The common thread of how shifts in identity impact language learning runs through much of the literature of second language acquisition.Ěý In order to explore the research and implications of identity for L2 students, faculty and advisors at the International English Center summarized four articles and considered how to apply the concepts to our classrooms and student interactions.Ěý These articles expand on the definitions pertaining to identity, the sojourning of international students in a different culture, an example of how dialects relate to identity, and applications of how these concepts can be integrated into classroom activities.
Issues of Identity
In “Identity, Investment, and Faces of English Internationally,” Bonny Norton (2015) synthesizes the concepts of identity, ideology and capital in order to build student investment in language learning. The author defines identity as “multiple, a site of struggle, and changing across time and space” (Norton, 2015) as one component that influences investment, or the sociological counterpart of motivation.
To answer expanded research questions surrounding the intersection of identity, ideology and capital in investment, Norton quotes English Language Learners from four linguistically diverse countries. In Canada, young English Language Learners are interviewed and express the desire to integrate into the English-speaking community while still valuing their L1 heritage. The shared identity of comic book readers are a link that can unite these disparate worlds.Ěý In a Pakistani middle-school, English is viewed as an international language for education and science, not only internationally, but also inside nations, where there are many dialects.Ěý In a rural village in Uganda, access to resources and the global connections of the internet limit students’ capital and may reduce student investment over time. Finally in Iran, learning English can safely provide an ideological space of gender equality and status. These voices illustrate how English connects students globally, with a hope for future success and multi-dimensional identities.
Norton provides classroom implications that focus on expanding the students’ voices in the social context of their cultural communities, with an awareness of past experience, present need and future potential all contributing to student investment. The specific application of digital storytelling draws on the students’ multifaceted identities and develops their narratives through different media and styles. Their stories serve to broaden and validate the scope and complexities of their relationships to their changing worlds.
The International Student Journey
In their article, “The International Student Sojourn, Identity Conflict, and Threats to Well-Being,” Joanne Brown & Lorraine Brown (2013) explore the impact of the international student “sojourn” on the collective identity and physical and mental health of international students; the authors define the international sojourn as students’ “temporary between-culture stay” (p. 365) or, in other words, their time spent in the host country as international students. The authors focus on the effect that threats to students’ collective identity as being from a specific country of origin can have on their personal identity and well-being. They suggest that culture shock is an almost unavoidable challenge in any international student experience and can create mental and physical health risks for students because of the environmental and cultural differences they will experience. During their culture shock, threats to students’ collective identity can cause a variety of different emotions creating heightened pride of their own country or inner-turmoil and feelings such as confusion, shame, and anger. Student counselors should be aware of the intricate relationship and tension between a student’s personality and cultural identity during their international sojourn.
To gain data about the impact of the international sojourn on students’ collective identity and self-esteem, the researchers interviewed five female post-graduate students at a British university in their 20s and 30s from Russia, Slovenia, China, Indonesia, and Iran who had self-reported as having questions about their identity.
During their interviews, the authors discovered that for all interviewees “the move to a new culture brought confrontation with unsettling external perceptions of their group identity” (p. 403), yet the response of the interviewees varied greatly. The first interviewee from China experienced discrimination and prejudice against her nationality; for this student, the effect was a “re-identifying with the culture of origin” (p. 404) and the development of greater patriotism and defense for her home country than she had had prior to studying abroad. The second and third interviewees from Russia and Slovenia experienced many misperceptions and ignorance about their country’s culture, history, and economy. The student from Slovenia felt the need to defend her country and “ally … [it] with the west” (p. 406) to change people’s negative misperceptions about her country. The fourth interviewee from Indonesia felt the importance of “resisting the discourse of western supremacy” (p. 408). In other words, she rejected the idea found among some of her peers from her country that allegiance with the west would increase a person’s status. Finally, the student from Iran experienced “resigned and defeated acquiescence with negative perceptions of Iran” (p. 407) and “self-denigration” (p. 408). She felt stigmatized, a decreased self-worth, and stained by what she felt were the perceived shortcomings of her own country.
Brown and Brown conclude that international students’ responses to threats to their collective identity vary greatly but can have strong impact on students’ well-being and greatly affect and even alter their understanding of their own self- and country-worth as they “respond differently to assaults on the collective aspect of self” (p. 409). The authors conclude that international student counselors should be sensitive to the ways students’ cultural identity and the threat to it can deeply impact their mental and physical well-being. Counselors should also become aware of global issues of politics and power that might be negatively impacting a students’ self-perception and how their collective identity and personal identity are so intricately woven together.
Dialects and Identity
The Atlantic’s “On Saving China’s Dying Languages” explores the work of linguistics graduate student Kellen Parker via interview. Parker, who helped found Phonemica, explains that it is a project aiming “to document the way Chinese people actually speak at home” and “to record oral histories.”
Amid this work, Parker collaborated with “folklorists and oral historians” to collect the many stories and linguistic features that are scattered across China and then map the resulting dialects geographically. Parker and his team identified in China a linguistic “continuum where people at the ends can’t understand each other” all while many understand each other’s dialects quite well despite their distinct features. Despite this “mutual intelligibility,” Parker found that Chinese use Mandarin by default with other Chinese and reserve the local dialects for those people who are known to be from the dialect’s original region. Parker also proposed that Mandarin’s widespread use stems from many historical, social and political factors.
Regardless of the reasons, Parker claims that Mandarin is more “consciously” used at home. Because of this shift in linguistic identity, languages with only a few hundred speakers are dying out, but languages with “millions of speakers” are also dying out. Parker does identify some protected dialects that are more geographically isolated, but also acknowledges that these regions often suffer economically as well. In fact, only local governments have made efforts to preserve their linguistic identities, often at the expense of economic development.
Classroom Activities
In the article “Social Identity and the Adult ESL Classroom,” Ullman (1997) gives an overview of student social identity and language learning and describes how teachers can incorporate activities which help students explore their changing identities. Ullman writes that social identity can be defined as a reflection on our changing understanding of who we are, how we relate to others, and how we see ourselves in the past and future (as cited in Pierce, 1995). Ullman explains that immigrant identities are especially affected by new life situations and that they are transformed by the immigration experience.Ěý However, this change is not static as identity can change often and in many complex ways dependent on a person’s “race, class, gender, sexuality, religious affiliation, ability or disability” (Ullman, 1997).
The author covers a brief history of second language acquisition from its narrow focus on language features such as grammar and pronunciation in the 1970s to an awareness of learning styles in the 1980s and 90s.Ěý The idea that social identity can affect language learning was adopted in the mid-90s.Ěý Ullman presents the expansion of this research in the SLA field.Ěý Researchers started looking at how power, language learning motivation (as cited in Pierce, 1995) and social inequalities (as cited in Spolsky, 1989) can all affect students’ speaking ability.Ěý
Ullman argues that educators should help students process their changing identities, so that they can learn English more easily and effectively. In order to support students, the author presents six different teaching activities that give students an opportunity to share and explore their identities, become aware of how their identity evolves over time and in different environments, and help them engage more actively in learning English and living in a new country.ĚýĚý
1. Portfolio Writing – Students write or tell a series of stories (as cited in Taylor, 1992) from their childhood to the present.Ěý By describing personal stories over a period of time, students develop an understanding of themselves and their changing place in the world (as cited in Peirce, 1995).Ěý
2. Dialogue Journal Writing – Students and/or teachers write each other back and forth exploring personal topics of identity (as cited in Peyton, 1995).Ěý Ullman gives an example of immigrants discussing work issues in their dialogue journals.Ěý
3. Large-Group Discussions – Ullman (1997) suggests students compare their identity in their native environment and in the new country.Ěý Returning to this topic throughout a course helps students realize their identity is changing.Ěý Also, having a teacher model discussion by sharing his or her changes in identity can be helpful to the students.
4. Small-Group Conversations – Students share the meaning and importance of photos and objects from their native country.Ěý Teachers can also discuss their own immigration experience as an immigrant or child of immigrants.Ěý Sharing such stories can help students think about their future (Ullman, 1997).ĚýĚýĚý
5. Improvisational Dialogues – Ullman (1997) writes that through improvisational dialogues, students learn about the language and interaction strategies for effectively capturing someone’s attention and being heard.Ěý They then remember a situation in which they did not feel heard and create a short dialogue.Ěý Using the dialogue as a starting point, students improvise a new version of their interaction using language and strategies successfully.
6. Important Discourse – Students can learn about how U.S. issues such as immigration affect Americans’ perceptions of student identities. By focusing course content on current events that affect students, students can read news articles and watch the news to better understand their place in the new culture.Ěý They will also improve their critical thinking skills as they find their place in the U.S. (Ullman, 1997).ĚýĚýĚýĚý
Conclusion
These articles on identity shed light on the diverse journeys that our students walk as they navigate learning English and achieving their educational and career goals. Since each student's experience is unique, many factors of investment, threats to identity, dialect use, and awareness all contribute to shaping a new concept of identity for every individual. As faculty, staff and advisors we can not only understand student’s collective identity, but also strive to validate their individual identities; therefore, we partner with students to help them thrive and adapt to living in a new culture.ĚýĚýĚý
The teaching activities presented in Ullman (1997) and Norton (2015) provide a way to encourage students to talk about themselves by exploring who they are and who they have been.Ěý Through repeated opportunities of storytelling, students can become familiar with their changing identity over time.Ěý Students encountering difficult transitions into U.S. culture can receive the support they need from guided introspection and sharing with their classmates and teachers. By seeing instructors model sharing their own changes in identity, students might feel more confident in discussing their own stories. Teachers who have lived in other countries can also share their experiences with culture shock, stress and anxiety in an unfamiliar environment.
Ultimately our primary goal is to teach English to our students in a new safe and supportive community of learning.Ěý However, all of our students come from different backgrounds and have different life situations, goals, motivations and abilities.Ěý By allowing our students to learn English through activities that encourage self-discovery, we can make their transition to this new life easier. In order to increase students' investment in their new identities as an English speaker, they can reconcile their identification with the new culture as positive while re-framing their past experiences as valuable to their changing identities.
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References
Brown, J. & Brown, L. (2013). The international student sojourn, identity conflict and threats to well-being. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 41:4, 395-413, doi: 10.1080/03069885.2012.729026.
Norton, B. (2015). Identity, investment, and faces of English internationally. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics, 38(4), 375-391. doi:
Peirce, B. N. (1995). Social identity, investment, and language learning. “TESOL Quarterly, 29” (1), pp. 9-31.
Peyton, J. (1995). “Dialogue journals: Interactive writing to develop language and literacy. ERIC Digest.” Washington, D.C.: National Clearinghouse for ESL Literacy Education.
Spolsky, B. (1980). “Conditions for second language learning.” Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schiavenza, M. (2013, June 18). On Saving China's Dying Languages. Retrieved from
Taylor, M. (1992). “The language experience approach and adult learners. ERIC Digest.” Washington, D.C.: National Clearinghouse for ESL Literacy Education.
Ullman, C. (1997). “Social identity and the adult ESL classroom. ERIC Digest.” Washington, D.C.: National Clearinghouse for ESL Literacy Education.