Translingual‐identity‐as‐pedagogy: Problematizing monolingually oriented “native‐nonnative” identity constructions through critical dialogues inEAPclassrooms

Abstract

College programs in English for academic purposes (EAP) continue to use deficit “native/nonnative” labels despite a well established academic discourse (Yazan & Rudolph, 2018) that successfully critiques these constructs as being counter to the values of equity, diversity, and inclusion espoused by most higher education institutions. There is a need, therefore, to create spaces within EAP classrooms for students to problematize these constructs, and to provide them with alternative more equitable identity options, as exemplified in the research presented here. The practitioner‐research study focuses on how an EAP instructor fostered critical dialogues in the classroom around “native‐nonnative” identities by drawing upon her own translingual‐identity‐as‐pedagogy. Applying a pluralistic practitioner‐research design and integrating appropriate ethical research generation and collection methods (Jain, 2013, 2014), the researcher coded classroom data using adapted grounded theory and then employed critical and sociocultural lenses to interpret the data. The analyses revealed that by fostering critical dialogue and drawing upon her own translingual identity in her pedagogy (Jain et al., 2021a), the author was able to create opportunities for students to deconstruct the prescriptive “native/nonnative” labels and move beyond their initial over‐simplistic assumptions to a more nuanced understanding of the constructs.

Drama for dialogue of civilizations: Performance as storytelling in the adultESOLclassroom

“…Inviting facilitators who share membership in learners' communities may be one path to navigating public storytelling with cultural sensitivity. In line with Jain (2022), we believe that educators can draw upon their own hybrid, translingual identities to broaden their own, and their students', horizons. However, identities, communities, and intercultural relationships are nuanced, and membership in a particular community (e.g., the immigrant community) may not endow a facilitator with the expertise to ethically facilitate such a project.…”

“…This project's primary facilitator, a community partner, identified as a member of the refugee community. In sharing aspects of himself with the student‐actors, Vahdat served as a model for how to embody and perform multiple transnational and translingual positionalities (Jain, 2022) in a single performative space. He brought theatrical skill and vulnerability into the program, which helped to build a trusting community .…”

“…However, as the project developed organically, Kathleen became a practitioner-researcher, providing support in rehearsals and in scriptwriting. As white American women, Kathleen and Sara, 1 a third facilitator from the ILC who did not participate as a researcher, were reflective of the disproportionate number of white women working as ESOL teachers (Jain, 2022). Vahdat positioned their participation in the improvisations as important to the cross-cultural dialogue of the project.…”

“So, what English do I speak, really?”: A transnational‐translingual‐and‐transracial pracademic inquires into her raciolinguistic entanglements and transraciolinguistic transgressions

“…Similarly, "linguistically ambiguous" multilingual and (mis)racialized English speakers, especially those from postcolonial contexts "of color," tend to hear comments-as exemplified in my own experiences here-that imply a lack of comprehension of the complex histories and present contexts of the English(es) we speak. In deliberately positioning myself as a translingual, transnational, and now transracial user of English (see Figure 3), I further expand upon my previous writings on my alternative (Jain, 2018;Tsai et al, 2022) and intersectional hybrid teacher identities (Jain, 2014(Jain, , 2020(Jain, , 2022.…”

“…Identities are fluid, dynamic, and contextual; and identity (co)construction is often also a deeply contextualized process, especially when seen through postmodern and poststructural lenses (Lee & Canagarajah, 2019;Yazan & Rudolph, 2018). This explains, for instance, why the same person speaks English as part of her translingual repertoire (Canagarajah, 2013) in her country of origin, but in a country of reception she experiences recurring racialization as a native/nonnative English speaker, or her English gets categorized as a type of English (see Jain, 2022), as illustrated in this autoethnography. When the speaker hails from a postcolonial Global South context (Higgins & Sharma, 2017;Parakrama, 2015), her English is further often perceived as not only different but also minoritized as deficient in relation to the majoritized and dominant English variety in the host Global North context (see Jain et al, 2023;Kutlu, 2023;Motha et al, 2012).…”