Taming the Dragon of SRL in a translanguaging-oriented classroom writing ecology: An L2 creative writing Teacher's poetic autoethnographic case study

Abstract

Although studies have shown that Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) is critical to successful language learning, SRL is often treated as a quantifiable and a-contextual trait possessed by certain learners. To personalize, contextualize, and artistically explore SRL, this poetic autoethnographic case study features an L2 creative writing teacher's pedagogical practices and reflections on his multilingual students' journeys of growing as self-regulated L2 creative writers in a Thai university. The inclusion criteria encompassed English-medium-instruction programs with ample classroom-based data. The eight students, four male, four female, came from five countries, i.e., Thailand, Myanmar, China, South Korea, and South Africa, and were all multilingual writers. Data from four students (two male, two female) were analyzed in conjunction with class artifacts and the teacher's fieldnotes. The analysis followed an expanded 5 PT classroom writing ecology perspective, which entails Participants, Products, Processes, Parameters, Past, and Translanguaging. Selected poems were presented and elaborated. The study sheds new light on ways through which the classroom writing ecology interactively activated, sustained, and enhanced the students' agency in L2 creative writing. The author argues that L2 creative writers' SRL can be nurtured through a translanguaging-oriented classroom writing ecology to unleash its decolonizing potential.