Asian English language learners’ identity construction in an after school literacy site

Abstract

The importance of students’ identity development has increasingly been acknowledged in the fields of second language acquisition and literacy research. In the cases of two populations receiving growing attention in the research literature, English Language Learners (immigrant students learning English in school settings) and Heritage Language Learners (students attempting, informally or formally, to learn or further develop a language other than English that is spoken in the home environment), identity construction is an especially complicated process. These students move between two environments, one where the native language and culture are represented and another where a second or target language and its culture are engaged. Determining where and with whom they affiliate academically, culturally, linguistically, and socially is an ongoing process. This article describes a qualitative study of four Asian adolescent English Language Learners who participated in an after school literacy club where, through reading multicultural literature and responding to the literature and each other through face to face discussions and electronically via a Wiki site within a Read, Talk, and Wiki (RTW) format, they also engaged in a process of identity construction. The article examines how the RTW club created an important space in which this process occurred and how the students made use of this setting.