Discourse on a Language-Learning Trajectory: An Undergraduate’s Progress Beyond Becoming a User of English to Developing an English-Speaking Identity

Abstract

An undergraduate student evaluates his four-year self-directed language learning journey at a university in Japan, and—together with the learning advisor he shared his learning journals with—puts forward a proposition about how the process of transformational learner development works. The paper begins with a year-by-year autoethnographic account of self-directed study, through analysis of journal entries. Next, the authors draw on Kato and Mynard’s (2015) Learning Trajectory in Transformational Advising to develop a revised model. This model hypothesizes that following a transformational experience, learners need to rebuild their worldview, which can be a draining process. This reconceptualization of what happens after a transformational learning experience is of use to educators and course designers, in order to ensure learners are given appropriate support, and to students in assisting them to understand their current situations.