Building and Sustaining a Group of Chinese EFL Learners’ Imagined Identities and Agency

Abstract

This study explores the imagined identities of three EFL undergraduates at a local public university in China, and how these identities relate to their commitment to language learning. Data were gathered through classroom observations, interviews, course documents, and student artefacts for two academic semesters. The data showed that the students’ imagined identities with regards to their professional development, academic pursuits, and corresponding social roles developed throughout their language learning trajectories. In turn, their imagined professional and social identities informed their current EFL learning agency in terms of their initiative to learn English at the university. The findings suggest that a focused imagined identity assists students in building self-discipline and choosing appropriate learning skills. As the current study presents a limited group of students that may not fully represent EFL students’ imagined identities in China, a longitudinal study may further reveal other factors that could contribute to this topic in the future. Although the construction and development of one’s imagined identity are complex and dynamic, the data show that the earlier one sets a clear professional or academic imagined identity, the more motivated a student is to learn the target language.