visual-spatial nature of some of the activities was a new experience for many
learners whose experience of literacy and literacy practices related to linear print
and digital-based literacy practices. As Hayley noted when spending an hour and
a half working on the Where I have lived grid activity with two students, and as
Rebecca came to realise through translations of students’ conversations in class, it
is not always easy for the teacher to determine when a student has not understood
instruction or how to undertake an activity. Hayley was able to scaffold her two stu-
dents over an extended period of time, an opportunity that was enabled during the
research process but not one that would normally be feasible in class time.
The notion of language learning over time was also challenging for many stu-
dents, particularly for those students without formal experiences of schooling. As
Hayley commented, when asked to think about their language learning journeys,
some students would say, “I pick up a bit here, I picked up a bit there, but that’s just
life, that’s just normal.” The students viewed their language resources as unremark-
able, as they did their translanguaging practices. Hayley felt that the activity was
too challenging for many of the students who linked authentic language learning to
formal schooling, despite the diverse linguistic repertoires and translanguaging prac-
tices theydemonstrated. The experience provided important insights into how the
learners viewed their own linguistic resources, a crucial consideration for teachers as
they bring identity texts into such teaching contexts.
In addition, given the complexity of engaging with some of the identity texts and
associated tasks, both Rebecca and Han felt that there were too many activities to
introduce, and they struggled to find the time to effectively model and engage with
all of the tasks, and to return to or to build on each activity. As Rebecca explains,
“Body Portraits, yes…We did the activity, and then that was it, we didn’t talk about

English Teaching & Learning
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– and, they had a lot of trouble, it was such an abstract idea, so if I’d had more exam-
ples….” For Han, although some activities, such as the life trajectories, were effec-
tive in helping with the sequencing of writing and with grammar, the constant intro-
duction of new identity text activities reduced the potential of the tools as students
were not able to build on what they had learnt from week to week.
Discussion
This paper has focused on the affordances of identity texts as a pedagogical tool for
teachers working with adult SLIFE in English language programs. Teaching within
these programs requires managing an inherent tension between the utilitarian, com-
petency-based, workplace-focused programs, and the more humanitarian imperative
to respond pedagogically to student needs in ways that best facilitate their language
learning journeys. As noted in “Introduction”, there is a range of skills that teachers
of adult SLIFE must engage with, including phonology, writing systems, literacy
development and alternative pedagogical approaches for learners with limited expe-
rience of schooling. With enormous pressure to focus on English input and output,
the teachers in this research project had tended previously to use highly scaffolded,
teacher-led practices in their classes. All three teachers, however, were committed to
the notion of “ideological spaces that move away from monoglossic language ide-
ologies toward heteroglossic language ideologies” (Flores & Schissel, 2014, p. 454;
see also Hornberger, 2005). Within the language learning classes, the teachers had
already created space for heteroglossic approaches to language learning, encourag-
ing the use of multilingual tools and learning strategies, including the use of trans-
lating programs, bilingual dictionaries and languages other than English in class and
learning activities. This implementational space, however, was less clearly defined
in the pedagogical choices of the teachers, given the focus on highly scaffolded,
teacher-led activities, although the teachers did hold the belief that traditional teach-
ing methods were inadequate for SLIFE learners, as has been noted across the
research literature (Ledger & Montero, 2022).
The use of a range of identity texts across a 10-week period provided a point of
differentiation to the more linear, print-based literacy practices and digital literacy
practices typically taught to students in the courses and brought new affordances
into the classrooms. The teachers found that the use of identity texts enabled stu-
dents to engage more abstractly with socioemotional and sociolinguistic aspects of
language learning while also bringing their lived experiences more fully into the
classroom. This, in turn, supported one of the common pedagogical challenges for
teachers of adult SLFIE, namely, incorporating shifts from a teacher-centred to a stu-
dent-centred teaching approach (Ledger & Montero, 2022; Pentón Herrera, 2022).
This shift enabled students to have a greater sense of agency in their learning as they
visually and orally expressed knowledge and experiences that they had previously
struggled to convey in writing. By being scaffolded and supported to bring their
lived experiences into the classrooms and to engage with content that was meaning-
ful to their lives, many students were also able to bring these things to their writ-
ing. The link between oral and written traditions echoes Bigelow and Vinogradov’s

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English Teaching & Learning
(2011) argument that such links help to “break down barriers” (p. 120) to literacy
development.
While the intention of the research was to focus on teacher pedagogy and not
student output, all teachers agreed that across the 10weeks, students produced sub-
stantially more text in their writing activities, leading to a great sense of accomplish-
ment by students. As Hayley explains in relation to the final writing activity,
Yeah, huge! Not everyone was there so I can’t say all did it, but there was
about 10 to 12 of them that were there that day. It was the most writing. They
were like ‘Oh!’ as well and proud and wanted to show off and show each other
because I think, it was more the amount of text. It’s a big deal because visu-
ally, it’s a big deal - because there was so much stimulus…and there was a big
sense of achievement.
There were, of course, limitations with the use of identity texts, particularly the
intensive amount of scaffolding and time that was required for some of the activities
— time afforded by the research project but unrealistic in standard circumstances.
The tasks that required more time were not uniform across all classes, with imple-
mentation affected by teacher instructions, student proficiency levels, and prior
experiences of schooling, among other factors. A limitation in determining the affor-
dances of the identity texts was the high number of activities introduced without
enough time for the repetition of tasks or the development of language and ideas
generated through the activities. All teachers stated that they would do many things
differently when repeating the same types of activities in the future; however, each
teacher was able to identify identity text activities that were effective in their classes,
leading to a range of subsequent, generative activities. Each teacher was also able to
identify which tasks they would continue to use and how they could integrate them
more effectively into the curriculum and teaching practices, although further work is
needed to better understand the pace, tempo and utility of a range of identity texts in
adult language learning contexts.
Concluding Comments
This research project sheds light on the promising pedagogical potential of iden-
tity texts in the context of English language education for adult SLIFE. The study’s
findings reveal several key insights that contribute to our understanding of lan-
guage and literacy development among this diverse and often marginalised group
of learners and of the pedagogical choices which can enable heteroglossic ideologi-
cal and implementational spaces. By engaging with literacy practices in novel ways
through the use of multimodal, multilingual tools, teachers were able to employ
culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogies, enabling alternative avenues
for self-expression and language learning and teaching. The findings highlight the
transformative potential of identity texts in creating more inclusive, student-centred
learning environments and in empowering learners to take a more active role in their
language learning journeys. By implication, the use and affordances of identity texts

English Teaching & Learning
1 3
when working with SLIFE learners should be incorporated into teacher education
training as an important component of SLIFE learner development.
While it is a limitation of this study that many participants intermittently attended
classes and only completed some of the research activities, a strength of the iden-
tity text activities was that they were accessible for students moving in and out of
the language classroom. Although the highly contextualised and often constrained
circumstances of adult language education can prove challenging in the creation
of implementational spaces, further research into the student experience of visual-
spatial tools and writing processes can help us better understand the utility and
affordances of heteroglossic practices within the context of adult SLIFE language
learning.
Author Contribution Yvette Slaughter: conceptualisation, methodology, validation, formal analysis,
investigation, data curation, writing — original draft, writing — reviewing and editing, visualisation,
supervision, funding acquisition and project administration.
Julie Choi: conceptualisation, methodology, validation, formal analysis, investigation, data cura-
tion, writing — original draft, writing — reviewing and editing, visualisation, supervision and funding
acquisition.
Funding Open Access funding enabled and organized by CAUL and its Member Institutions. This work
was supported by a grant through VicTESOL, the professional association supporting teachers of English
as an Additional Language in Victoria, Australia.
Declarations
Compliance with Ethical Standards All co-researchers and research participants gave their informed con-
sent for inclusion before they participated in the study. Plain Language Statement and Consent Forms
were translated into the first languages of participants where relevant. The study was approved by the
University of Melbourne Human Research Ethics Committee (Approval ID: 1853251.1, approval date:
22 April 2020).
Competing Interests The authors declare no competing interests.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License,
which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long
as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative
Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this
article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line
to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended
use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permis-
sion directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0/.
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Authors and Aliations
YvetteSlaughter1 · JulieChoi1
* Yvette Slaughter
ymslau@unimelb.edu.au
Julie Choi
julie.choi@unimelb.edu.au
1 University ofMelbourne, L2, 100 Leicester St, Carlton, VIC3010, Australia