Speaker
Description
This study reveals the process of reader-identity building through discursive practice in the L2 ER classroom. In the framework of legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) (Lave & Wenger, 1991), the study heuristically observed the students’ participation in interaction, utilizing Young’s (2007) notion of interactional competence (IC) to realize general comprehension (‘normal’ reading as in L1) (Waring & McLean, 2015). The results imply a relationship between participation rate and reading quality in the L2 ER classroom.
Abstract section 1: Relevance
IC involves the participation framework, regarding L2 as a cultural artefact in the L2 community, where learners’ identities are interrelated. IC can be utilized as a ‘tool’ to measure interlocutors’ identity-building in the framework of LPP, where learning occurs as novice learners become full participants in discursive practice. This study explores the validation of LPP, bridging two approaches for general comprehension: readers’ agentivity (Day and Bamford, 1998), which involves readers’ comprehension connecting to the real world, and the technical aspect of rauding–a reading skill to read a text quickly with a certain level of comprehension (Waring & McLean, 2015).
Abstract section 2: Contribution/research questions
- How are learners involved in their interactive practices during the process of reading quality shift through ER?
- What are the trajectories of individual learners’ development, with their value and identification shifts towards reading quality, through ER?
- How do learners realize general comprehension, balancing comprehension accuracy and reading rate?
Abstract section 3: Content/method
The participants recursively engaged in book talks, preceded by in-class reading, in an ER classroom at a Japanese university. The data collection from multiple sources spanned 25 weeks: conversation analysis (CA) (Wong & Waring, 2021), based on periodical speaking tests, interviews of the target students, book logs, and reading fluency tests. A mixed-method approach was used to combine these data for analysis to explore the trajectories of four target students.
Abstract section 4: Outcomes/results
The results revealed the complexity of EFL learners’ identity-shifting process and the balancing of reading rate and accuracy. The multiple data triangulated CA, demonstrating the trajectories of individual students’ varying degrees of ER treatment; the actively participating students tended to be absorbed in stories with unconscious speed and accuracy adjustments, and the less participating students remained in a verbatim understanding. The difference was because the actively participating students established their identities of competent selves in the classroom community, fulfilling the mutuality that was needed for the meaning-making task of discursive practice, while the less participating students did not.
Abstract section 5: References
Day, R., & Bamford, J. (1998). Extensive reading in the second language classroom. Cambridge University Press.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press.
Waring, R., & McLean, S. (2015). Exploration of the core and variable dimensions of extensive reading research and pedagogy. Reading in a Foreign Language, 27(1), 160–167.
Wong, J., & Waring, H. Z. (2021). Conversation analysis and second language pedagogy: A guide for ESL/EFL teachers. Routledge.
Young, R. F. (2007). Language learning and teaching as discursive practice. In Z. Hua, P. Seedhouse, & V. Cook (Eds.) Language learning and teaching as social interaction (pp. 251–271). Palgrave Macmillan.
| Title | Building Learner Identities Through Discursive Practice in a |
|---|---|
| Teaching Context | College and university education |