A Narrative Inquiry into Identity Construction and Classroom Participation of an EFL Student with a Physical Disability: Evidence from Indonesia

Abstract

While studies on English as a foreign language (EFL) students’ identity construction and classroom participation in English language learning have been widely explored, there is a paucity of research addressing how EFL students with physical disabilities develop their identities within classroom participation. To fill this lacuna, the present narrative study looks into how an Indonesian female English student with a physical disability developed her identity through classroom participation and how her identity changed over time. The data were garnered through in-depth interviews and analyzed following Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis. The present study revealed that the participant negotiated her identity gradually in a complex classroom atmosphere through multiple stages: the orientation, the rising state, the shock, the adjustment, and identity development. In addition, the study also portrayed that the participant enacted continued and sustained identity changes for her self-survival amid imperfection into the escalation of competence geared from her site of struggle in the community of practice. Implications from the study’s findings are discussed at the end of this paper.