Enhancing ESL Learners’ Identity Lexico-Grammatically in Language Learning Histories Writing

Abstract

The cognitive transition of ESL learner’s role from a passive recipient to an active participant has posed a great challenge for ESL teachers to rediscover learner identity. The study of ESL learner’s identity through narratives has been far from enough. A learner identity through the self-focused reflective language learning histories (LLHs) written by ESL learners could probably well represent the learner’s experience. In this study, ESL learner identity revealed in LLHs was explored to discover how learners use personal reference and strategy of identity construction to establish the relationship with their learner group. A corpus-based quantitative approach was adopted. The corpus was composed of 36 LLHs written respectively by Japanese, Finnish and Chinese undergraduates of various disciplines. Quantitatively, the frequency of first-person pronouns “I, me, my, we, us, and our” was examined and analysed. The data shows that the ratio of singular first-person pronoun in LLH texts to sentence of LLH texts is far greater than that of plural first-person pronoun use to sentence numbers. The use of first personal references in LLHs are unanimous, regardless of their various disciplines or their social background of studying. The findings indicate that the ESL learners use specific lexico-grammatical forms such as singular first-person pronouns in LLH writing and this personal reference and strategy of identity construction enhance the learners’ identity in their university language learning community.

Keywords: Language learning historiesidentitypersonal referencelearning community

Introduction

A language learning history (henceforth LLH in this paper) refers to a piece of writing through which the student tells the history of his/her experiences in learning a second or foreign language. Language learning histories (LLHs) can also be regarded as language learning diaries or journals referring to their experiences instead of the present. Oxford (1995) states that LLHs are students’ writings of language learning self-report, which are aimed to make a self-examining research of their language learning experience (p. 582). Oxford’s definition of LLHs is focused on the personal, reflective nature of language learning records. As a form of self-focused learning narrative, LLHs give accounts of learners’ language learning methods, strategies, learning story, either the accomplishments of or the hardships the individuals experienced with the language both inside and outside of the classroom. LLHs written by ESL learners could provide reliable accounts of individual experiences of second language learning.

Understanding the diverse English learning experience of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learners is gaining more and more attention from scholars and English teachers. Based on a Confucian view, teachers teach best if they use such teaching methods as are best adapted to the students, that is, knowing students and teaching them accordingly. Therefore, it is important for ESL learners to become more aware of their personal learning preferences, and also necessary for both teachers and learners to be more sensitive to the individualized and contextualized characteristics of language learning (Oxford, 1995) inside and outside the ESL classroom, so as to achieve better ESL teaching and learning outcomes.

Literature Review

Problem Statement

The SLA studies now have evolved from regarding the ESL learner as a passive recipient of knowledge information to repositioning the learner as an active participant in the process of learning (Coffey & Street, 2008). Learning is active, meaningful, constructive and creative rather than passive, receptive, and knowledge consuming. This cognitive transition of learner’s role imposes a big challenge for educators inside and outside the ESL classroom. The most urgent thing for language educators to do is to place stronger awareness of the diverse learner identities in curricula design (Doman, 2015), and for ESL teachers, the urgent need is to develop a deeper understanding of the ESL learner identities and their diversities when teaching strategies are employed. Within this trend, ESL learner identities as revealed in the language learning histories are worthy to be explored.

Research Questions

Since academic writings are commonly characterized by lexico-grammatical features such as passive voice and third-person pronouns for impersonality and objectivity as the norms, especially in academic writing of natural sciences while LLHs are much personal and autobiographical. The study significantly investigates the following research questions: (1) How do ESL learners identify themselves through LLH writing? (2) What are the lexico-grammatical features of first-person pronoun use in LLH writing by ESL learners?

Purpose of the Study

The study explores ESL learner identity revealed in LLHs to discover how learners use personal reference and strategy of identity construction for establishing their relationship with their learner group.

Research Methods

Findings

In this chapter, the corpus has been processed with AntConc and the data has been collected accordingly. A functional analysis of the data has been carried out, and the results of analysis have been collected by a statistical approach.

The general picture of the corpus is given in Table 01 , focusing on the ratio of first-person pronouns to sentences and the frequency of first-person pronouns per 1000 words. As the Table indicates that, the ratio of first-person pronouns to sentences in LLHs texts among the three different ESL learner groups are similar, with the characteristic pattern of using 1.4 to 1.8 first-person pronouns per single sentence in LLH writing. We can also see that, the frequency of first-person pronouns per 1000 words in the individual LLHs corpus is much the same in permille, accounting for around 112‰, meaning that the ESL learners of different social backgrounds of studying use first-person pronouns in their LLHs with great similarity in frequency.

Based on the general understanding of the ESL learners’ personal reference in LLHs, the author moved on with the examination of the specific first-person pronoun usage in LLHs, so that the particular lexico-grammatical features of first-person pronoun use in LLH writing by ESL learners could be revealed. The data collected from the LLHs texts is shown in the tables below.

In Table 02 , we can see that firstly, among all the first-person pronouns used in LLHs corpus, that the sequential order of first-person pronoun choice by three different ESL learner groups follow the similar pattern, with “I”>“my”>“me”>“we”>“us”>“our” from highest permille to lowest permille. Secondly, the personal reference in LLH writing by the three different ESL learner groups is embodied commonly by singular first-person pronouns “I” and “my”, with high frequency ranging from Chinese 81‰, Finnish 99‰, to Japanese 104‰, much higher than the frequency of plural first-person pronouns “we”, “us” and “our”, being Chinese 24.75‰, Finnish 2.63‰ and Japanese 4.20‰ respectively.

After discussion of the general landscape of first-person pronoun use in LLHs written by three different ESL learner groups, the prominent and non-prominent personal reference characteristics have become obvious. Singular first-person pronouns have been extensively employed to represent the learners’ personal identity and establish social relations with the language learning community. The hidden mechanism of this learner choice is worth exploring and the learner strategy of identity construction can further be identified through closer examination of the data.

In Table 03 , the ratio of singular first-person pronouns to sentences in LLHs texts between the Japanese and Finnish ESL learner groups are similar, with the characteristic pattern of using 1.7 to 1.8 singular first-person pronouns per single sentence in LLH writing. And the Chinese ESL learner group uses 1.1 per single sentence in LLH writing, which is a little less than that of the other two learner groups. The singular first-person pronouns per 1000 words in the individual LLHs corpus is following the similar pattern, with the frequency of 110‰ and 107‰ for the Japanese and Finnish ESL learner groups respectively, higher than that of 87.78‰ for the Chinese ESL learner groups. The difference in use of singular first-person pronouns “I”, “me”, “my” between Chinese ESL learners and other two groups is not statistically significant.

Also, revealed in Table 03 , the ratio of plural first-person pronouns to sentences in LLHs texts between the Japanese and Finnish ESL learner groups are similar, being 0.066 and 0.044 plural first-person pronouns to one single sentence. However, the difference in use of plural first-person pronouns between Chinese ESL learners and other two groups are rather significant. Chinese ESL learners prefer to use plural first-person pronouns “we”, “us”, “our” more than Japanese and Finnish ESL leaners do, with frequency of 24.75‰, being four to eight times higher than Japanese 4.20‰ and Finnish 2.63‰. Chinese ESL leaners display a high tendency of using this self-inclusive reference in their LLH writing. The analysis above shows that, aside from giving a highly acknowledged reference of the writer him/herself in personal LLH writing, Chinese learners still give reasonable recognition to “group” or a larger learning collective. This can be explained with the unique Chinese characteristic notion and belief of collectivism rather than individualism.

From Table 03 , the ratio of singular first-person pronoun in LLHs texts to sentence of LLHs texts is far greater than that of plural first-person pronoun use to sentence numbers, despite of their various disciplines or their social background of studying.

Tables and relevant analysis show that the first personal reference in three corpora of ESL learner’s LLHs texts have approximately the same high frequency of occurrence. This indicates that the strategy of identity construction employed by the three different ESL learner groups is unanimous.

Conclusion

In this research, close examination of the LLHs texts written by ESL students ranging from English majors to non-English majors of various disciplines, and the investigation of each circumstance of first-person pronoun use in LLHs corpus have been done before the analysis of the occurrence frequency of the linguistic items of first-person pronouns is made. Meanwhile, a statistical approach has been used to examine the occurrence frequency for each of the linguistic features.

The common lexico-grammatical features of the first-person pronoun usage in LLHs has been found that, firstly, first-person pronouns have great density in LLHs; secondly, the major personal reference is commonly represented by the use of singular first-person pronouns “I”, “me” and “my” in all the three groups of ESL learners from different social backgrounds of studying; thirdly, the frequency of singular first-person pronouns “I”, “me” and “my” is much higher than that of plural first-person pronouns “we”, “us” and “our”; fourthly, ESL learners tend to use unanimous strategy of identity construction to establish their relationship with their learner group and enhance their learner identity in the university language learning community they belong to.

These findings have two implications for ESL classroom teaching. First, these would help ESL teachers deepen their understanding the diversities of both ESL learner identities and English learning experience; and facilitate a better concept of suitability between teaching contents and students for better teaching results. Second, ESL teachers would base their classroom teaching design of methods and strategies on their recognition of students’ diversities in learning motivations and learning patterns. Knowing learners well could empower teaching efficiency and sustainability.

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