Culture & SLA - Week 13 - Learner and Teacher Identity in SLA

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 13 of the course Culture and Second Language Acquisition for the master's in English teaching at ULACIT term IIC0 2023. This week we will explore the topic of learner and teacher identities and the concept of the language ego in the SLA process.

Today's Goals:

• Explore the concept of public and private self and discuss to what degree your preferences are idiosynchratic or culturally informed.
• Analyze the influence of imagined community memberships on the learning of English around the world. 
• Discuss the roles we have as teachers in shaping our students' identities as L2 and C2 learners.

Guiding Questions:

• How do learners view their personal identity when learning a foreign language?
• How do cultural, social, and personal components intersect in learners' identity in ways that effect their language learning process?
• What role do I play in shaping my students' identities as L2 and C2 learners?

Task 1: Public or Private Self?

Ideas about what kinds of information are appropriate to discuss publicly and which are private depend both on personal and cultural factors. An exploration of this topic can help us better understand different cultural perspectives and it also helps introduce the topic of identity which will be the central focus of today's lesson. Click on your group link below and complete the quiz individually. Then compare your results with your partners.

• Group 1: CLICK HERE
• Group 2: CLICK HERE
• Group 3: CLICK HERE

Theory Break: Cultural Persons - Our Identity(ies) as Cultural Beings

• "Culture resides in persons, in individuals. Each member of a culture, like a miniscule twist in a kaleidoscope, refracts and reflects the common colored lights of their culture in a unique display, recognizably similar yet unquestionably different (Moran, p. 98).”

• “Like other aspects of culture, identity is both explicit and tacit. There are aspects of ourselves that we can describe or put into words and there are others that we cannot express, or that are simply outside of our awareness. Not until we find ourselves in situations where our sense of self – our values, beliefs, practices – is called into question do we perceive the tacit dimensions of our identity (Moran, p. 99).”

• “Identities become even more complex when persons of one culture and language enter other cultures and learn other languages. The degree to which they do or do not integrate these new ways of thinking, acting, and interacting affect their cultural identity. For those of us who are nonnative teachers, these dimensions of our identity emerge in our language classrooms (Moran, p. 103).”

• Exploring our avowed and ascribed identities: CLICK HERE 

• “When students whose first language is not English first encounter the learning of English as an additional language, they cannot really avoid the issue of learner identity (be it imposed, assumed, and/or negotiated) because they must participate in a community different than what they are used to (Farrell, p. 33).” 

• “Throughout their careers teachers construct and reconstruct (usually tacitly) a conceptual sense of who they are (their self-image), and this is manifested through what they do (their professional role identity) (Farrell, p. 34).”

• “TESOL teachers, who are often the first contacts for newcomers in ESL situations and cultural informants in EFL situations, play a key role in not only helping to construct their L2 learners’ identities but also determining how they want to construct their own identities as TESOL teachers (Farrell, p. 35).”

• "At the very least, TESOL teachers can reflect on their own L2 learning experiences as well as their intercultural experiences and identity formation and revisit their classroom teaching practices with those reflections in mind (Farrell, p. 36).”

Task 2: Imagined Communities, Identity, and Language Learning

Pavlenko and Norton discuss the role of idenitty formation and how that shapes English learning around the world. Click your group link below and discuss the questions with your partners. It might be best if you have your study guide available for reference.

• Group Link: CLICK HERE

Task 3: Exploring Bilingual Teacher Identities

Joyce is a Costa Rican English teacher who moved to the US for several years to teach Spanish. In this recording she shares differences in how she viewed herself as a teacher and how others viewed her in both circumstances. Listen to the interview then discuss the questions.

• What aspects of Joyce's teacher identity seem to be important?
• What were some of the differences between how she viewed herself and her role as a teacher and they way that others viewed her?
• What other ideas about the topic of your teacher identity were provoked in you by this recording?

Task 4: Exploring Our Teaching Personas and Language Egos
Click the worksheet link and work with your partners to discuss the questions. You do not need to write.

• Discussion Questions: CLICK HERE

References:

Moran, P. (2001). Teaching Culture: Perspectives in Practice. Heinle Cengage Learning.

Pavlenko, A. & Norton, B. (2007). Imagined Communities, Identity, and English Language Learning. In J. Cummins & C. Davidson (Eds.), International Handbook of English Language Teaching Part II (pp. 589-600). Springer.