Self-Identity Construction：A Study of Two M.A.Studentsina Blended-Learning TEFL Program

曾 晔

1.Introduction

In recentyears,someuniversitiesin Chinahavesetup English-related blended learning MA programs for those who cannot participate in the full-time ones.In contrast with those fulltime students, the part-time students from these blended learning programs may have more diversified learning and working background,weaker English language proficiency,limited study time,fewer opportunities to talk to their supervisorsface-to-face.Thisstudy aimsto explorehow thesepart-time graduates construct their self-identities with their learning process.It is hopefully to benefit both the program administrators and thefuturestudents participating in the similar programs.

Different scholarshavecontributed their ideasabout identity.“It is concerned with how people understand their relationship to the world,how that relationship is constructed across timeand space,and how peopleunderstand their possibilitiesfor thefuture”(Norton 1997：410).Horowitz(2012：2)said,“Identity exists in past,present,and futureframes.Iam‘theme’that wasand my present containsafocuson my becoming evenmore me in the near future.”As far as self-identity,Gao et al.(2003：69)described it was apsychological concept：“people construct their self-identities to understand their personal traits,potential,characteristics,interestsand social demandsand to find theconnection between individuals and the society so as to position one’s own identities.”

Lambert(1979)was the pioneer in the study of the relationship betweenlanguageand identity by proposing asocial psychological model of second languageacquisition.Inhisopinion,the achievement in foreign language proficiency involved not only cognitivefactorssuch asaptitude,but also affectivefactors such asattitudesand motivation.Furthermore,heargued thatthe developmentin theproficiency inasecond languagehad implicationsfor the individual’s self identity,and in turn,the individual’s self-identity had implications for second language acquisition.And when individualsbeganto develop proficiency inthe second language,they might begin to experiencethechangesof self-identity.

Regarding to the changes of self-identity,Lambert(1979)proposed two terms：“additive bilingualism”and“subtractive bilingualism”.Gao etal.(2003)argued thatwhenlearninganew language,the native language/culture and the target language/culture are not simply the relationship of“either…or”or“both…and”;two linguistic and cultural systemscan help to promote each other instead of simply“adding to”or“subtracting from”oneanother.Thereshould bean integration and interdependence between the two.Thus a new term“productive bilingualism”wasproposed by Gao(1994).

Gao(1994)remarked that two languages and two cultural identities could coexist and play a positive role in the learners’communicative activities.

Previousstudieshavepaid much attention to theself-identitiesconstruction and development of full-time undergraduates and graduatesof English and non-English majorsin China(Gao et al.,2003;Liet al.,2003;Ren,2008;Zhang,2012;Xu&Gao,2014).Few studieshavebeen conducted on thebasisof Chinese part-time graduates.

The research questions are as follows：1)To what extent and in whatway does Englishlearning processcorrelatewiththe part-timegraduates’constructionof self-identities?2)Arethere any connectionsamong learners’motivationsand themacro social contexts,and the micro learning contexts?If yes,what are they?3)What features do the self-identities of these part-time learners?

2.Research Methods

Both participants are from a blended learning TEFL MA program of a key university of China.They were enrolled in 2015.Thequalitativeresearch approach isproposed for thisstudy.Asthiswasapilot study,only two participantswereselected randomly from thisprogram.

Interviews have been conducted in an informal conversational style either by Wechat or QQ.These interviews varied in length from 40 minutes to 60 minutes.Having adopted the bottom-up analysis to the transcripts from the interviews,the following common themes were found：1)Background before participating in this program;2)individual’s endeavor and interaction with the fellow students during the first term of this program;3)contradictions and clashes occurred in the process of self-identity construction;4)theintended plansfor thefuture;5)the predominant orientations between English learning and self-identity.

3.Two individual cases

This study aims to explore students’identity issues about English learning in apart-timepostgraduateprogram offered by akey university in China.Thetwo participantswerefrom Grade 2015,Blended-Learning MA Program for English Language Education.

Student A,in her early twenties,obtained her bachelor degree of English literature in 2014,besides she has passed TEM-4 and TEM-8.Sheonce succeeded in the written examination yet failed in the final interview when applying for a full-time postgraduate program of one of the foreign studies universities in China.Then,she worked for a well-known educational institution as an English teacher,whereshefound that shefell lovewith being ateacher and really enjoyed the time spending with her students,yet meanwhile lacking teaching methodology theories impeded her career development.Finally,this program provided her a chance to further her study by fully satisfying her intended major and future career requirements.

Student B,an English teacher from akey secondary school of Beijing,is going to celebrate her birthday of forty soon.Out of her own occupation development’s consideration and personal interest,shechosethisprogram.

The two students were highly contented with all the four courses in the first term of this program including their course design,instructors,teaching methods.Student A stated that although sometasksaredemanding and even torturing butthey all turned out to beinstructiveand beneficial.Student Bsaid,“Since I’m an English teacher of the junior middle school,thisprogram is almost tailor-made for me.Each and every course is practical and useful for my own teaching.”Student A thought thetwo mostsalient problemswere：thegreat amount of reading lists required for each course and lacking systematic theories foundation;and still as a busy teacher,Student B was regretful that shecould not yet solvetheproblem of lacking reading time.The two agreed that this program had impacted them positively in many ways.Through this program,they were able to surf in the state-of-the-art TEFL research and learn more skills other than English alone.Student A was impressed by one of professors’argument that onecan only speak or act with solid foundations.Student Bwasespecially excited to havefound thetheory basis for her previous teaching practice.They believed that one would bereturned if they work hard enough.When dealing with all the assignments and term papers,Student A was quite confident with theformer but not with thelatter;by contrast,Student B was fully confident with the both since she was a competent English teacher for years.When answering the question of“How do you mange to balance your work,learning and life”,Student A wasrelatively easy to solvethissinceshe was freeto work;and Student B regarded that work and learning were all for better life,so shequiteenjoyed in theprocess.Upon completion of thisprogram,Student A would liketo apply for ateacherrelated job while Student B would apply all she had learned from thisprogram to her teaching.Asstudentsof TEFL major,Student A thought English not only helped her become more confident but also made her realize what she wanted in the future career.

From the interview,we can clearly see that both participants have relatively competent English language proficiency before participating in“this program”.In spite of their different background in terms of their ages,education,working experiences and intended goals for this program,they do share some common sense about their English learning and about this program：averagely,they spent around 20 hours a week in the learning of this program;they further understand what TEFL means after a term’s learning;they agree that after years’learning of English,they love their own countries and culturesmoreand moreand they arewilling to embracethediversity of other cultures;they acknowledge that they have advanced in their mother tongue especially their writing skills as their learning of English;they both think the university is a prestigious one of foreign languages,which attract them to participate in this program.What’s more,they are fully contented with the program itself and havetruly felt their own improvement.Therefore,they would like to recommend thisprogram to their friends.

Noticeably,they have different solutions to addresstheir own problemsin their learning process.Student A istrying to find peers’assistance and supervision while Student B is moreindependent.When dealing with thegreat amount of assignments,Student B is more confident than Student A because the former is good at time-management and self-management.

4.Conclusion

The two students are ones who are under almost the same macro and micro contexts,yet they have their own self-identities.Nevertheless,the participants do indicate some similarities.

4.1 Languagelearning and self-identities

Theresearch may indicatethatlanguagelearning could impact learners’development of their characteristics,interests,values,spoken styles and future occupation,which are similar to the findings of Gao(2003),she argued that“in the foreign language learning context,English learning could begreatly involved intheself-identity construction by exceeding theinstrumental language knowledge and skill mastery.”

4.2 Learner’smotivations

In theforeign languagelearning context,being confined by the macro and micro conditions,the individual’s motivations aredependent on thelearners’understanding and evaluation on their own capacities.

4.3 Featuresof theself-identitiesof thesepart-timelearners

Generally,they are confident,extrovert and easy-going.After yearsof English learning,they arewillingtolearn fromthe merits of the western culture and are able to have a critical judgment on their own cultures.They cherish their opportunitiesto study in thisprogram and want to bean indispensiblepart of the university.

It is assumed that those elder learners with some work experiences are better at manage their time and balance their life and are liable to better adapt themselves to the demanding learning.

Due to the limited number,background and the learning context of the participants,this study may have some limitations.