Building and Sustaining a Group of Chinese EFL Learners’ Imagined Identities and Agency

Abstract

This study explores the imagined identities of three EFL undergraduates at a local public university in China, and how these identities relate to their commitment to language learning. Data were gathered through classroom observations, interviews, course documents, and student artefacts for two academic semesters. The data showed that the students’ imagined identities with regards to their professional development, academic pursuits, and corresponding social roles developed throughout their language learning trajectories. In turn, their imagined professional and social identities informed their current EFL learning agency in terms of their initiative to learn English at the university. The findings suggest that a focused imagined identity assists students in building self-discipline and choosing appropriate learning skills. As the current study presents a limited group of students that may not fully represent EFL students’ imagined identities in China, a longitudinal study may further reveal other factors that could contribute to this topic in the future. Although the construction and development of one’s imagined identity are complex and dynamic, the data show that the earlier one sets a clear professional or academic imagined identity, the more motivated a student is to learn the target language.

Between Expert and Novice: Identity Transition from Teacher to Student as Sustainable Agentic Construction

“…Yet, it still has the potential to be an important tool for addressing global issues and challenges, thus deserving more exploration. Previous research is heavily skewed towards sustainability of curriculum and pedagogy [37] and EFL learners, such as their self-directed learning experience [38] (p. 2894), imagined identities and agency [39] (p. 4659). Despite many discussions on the sustainable development of EFL teachers, they were primarily concerned with a linear progression, concentrating on factors contributing to a pre-service-to-in-service [40] (pp.…”

“…This study manifests that one possibility of collective efforts is for host universities to capitalise on international doctoral students' professional capital in their respective workplaces, incorporating multicultural philosophies and pedagogies that underpin their prior professional experiences into doctoral research training and mentoring so that these hidden resources could be tapped to improve their post-sojourn EFL teaching. Another possibility is for host educators to assist international students in discussing their future professional goals [39] and facilitating their cognizance of an envisioned identity where their doctoral research sustains part of their professional purpose and practice. As well, it is essential that throughout the doctoral trajectory, the students' emotional states are constantly monitored, supported, and positively nurtured [45] so that a sustainability-oriented training within and beyond a doctoral candidature is enacted.…”

How to construct an appropriate research design for the study of learner identity in blended learning?

“…Some studies (Lave and Wenger, 1991 ; Sinha, 1999 ; Coll Salvador and Falsafi, 2010 ; Delahunty et al, 2014 ) reveal that the acquisition of new knowledge has an impact on individual's construction of learner identity in a given context. Compared with massive studies on learner identity constructed in traditional face-to-face classrooms (Trent, 2008 ; Wearmouth et al, 2011 ; Nasrollahi Shahri, 2018 ; Lan and Lan, 2022 ; Xu and Kim, 2022 ) or online learning (Ginns and Ellis, 2007 ; Mayrberger and Linke, 2014 ; Kwon et al, 2021 ), to date, research studies on learner identity constructed with blended learning method seem scarce and insufficient, attaching to EAP courses in particular.…”