Abstract
Recent developments in SLA, such as learner-centredness, social constructivism, the postmethod era, and complexity perspectives, have highlighted the need for more localized, situated understandings of teaching and learning and greater recognition of learner individuality and diversity. In this article, I suggest an effective way of meeting these needs is to employ learner histories. This powerful form of writing allows learners to use their L2 to engage in authentic, personally meaningful communication with others about their identities, experiences, perceptions and emotions related to their language learning histories. As a text type, they are able to facilitate a more holistic perspective of the learner’s life and reveal the unique interconnections that an individual makes across various domains. They also enable the situated, contextualised and dynamic nature of their learning experiences to become apparent and provide learners with a genuine, motivating purpose for writing. Exploring data generated in Austria with tertiary-level EFL learners, I seek to illustrate some of the rich potential of these text types from three perspectives, namely, those of the teacher, learner and researcher.
Highlights
Within SLA there has been a growing acknowledgement of the potential of narratives, in particular autobiographies, as a useful reflective tool and a rich source of data
I have chosen to employ the term language learner histories (LLHs) in line with the rationale put forward by Oxford (1995), who defines these as “self-report-based, introspective research narratives written by students about their own language learning
I have chosen not to employ the alternative term language learning careers suggested by Benson (2011), as in my cultural context I fear that learners might interpret this in a way which would unduly stress their more recent years of education given that many learners here attend “professional” schools with a specific career focus
Summary
Within SLA there has been a growing acknowledgement of the potential of narratives, in particular autobiographies, as a useful reflective tool and a rich source of data. As Benson argues, “there is no reason to suppose that LLHs understood here as stories told by learners, tell one any less about this reality than other kinds of data.”. They represent “crafted constructions of themselves and their life experiences” Working with language learner histories from three perspectives: Teachers, learners and researchers in narratives in not whether they correspond to reality or not, but how they function, both for the narrators themselves and in relation to the social settings in which the lives are narrated” Before turning to examine the actual data generated in this study, I will begin by considering what we already know about these three perspectives in relation to LLHs from the literature
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