Language learning journals are a popular method to study language learning in beyond the classroom contexts, providing access "into the internal, largely private world of the language learners." (Bailey, 2022, p. 355). However, as students write them with the teacher-researcher as the intended audience, journals reveal only glimpses of students' conceptions of what is "reportable" learning. Thus, it is important to assess the instructor's role in the students' responses.
This paper explores and analyzes how students perform their learning and "talk" to their instructor in their written reflections of learning. The data came from an electronic portfolio task in which students in an American university-level Finnish Studies program reported and reflected on their independent Finnish language use beyond the class. I engaged in exploratory practice (Hanks, 2017), in the study that followed the process of nexus analysis (Scollon & Scollon, 2004). The data were analyzed using discourse analysis and the central concepts of nexus analysis: historical body, interaction order and discourses in place.
In their reflections, following the discourses in place of the portfolio task that directed for structured reflection, the students explicitly explained their choices to their instructor (see Gee, 2014, p. 3-6), positioning their activities as learning activities. In the interaction order, the students oriented to the task and to the instructor as recipient (see Gee, 2014, p. 20), sometimes explicitly addressing the instructor, asking questions, or posing requests. Students also performed their role as non-experts of the language (Hauser, 2018), positioning the instructor or their interlocutor as the expert. They made salient their historical bodies as language learners – their beliefs of language learning and 'being' a good language learner (Scollon & Scollon, 2004).
The study informs teacher-researchers about what students perceive as the most prominent examples of their learning. The results can be used to adapt pedagogical practices that shape students' conceptions of language learning. The study will also inform teacher-researchers about how to enhance self-reflection about their own role in practitioner research.
References
Bailey, K. M. (2022) Language Learning Diary Studies in Learning Beyond the Classroom Contexts. In Reinders, Lai & Sundqvist, 2022) The Routledge Handbook of Language Learning and Teaching Beyond the Classroom (pp. 354-366). Routledge.
Gee, J. P. (2014). An Introduction to Discourse Analysis. Theory and Method. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315819679
Hanks, J. (2017). Exploratory Practice in Language Teaching: Puzzling About Principles and Practices. New York: Palgrave Maxmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-45344-0
Hauser, E. (2018) Being a Non-expert in L2 English: Constructing Egalitarianism in Group Preparation Work. Hacettepe University Journal of Education (HUJE) 33(Special Issue): 93-112 [2018] doi: 10.16986/HUJE.2018038798
Richards, J. C., Richards, J. C. R., & Lockhart, C. (1994). Reflective teaching in second language classrooms. Cambridge university press.
Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. B. K. (2004). Nexus Analysis. Discourse and the Emerging Internet. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203694343
