‘I didn't speak for the first year’: Silence, Self-Study and Student Stories of English Language Learning in Mainstream Education

Challenging discourses of deficit: Understanding the vibrancy and complexity of multilingualism through language trajectory grids

“…Cross, 2009; Hammond, 2012; Macqueen et al 2019), such complex language resources, curiosities, and literacy practices of multilingual students too often go unrecognized. This omission can leave students with little or no alternatives to build their confidence, as shown in Elizabeth’s shrugging, silence and cutting school in moments of intense power dynamics and language difficulties (on EAL students’ silence in schools, see also Safford and Costley, 2008).…”

“…being the ‘best’ (Figure 9), ‘always get[ting] a high score’ (Figure 6) disappear from their grids in their new contexts. As they move in and out of different cultural education systems, students develop, ‘negative assessments of their abilities which [are] based solely on their lack of experience in English’ (Safford & Costley, 2008, p. 141). Students utter discourses of being ‘not good’, ‘not that good’, or ‘not good enough’ (audio recordings) at English.…”

“…These multimodal methods allow us to explore numerous aspects of learner as well as educator experiences. However, in looking at identity texts to explore the complexity and vibrancy of learners’ linguistic repertoires, Dutton et al (2018, p. 31) argue that when students are not able to understand and recognize their own linguistic resources, they ‘may internalize deficit views of their own skills’ (see also Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003; Safford & Costley, 2008). While each of these multimodal methods allows for exploration of different aspects of the language learning experience as well as the language learner, we employ the use of language trajectory grids to explore the linguistic journeys of learners and to understand the discourses that have led them to their current disposition towards languages education: a sociohistorical perspective designed to deepen our understanding of how educators can work towards transformative goals with their students.…”