Learning Identity Research Articles

Toward Transformative Inclusivity through Learner-driven and Instructor-facilitated Writing Support: An Innovative Approach to Empowering English Language Learners

English Language Learners (ELLs) have long been targets for linguicism (i.e., linguistic racism) as they are often subjected to judgement based on deficit models of language proficiency. To support ELLs during the COVID-19 pandemic, a long-running, co-curricular writing support program based on a Learner-Driven, Instructor-Facilitated (LeD-InF) approach was modified for fully online participation. Through this approach, ELLs develop academic reading, writing, and critical thinking skills, using their respective course materials and personalized responses from their writing instructors who provide inclusive learning opportunities that specifically address ELLs’ unique individual needs. This innovative anti-deficit, proactive, and risk-free approach not only increased learners’ willingness to write and volume of written output in their academic journal entries (objectively tracked through word count), but also developed learner identity, agency, autonomy, as well as confidence. Analysis of written output volume combined with learners’ end-of-program reflections provide pedagogical insights for addressing and redressing deficit models as well as combating linguicism, contributing important steps toward ensuring equity, justice, and transformative inclusivity so that diverse voices can be heard in the teaching and learning space.

The identity construction of Iranian English students learning translated L1 and L2 short stories: Aspiration for language investment or consumption?

A large number of investigations have highlighted the importance of incorporating literary texts into English language teaching programs. Nevertheless, there are scarce studies on how short stories from L1 and L2 literature play a role in reconstructing learner identity in tertiary contexts. The present research study examines the identities of four non-native undergraduate students concerning aspirations for language investment or consumption. Data collection instruments were semi-structured interviews, open-ended questionnaires, and diary writings. The materials taught in the course consisted of three translated Persian and four target fictions related to loyalty and justice. The researchers used qualitative content analysis to explore the language learners' self-images of initial, story-based, and prospective learning stages. Nearly all the participants regarded language learning as language consumption for pleasure in different stages except for the future aspiration stage; they did not aspire for personal economic benefits. The findings may enlighten curriculum designers in EFL contexts to incorporate literary texts from the native and target cultures into language education materials to provide opportunities for learners to experience diverse identities and meet individual preferences.

Multilingual Identity in Schools: A Q Methodological Study with Chinese LOTE-as-L3 Learners in International and Public High School Contexts

ABSTRACT In language learner identity research, there is an underrepresentation of LOTE-as-L3 learners in instructed foreign language learning contexts. This study addresses this gap by exploring the multilingual identity profiles of Chinese high school LOTE-as-L3 learners in two school contexts and seeks to understand how the schools may influence students’ multilingual identity development. Q sorting activities were administered with 35 international school and 22 public school students who were in their first year of Japanese study using newly developed Q instruments. Five archetypical identity positions emerged and one student from each group was interviewed on their Q sort decisions. We argue that the school environment plays an important role in students’ multilingual identity negotiation. The schools’ ethos, curriculum arrangements and pedagogical goals for language learning, along with the schools’ social dynamics emerged as salient factors that concomitantly shape learners’ experience, evaluations and emotions as multilingual learners and users.

The Impact on Learners’ Identities of Aligning Pedagogy, Design and Technologies With Theory in Online Courses

In the past two decades, much of e-learning scholarship has reflected the tensions between what we as educators aspire to do, the theory we have to support what we do, and what we actually accomplish when it comes to technology supported learning. Some scholars are recognizing that inroads to resolving these tensions can be gained through a deeper understanding of the kinds of identities we promote in learners through our pedagogies, course designs and technologies. If our goals are to promote empowered, self-directed and life-long learners in our programs, then the practices, designs and technologies we employ must all be framed by theories that support such goals. Too often this is not the case. This study forms part of a larger longitudinal inquiry aimed at aligning these three components with 21st century goals and contemporary e-learning theory at a fully online higher education (HE) technical institution in Chile. An earlier pilot focussed on the reaction to this new alignment from the institution’s broad student body of working adults (n=2,300), the majority from socially and academically disadvantaged backgrounds. Narrowing the lens on a small cohort of students (n=14) entering the institution into a cross section of career disciplines, we adopted a qualitative case study approach to uncover a deeper understanding of the identities of these students on first arrival. Our objective was to determine how highly interactive group work-based teaching practices, learner-centred instructionally designed programs and social media-based technologies such as forums and live videoconferencing sessions, impacted their identities over the course of the first 5-month period. Data collection involved in-depth individual and focus group bi-weekly interviews, reflective feedback from routine student questionnaires, field notes, instructor observations and digital activity online. Findings indicated the crucial nature of this initial period for influencing student’s learning trajectories in terms of retention and for promoting the kinds of 21st century learner identities to which the institutional programs aspired. As a surge of institutions worldwide are more motivated than ever to finding effective e-learning solutions after experiencing challenges in their online programs during the pandemic, these results could provide empirical evidence of a viable pathway forward.

Professional education toward protean careers in music? Bigenerational Finnish composers’ pathways and livelihoods in changing ecosystems

Contemporary professional landscapes in classical music fields are rapidly changing and younger generations of musicians are confronting their creative careers, more often than not in connection to self-employment and freelancing. This narrative inquiry investigates the pathways and livelihoods of composers in a changing professional ecosystem through interviews with 10 bigenerational composers in Finland. The analysis is presented in three “factional stories,” in which the empirical material is crafted into “fictional form” by an anonymous first-person narrator. The stories depict how the secure, traditional careers of the older generation are found to be bound to traditional orchestras and ensembles, whereas the protean careers of the younger generation of composers involve passionate pathfinding amid pluralizing ecosystems, within but also beyond traditional contexts and through various collaborations. The younger composers are expanding significantly, or consciously distancing themselves from, the traditional model and values of a contemporary composer. Competition is found to be increasing and professional education described as too short and insufficient in its concentration on technique—this does not provide new understandings and skills beyond traditional composing craft needed for navigating the profession and securing livelihoods. Although similarities are found in the pathways of both composers’ generations, such as strong career callings and experiences of luck, the “struggle” for a composer to find a place in society is more strongly experienced by the younger generation, for which the development of an ongoing “learner identity” is required to embrace—and not resist—such a challenge. As a whole, the study provides a new understanding of composers’ pathfinding through changing ecosystems and suggests that traditional and protean music careers co-exist—even within a single person—while they can also be clearly separated from each other. The study informs higher music education programs in Western countries.

Toward Empowered Identities: An Exploration of Female ESL Learners’ Literacy Through Digital Storytelling

This research explores the learner identity of female students learning English as a second language (ESL) at a public university in Pakistan through digital texts of identity (DTIs) created by them and learners’ associations of educational experiences across time and locations which impact their emergent identities. Following the poststructuralist framework on identity negotiation and “thematic” and “dialogic/performative” analysis, and image analysis framework by Kress and van Leeuwen, 33 DTIs were gathered and analyzed from 10 female ESL learners. The function of gender as a fundamental identity marker in educational experiences was investigated in particular, in order to demonstrate how social identity is established through multiple discourses. The study highlights DTIs’ ability to strengthen learners’ identities and promote more empowered identities through diverse learning environments. The main argument of the research is that female learners use digital stories to create an interpersonal space that expresses strong ties between their family and everyday locations, such as university, and the target language population, all of which shape their social identities as women and learners. The participants felt empowered by associating themselves with competent users of English making authority claims, developing their authority in and via their digital texts.

Adult Iranian English Language Learners’ Identity Work: An Exploration of Language Practices and Learner Identities

Iranian authorities view English language learning as a disturbing influence on national identity. They are concerned about its impact on learners’ identities. Despite the political concern, there is growing interest in learning English in Iranian private schools for personal and social development. This article reports on a study in which six male and two female adult English language learners in Iran were interviewed. The semi-structured interviews provided insights into learners’ identity formation and social practices. The data showed developments in learners’ perceptions of national identity, cultural, and religious practices. The globalization of English has amplified learners’ level of access to the discourse of others, while the level of investment in learning is indispensable in their identity formation. This research argues that English language learning and its associated everyday practices lead to learners’ identity work. This has significant implications for language education in cultures with adverse views toward learning English.

Pedagogic practices and learner identities in two Norwegian primary school classrooms with contrasting social compositions

Using a comparative case study, this paper explores the pedagogic practices for regulating behaviour in two Norwegian primary school classrooms with social compositions that become increasingly contrasted due to an increasing school segregation. Based on classroom observations and teacher interviews and using Bernstein’s concepts of ‘framing’ and ‘classification’, the study has found that working-class students are subjected to a more visible pedagogic practice than middle-class students. The different behavioural expectations in the classrooms shape a passive and receptive learner identity in the former case and a more active learner identity in the latter case. Social class assumptions and neoliberal education policy may underlie the formation of these distinct identities. This paper argues that in an education system that advocates equal opportunities for everyone as the most important value, it is crucial to consider whether visible pedagogic practices promoted through evidence-based programmes rather contribute to reproduction of existing social inequality.

Exploring Pre-Service English Teachers’ Professional Identity Through Digital Welcome Letter

The purpose of this study was to explore pre-service English teachers’ perceptions of their professional identities through the process of composing digital welcome letter. In particular, the aim of this study was to examine how the participants reflected on their professional identity as they worked on their digital welcome letter and the effects of digitizing contents on their professional identity. A total of 35 undergraduate students participated in this study and their digital welcome letters, reflective response sheet, and interviews were collected as data. The triangulated data were analyzed according the categories suggested by Pennington and Richards (2016). The results showed that digital welcome letter encouraged the pre-service teachers to conduct anticipatory reflection (Conway, 2001) that allowed them to consider what type of identities they associate with the image of a “good” teacher. Furthermore, they became aware of complex configurations of their teacher identities that are intertwined with their foreign language learner identity. Digitizing their introduction allowed the pre-service teachers to reflect on how they can better communicate with their students as well as ways to build a positive and constructive rapport with their students in the future. Implications highlight the importance of teacher educators’ role in helping pre-service teachers navigate their developing professional identities and placing less emphasis on methodology-focused training.

How first-year students manage their action crises and motivation to build their learner identity: a look into the critical moment of goal disengagement

How first-year students manage their action crises and motivation to build their learner identity: a look into the critical moment of goal disengagement

Ada, Ada, Ada, and Ada: Transforming Learner Identities through Social Practice

I draw on ethnographic data from a German school to explore discursive practices of educators that rationalize the illiteracy of 10‐year‐old, multilingual Ada. I juxtapose various moments of school life that “thickened” Ada's learner identities and find that special needs labeling often rested on pragmatic considerations of resource management and that cultural stereotyping reinforced a medical diagnosis. I also show that social learning was a way to counteract and reshape Ada's identity as a reader.

Four spheres of student-teachers’ professional identity formation through learning about curriculum development

ABSTRACT Teachers’ professional identity is multifaceted and fluctuating, and while it is formally developed during initial teacher preparation, it is influenced by experiences before and beyond teaching programmes. The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent to which a module on language curriculum development may influence the professional identity formation of international and UK student-teachers enrolled in a master’s programme in teaching English to speakers of other languages at a UK university. The study was carried out with 30 student-teachers in 2021, and data were collected from an ecological perspective as data sets came from the regular module delivery. Findings show that the student-teachers articulated four spheres of professional identity. Located in the past, the language learner identity helped them reflect on good practices. Their present student-teacher identity was characterised by their acknowledgement of language education as a research-informed area. Drawing on these two spheres, they displayed two future spheres of professional identity: teacher identity and curriculum developer identity. The latter demonstrates that the module not only enabled the participants to imagine a new career path but also helped them reflect on their anticipatory agency and self-efficacy.

The Impact of Teacher Education on English Teachers’ Views about Using Mother Tongues: A Teachers’ Perspective

After decades of persistent dominance of monolingual approaches in language teaching, we are now witnessing a shift to pluralist pedagogical practices that recognize learners’ mother tongues (MTs) as a valuable resource. This paper examines data from 44 questionnaire respondents and 4 interviewees to investigate teacher perspectives on using learners’ MTs in the classroom and the extent to which teacher education shaped their beliefs. The results suggest that while most of the participants stressed the importance of maximizing target language (TL) use, some of them also recognized the value of employing MTs for specific purposes, such as anchoring new learning, providing grammar explanations and task instructions, decreasing student and teacher anxiety, sustaining motivation, and supporting learner identity. Most participants agreed that their teacher education program exerted some influence on their beliefs and practices, but their personal experiences as learners and teachers were also named as influential sources. The most notable change in views related to an increased use of the TL, which contradicts recent findings relative to the value of using learners’ existing resources. The paper concludes by stressing the need to examine the curricula and objectives of teacher education programs in the light of the current research on multilingualism in education.

‘They can show you with their body’: affect, embodiment and access to learning

ABSTRACT Academic underachievement of students from disadvantaged backgrounds is an ongoing and unresolved problem. Schools serving vulnerable communities often fail to meaningfully engage their students who are often exposed to significant family and environmental adversities. However, where the educational landscape is overwhelmed with neoliberal processes of accountability and testing, education generally comes to be understood as a cognitive process with little attention to the bodily or affective dimensions of learning. This paper draws on new theoretical ideas in affect and embodiment to build a case for an embodied, affective and creative pedagogy for students who live with poverty and adversity. Specifically, I report on research that investigates how two teachers utilised Creative and Body-based (CBL) provocations to redesign curriculum for disadvantaged students in their sites. In utilising the analysis of two narrative portraits, I highlight examples of bodily affectivity as well as affective pedagogical practices that impact on students’ capacity to learn and teachers’ capacity to teach. Analysis suggests that embodied and creative approaches enable new forms of communication and learner identities through bodies, senses and imaginings. Such approaches provide much needed affective conditions that ‘hook’ students in, encourage dialogue and help them to realise their potential as learners. Outcomes of this work signal an epistemological and pedagogical shift toward understanding bodies and creativity as agents of learning and knowledge production. By engaging with notions of a ‘learning body’ potential exists to challenge neoliberal practices in complex classrooms and support young people to foster stronger connections, hope and a re-inspired aspiration to learn.

Between ‘shopper’ and ‘owner’: emerging agency of lifelong learner in South Korea’s marketing-driven expansion of lifelong education

ABSTRACT This study explores the expansion of Korean lifelong education over the last two decades in terms of conceptualising the lifelong learner as identity and agency. Based on qualitative interviews with lifelong educators and learners at lifelong education institutions, the authors describe the lifelong educators’ use of marketing strategies to turn learners into core members who continuously consume their programmes, which greatly resembles loyal customers. However, these loyal customers did not remain ‘shoppers.’ They came to exercise owner-agency since they felt like they were a part of the institution, which led them into conflict with the lifelong educators over the institutions’ management. This study reveals that in Korea, marketing contributed to the expansion of lifelong education and cultivated the identity and agency of lifelong learners as both shoppers and owners.

How postgraduate university students construct their identity as learners in a multicultural classroom

ABSTRACT This article considers the ways in which a group of postgraduate students position themselves in a multicultural classroom at one university in the UK. Research indicates that postgraduate students actively negotiate and renegotiate their learner identities and belonging in the context of higher education environments and develop new subject positions. The study examines students’ constructions of their own identities as learners and considers their changing identities from the perspective of agency. Our data collected from focus groups and one-to-one interviews with students prior to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, comprise a large proportion of non-UK/EU students, amongst whom Chinese students are the single largest constituency. Findings show that students’ experience of learning is constitutive of the identification work they do during lectures and group-work to position themselves as participants of HE, and in the process, practice othering of students belonging to non-traditional participants in UK higher education.

What helps adult care leavers return to education? exploring the relevance of learner identity and the life course perspective

ABSTRACT Adult care leavers who have spent time in ‘out-of-home care’ during childhood face many educational challenges. While some care leavers may manage to adhere to ‘normal’ timelines within their educational progression, others may experience delays in their educational journey or a longer-term ‘resignation’ from education during their care/post-care journey. In this paper, we offer a fuller understanding of what drives underachievement in this population, as well as what helps care leavers to re-engage with education. Using a case study approach, we explore the potential of the life course principle ‘linked lives’ for better understanding barriers to re-engagement and the processes through which key actors may promote the (re)development of learner identity, and educational re-engagement among adult care leavers, over time. We draw on analysis of data from two studies of positive educational outcomes for adult care leavers - one in education, one in the workplace. Using a linked lives lens, this theoretically-informed paper presents the concepts of support, learner identity, and educational memories as candidates for deepening our understanding of educational re-engagement of care leavers – and comparable populations facing educational challenges.

Groningen 2021

Last year, on August 18th, the Research Network on Learner Autonomy (ReNLA) symposium entitled “Autonomy in the time of complexity in a changing world” took place as part of the online AILA Congress 2021. The symposium was divided into morning and afternoon sessions (Central European Summer time), and for each session we had featured speakers whose trajectories, expertise, and knowledge in the field set the mood for the rest of the sessions. The morning featured speaker was Phil Benson (Macquarie University, Australia), who discussed space as a factor in the complexity of language learner agency and identity. The afternoon featured speaker was Jo Mynard (Kanda University of International Studies, Japan), who presented results of various research projects into language learners’ perceptions and use of a self-access centre in Japan.

Study abroad, heritage language learning, and identity: a study of a mixed-heritage learner of Korean

ABSTRACT This narrative study focuses on how Gina, a Korean learner with a Korean immigrant mother and a European-descent New Zealander father, constructed her identities and engaged with Korean as a heritage language (HL) before, during, and after studying abroad in Korea. Gina’s transformative experiences illustrate the links between HL learning and learners’ understanding of themselves in racial/ethnic/cultural terms. The study highlights raciolinguistic ideologies’ complex influence on the HL development and identity (re)construction of learners who consider themselves to have multiple racial/ethnic/cultural heritages. Although Gina’s HL learner identity hampered her classroom education during study abroad, her family background provided her opportunities outside the classroom that strengthened her sense of belonging and encouraged her (re)construction of her identities. The study provides practical implications for study-abroad program developers and educators concerning the raciolinguistic ideologies that HL learners who identify as having multiple heritages might bring to their HL learning and participation in study-abroad programs. Being aware of raciolinguistic ideologies, preparing students for how their own and others’ ideologies might impact their experiences during study abroad, and providing the means for multiheritage HL learners to share their experiences could all contribute positively to these learners’ continued identity (re)construction, HL development, and study-abroad experiences.

‘If you don’t feel respect then morally, it just takes a lot out of everything you’re doing”: learning in a pedagogical approach inspired by Reggio Emilia middle years school settings

Practice and pedagogy, influenced and informed by the approaches used in the preschool programs of Reggio Emilia is widespread across many early childhood settings in Australia, however, is less commonly used in Australian primary and secondary schools. Little research exists which focuses on the experiences of students in schools where this pedagogical approach is adopted. This paper draws from the findings of a 2019 study undertaken across three Australian schools implementing a pedagogical approach inspired by Reggio Emilia. The voices of students from one of these schools will be used to shed light on their perceived learner identity. The study found that the expressed learner identities were multifaceted. On one hand the students considered themselves to be informed, confident and passionate learners, shaping their world as democratic citizens. However, they also positioned themselves as citizens of the future, sharing perceptions regarding their capacity to compete as successful productive members of an economic society.