Abstract:Guided by positioning theory and poststructural views of second language learning, the two descriptive case studies presented in this article explored the links between social positioning and the language learning experiences of two talkative students in an academic ESL classroom. Focusing on the macro‐ and micro‐level contexts of communication, the article describes how one of the two talkative students became an accepted member of the class whereas the other one was excluded. Qualitative data and classroom t… Show more
“…Learners exert their agency to author themselves through discursive practices and narrative (Vitanova, 2005). Learners exercise their agency in choosing how they respond to interactive positioning and use reflexive positioning to identify themselves in the learning process (Kayi‐Aydar, 2014; Menard‐Warwick, 2008; Morita, 2012; Yoon, 2008). As Kayi‐Aydar and Miller (2018) summarize,Positioning theory aims to explain how positions and storylines together limit or enable possible actions and meanings to emerge as well as how we assign rights, duties and responsibilities relative to shared cultural repertoires, which in turn shape who we are.…”
Although TESOL educators often incorporate autobiographical narrative as pedagogy to develop language and literacy among language learners, research has paid little attention to how immigrant youths’ personal stories relate to advocacy and social justice. This article addresses this gap by investigating and theorizing how student advocacy developed in an autobiographical narrative project, the Immigrant Student Stories Project (ISSP). Using a positioning theoretical lens and an ethnographic approach, the authors focus on students’ participation and voices in their narratives and draw upon interviews and observational fieldnotes across ISSP contexts within and beyond one high school. The authors’ investigation of the ISSP examined what students do with their narratives and how they are positioned both in and outside of a classroom context, which the authors argue have consequences for language learning and social justice. The study found that learners are positioned as legitimate speakers, community members, and advocates when they are afforded opportunities to share their stories publicly, connect their stories with a larger community, and apply their stories as tools for advocacy. This study contributes to TESOL scholarship by exploring student advocacy through the lens of positioning theory and revealing how advocacy, language, and literacy can develop synergistically through storytelling.
“…Learners exert their agency to author themselves through discursive practices and narrative (Vitanova, 2005). Learners exercise their agency in choosing how they respond to interactive positioning and use reflexive positioning to identify themselves in the learning process (Kayi‐Aydar, 2014; Menard‐Warwick, 2008; Morita, 2012; Yoon, 2008). As Kayi‐Aydar and Miller (2018) summarize,Positioning theory aims to explain how positions and storylines together limit or enable possible actions and meanings to emerge as well as how we assign rights, duties and responsibilities relative to shared cultural repertoires, which in turn shape who we are.…”
Although TESOL educators often incorporate autobiographical narrative as pedagogy to develop language and literacy among language learners, research has paid little attention to how immigrant youths’ personal stories relate to advocacy and social justice. This article addresses this gap by investigating and theorizing how student advocacy developed in an autobiographical narrative project, the Immigrant Student Stories Project (ISSP). Using a positioning theoretical lens and an ethnographic approach, the authors focus on students’ participation and voices in their narratives and draw upon interviews and observational fieldnotes across ISSP contexts within and beyond one high school. The authors’ investigation of the ISSP examined what students do with their narratives and how they are positioned both in and outside of a classroom context, which the authors argue have consequences for language learning and social justice. The study found that learners are positioned as legitimate speakers, community members, and advocates when they are afforded opportunities to share their stories publicly, connect their stories with a larger community, and apply their stories as tools for advocacy. This study contributes to TESOL scholarship by exploring student advocacy through the lens of positioning theory and revealing how advocacy, language, and literacy can develop synergistically through storytelling.
“…This research study affirms how teachers’ collaborative pedagogical practices can serve to increase ESL students’ participation when teachers share expertise and work together for the shared goal of ESL students’ increased learning outcomes. Moreover, ESL students’ participation is socioculturally-constructed (Harklau 2000; Kayi-Aydar, 2014) based on the content teacher's beliefs and perceptions. This participation manifests itself through affective characteristics, such as the student's ‘confidence’ in content area classrooms.…”
Section: Pedagogical Implications and Future Directionsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The nexus between English as second language (ESL) and content teachers’ collaboration and ESL students’ participation in K-12 classrooms is an unexplored research area (Martin-Beltrán, 2010; Kayi-Aydar, 2014) despite federal mandates for collaboration in the U.S. (Kibler, Walqui, & Bunch, 2015). Earlier research affirms that ESL and content teachers’ collaboration can be a site to promote ESL students’ learning outcomes and ultimately equitable educational opportunities for ESL students (Giles & Yazan, 2020), yet less attention focuses on how ESL and content teachers’ collaborative planning and teaching acts enhance or constrain ESL students’ participation in collaboratively taught content area classrooms (DelliCarpini, 2018).…”
“…Discourse analysis is a term used for a range of research methods that study the structure and function of texts and interactions in relation to the social or institutional contexts in which they occur. The main approaches to discourse analysis used by scholars of TESOL are conversation analysis (see, e.g., Waring, ), interactional sociolinguistics (see, e.g., Kayi‐Aydar, ), genre analysis (see, e.g., Paltridge, ), narrative analysis (see, e.g., Barkhuizen, ), and critical discourse analysis (see, e.g., Hammond, ). More recently, newer approaches to discourse such as mediated and multimodal discourse analysis have also attracted attention among TESOL scholars (see, e.g., Hafner, ).…”
This article provides research guidelines for authors intending to submit their manuscripts to TESOL Quarterly. These guidelines include information about the TESOL Quarterly review process, advice on converting a dissertation into a research article, broad introductions to a number of research methods, and a section on research ethics. The research methods discussed here are experimental research, survey research, ethnographic research, discourse analysis, and practitioner research. These are, of course, not the only methods that authors draw on for their submissions to TESOL Quarterly but ones we thought it would be helpful to provide advice on. Each of the sections on research methods includes a broad introduction to the method (or approach), a guide for preparing a manuscript using the particular method or approach, and an analysis of an article published in TESOL Quarterly using that method or approach.
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