Week 10: The Social in SLA Ⅰ

The theme of the week is “The Social in SLA”, which approaches language learners from sociocultural and poststructural perspective. Whereas traditional SLA understand language learners as a static object, Nortion (1995), Toohey (2001), and Norton and Toohey (2001) attempt to explain why sometimes language learners are motivated, extroverted, and courageous but sometimes unmotivated, introverted, and anxious.

On Tuesday, studies of Norton (1995) and Toohey (2001) were addressed in class. Norton (1995) suggests that language learners possesses social identity which is “multiple, a site of struggle, and subject to change” (p. 9). She investigates five immigrant women in Canada, especially Martina and Eva, both of who succeeded to generate counter discourse in order to reframe power relations with native speakers. She argues that language learners become to be able to speak up even with high affective filter as long as they have investment reflected on multiple, changing, and sometimes contradictory identities. Toohey (2001) unpacked children’s dispute in relations of power. She investigates two children, Julie, a successful learner, and Surgeet, an unsuccessful learner. She suggests that teachers should assist students’ progress considering power relations in classroom. In order to explain two learners’ different levels of success in SLA, she hints that racism had a big impact on Surgeet’s failure of building relationship with her classmates. Through drawing activity, four focal language learners’ social identities were clearly explained visually and the concept of social identity seemed to be understood well by all folks.

On Thursday, Norton and Toohey’s (2001) study was explored. They attempt to reconceptualize good language learners because traditional SLA does not explain why not all learners with good personality and strategies succeed in language acquisition. Focusing on successful two language learners, Eva and Julie, from their previously addressed studies, they argue that both human agency and positive reception to resources from communities of practice are necessary for successful L2 learning. In the activity, we talked about what kind of resources we made visible in order to gain access to members of target community. Reflecting on this discussion, I assume that successful language learners are those who are good at making resources visible. Meanwhile, it might be important that teachers encourage minority students to take advantage of their resources and support them to generate situations where weak they can display their resources in front of peers.

Whereas I believe that there are what teachers can do to support students, I wonder whether the implications which Norton (1995) and Toohey (2001) addressed, especially “classroom-based social research” (Norton, 1995, p. 26), were feasible because through my experience as a high school teacher it is too much pressure to ask schools to challenge social power relations. Schools function involved in a social community where racism, politics, money, authority, and all other massive power factors exist. I suppose that it is important to ask not only teachers to challenge those issues but also researchers to continue to address unfairness for minority language learners and to appeal to public.

As Dr. Ortega suggested at the end of class, we as teachers should enact our power as much as possible to facilitate minority students to reframe power relations. At least, we, teachers can reconceptualize language learners in power relations as multiple, sometimes contradictory, and changing over time in order to shine students in respective ways.