Narrative data and analysis in Second Language teaching and learning
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25170/ijelt.v11i2.1492Keywords:
narrative research, Second Language Education, research methodologyAbstract
The present paper offers a modest contribution to the existing and ongoing attempt to find a place for narrative research in language education. The purpose is mainly to explore and highlight insights gleaned from narrative research with regard to narrative data and analysis. Due to the diverse and unique nature of second language learning and teaching, I would argue that gathering narrative data from second language learners are paramount and in line with the existing attempt to view second language teaching and learning in its own right and not as imitation of first language learning. To develop my argument, I will first discuss the position of narrative research in second language education highlighting the contribution and insights that narrative research brings to second language teaching and learning. I will proceed to define narrative research and explains the various tools to elicit narrative data as well as issues that narrative researcher needs to consider when collecting narrative data. The paper ends by looking at issues and strategies in analyzing narrative data. In all of the discussion, relevant research is cited to illustrate the point being discussed. The paper will end by highlighting that the discussion about narrative data and analysis are not aimed to replace other tools of data elicitation and analysis. Rather, it aims to invite teachers and researchers to see narratives as a viable option in research as the methodology continues to move forward.
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Riessman, C. K. (2001). Analysis of personal narratives. In J.F. Gurbium and J.A. Holstein, (Eds.), Handbook of Interview Research: Context and Method (pp. 695-710). New York: Sage.
Sim, F. Y. (2006). “Don’t worry a lot, dear!: Reflections of PRC ESL learners on their English language learning experience. Reflections on English language teaching, 5(2), 25-46.
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Sparkes, A. C. (2002). Telling Tales in Sport and Physical Activity: A qualitative journey. Urbana-Champaign, IL: Human Kinestics Press.
Stake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Tomlinson, B. (2000). Talking to yourself: The role of the inner voice in language learning. Applied Language Learning, 11(2), 123-154.
Troschim, W. (2002). Research methods knowledge base. Retrieved December 10, 2003 from http://trochim.human.cornell.edu/tutorial/.
Tsui, A. B. M. (2007). Complexities of identity formation: A narrative inquiry of an EFL teacher. TESOL Quarterly, 41(4), 657- 680.
Vitanova, G. (2004). Gendered enactments in immigrants’ discursive practices: Bringing Bakhtin to the dialogue. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 3(4), 261-277.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zacharias, N.T. (2010). The teacher identity construction of 12 Asian NNES teachers in TESOL graduate programs. The Journal of Asia TEFL, 7(2), 177-197. Retrieved from http://www.asiatefl.org/journal/main_sample24.html
Zacharias, N.T. (2014). Second language teacher contributions to student classroom participation: A narrative study of Indonesian learners. ELTWorldOnline, http://blog.nus.edu.sg/eltwo/?p=4358
Zhang, L. J. (2001). My inner voice is telling me: Students’ inner voice as metacognition about language learning. REACT, 20(1), 13-20.
Barkhuizen, G. and Wette, R. (2008). Narrative frames for investigating the experiences of language teachers. System, 36, 372-387
Barkhuizen, G. (2011). Narrative knowledging in TESOL, TESOL Quarterly, 45(3), 391-414.
Barkhuizen, G., Benson, P., Chik, A. (2014). Narrative Inquiry in Language Teaching and Learning Research. New York: Routledge.
Clark, C. M. and Peterson, P. L. (1986). Teachers’ thought processes. In M.C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed.) (255-296). New York: Macmillan.
Cotterall, S. and Murray, G. (2009). Enhancing metacognitive knowledge: Structure, affordances and self. System, 37, 34-45.
Creswell, J. W. (2007). Qualitative Inquiry & Research Design (2nd ed.): Choosing among five approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Dörnyei, Z. (2007). Research Methods in Applied Linguistics: Quantitative, Qualitative and Mixed Methodologies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gibson, S. (2003). Narrative of a pre-service teacher. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 2(3), 35-46.
Hesse-Biber, N. S. and Leavy, P. (2006). The Practice of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Higgins, C. and Sandhu, P. (2015). Researching identity through narrative approaches. In M. Bigelow and J. Ennser-Kananen (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Educational Linguistics (pp. 50-62). New York: Routledge.
Labov, W. (2006). Narrative pre-construction. Narrative Inquiry, 16(1), 37-45.
Lantolf, J.P. and Pavlekno, A. (2001). (S)econd (L)anguage (A)ctivity Theory: Understanding Second Language Learners as People. In M. P. Breen (Ed.), Learner Contributions to Language Learning (pp. 141-158). London: Longman.
Lee, E. and Simon-Maeda, A. (2006). Racialized research identities in ESL/EFL research. TESOL Quarterly, 40(3), 573-594.
Liu, Y. and Xu, Y. (2011). Inclusion or exclusion?: A narrative inquiry of a language teacher’s identity experience in the ‘new work order’ of competing pedagogies. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27, 589-597.
Manara, C. (2013). English language educators’ professional learning as a site of identity struggle. Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities, 21(3), 1193-1212.
McCafferty, S. G. (1994). The use of private speech by adult ESL learners at different levels of proficiency. In J.P. Lantolf and G. Appel (Eds.), Vygotskian approaches to second language research (pp. 117-134). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Menard-Warwick, J. (2011). A methodological reflection on the process of narrative analysis: Alienation and identity in the life histories of English language teachers. TESOL Quarterly, 45(3), 564-574.
Mistry, J. (1993). Cultural context in the development of chidlren’s narratives. In J. Altarriba (ed.), Cognition and Culture: A Cross-cultural Approach to Psychology (pp. 207-228). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers.
Mitton-Kükner, J., Nelson, C., and Desrochers, C. (2010). Narrative inquiry in service learning contexts: Possibilities for learning about diversity in teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26, 1162-1169.
Murphey, T. (1999). Publishing students’ language learning histories: For them, their peers, and their teachers. Between the keys: The newsletter of the JALT material writers SIG 7(2), 8-11.
Nekvapil, J. (2003). Language biographies and the analysis of language situations: On the life of the German community in the Czech Republic. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 162, 63-83.
Nelson, C. D. (2011). Narratives of classroom life: Changing conceptions of knowledge. TESOL Quarterly, 45(2), 463-485.
Nunan, D. (1989). Understanding Language Classrooms. Cambridge: Prentice Hall.
Nunan, D. and Choi, J. (2001). Language and Culture: Reflective narratives and emergence of identity. New York: Routledge.
Park, G. (2012). “I am never afraid of being recognized as an NNES”: One teacher’s journey in claiming and embracing her nonnative-speaker identity. TESOL Quarterly, 46(1), 127-146.
Pavlenko, A. (2001). “In the world of the tradition I was unimagined”: Negotiation of identities in cross-cultural autobiographies. International Journal of Bilingualism, 5(3), 317-344.
Pavlenko, A. (2007). Autobiographic narratives as data in applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics, 28(2), 163-188.
Pavlenko, A. (2008). Narrative analysis. In L. Wei and M. G. Moyer (Eds.), The Blackwell Guide to Research Methods in Bilinguals and Multilingualism (pp. 311-325). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Plews, J. L., Breckenridge, Y., and Cambre, M. (2010). Mexican English teachers’ experiences of international professional development in Canada: A narrative analysis. Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 7(1), 5-20.
Potocka, D. (2011). Second language teacher education: Shifting paradigms and future challenges. In M. Pawlak (Ed.), Extending the Boundaries of Research on Second Language Learning and Teaching (pp. 169-180) ). Berlin: Springer.
Riessman, C. K. (2001). Analysis of personal narratives. In J.F. Gurbium and J.A. Holstein, (Eds.), Handbook of Interview Research: Context and Method (pp. 695-710). New York: Sage.
Sim, F. Y. (2006). “Don’t worry a lot, dear!: Reflections of PRC ESL learners on their English language learning experience. Reflections on English language teaching, 5(2), 25-46.
Simon-Maeda, A. (2004). The complex construction of professional identities: female EFL educators in Japan speak out. TESOL Quarterly, 38, 406-436.
Smith, B. (2001). The state of the art in narrative inquiry: Some reflections. Narrative Inquiry, 17(2), 391-398.
Smith and Sparkes (in press). Contrasting perspectives on narrating selves and identities: An invitation to dialogue. Qualitative Research.
Sparkes, A. C. (2002). Telling Tales in Sport and Physical Activity: A qualitative journey. Urbana-Champaign, IL: Human Kinestics Press.
Stake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Tomlinson, B. (2000). Talking to yourself: The role of the inner voice in language learning. Applied Language Learning, 11(2), 123-154.
Troschim, W. (2002). Research methods knowledge base. Retrieved December 10, 2003 from http://trochim.human.cornell.edu/tutorial/.
Tsui, A. B. M. (2007). Complexities of identity formation: A narrative inquiry of an EFL teacher. TESOL Quarterly, 41(4), 657- 680.
Vitanova, G. (2004). Gendered enactments in immigrants’ discursive practices: Bringing Bakhtin to the dialogue. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 3(4), 261-277.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zacharias, N.T. (2010). The teacher identity construction of 12 Asian NNES teachers in TESOL graduate programs. The Journal of Asia TEFL, 7(2), 177-197. Retrieved from http://www.asiatefl.org/journal/main_sample24.html
Zacharias, N.T. (2014). Second language teacher contributions to student classroom participation: A narrative study of Indonesian learners. ELTWorldOnline, http://blog.nus.edu.sg/eltwo/?p=4358
Zhang, L. J. (2001). My inner voice is telling me: Students’ inner voice as metacognition about language learning. REACT, 20(1), 13-20.
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2016-10-31
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