A tale of two English teachers: Examining narrative in multilingual writing and teaching

Abstract

This paper examines how multilingual English language teachers use narrative for learning and teaching writing given their own writing practices and beliefs. The data was collected and analyzed using different narrative approaches to explore the advantages and disadvantages of each of these three models: Labov, Ochs and Capps, and De Fina & Georgakopoulou's Social Interactional Approach (SIA). Each model highlights different aspects of narrative. However, due to the contextual nature of multilingual writing, the SIA model proved to be the most comprehensive for knitting together teacher writing practices, beliefs about language-learning, and their pedagogies. Nevertheless, applying all three models proved useful for highlighting the dynamics of language use in different contexts along with multidimensional aspects of storytelling.