A Narrative Inquiry Into English Images Of A Chinese Student In America

In the field of second language acquisition, most of the Chinese scholars’ attention has been paid to quantitatively investigating English learning in classrooms, due to the context of English being taught as a foreign language. To a large extent, in what way the English learning continues when Chinese students move into a foreign landscape (naturalistic context) is ignored. The author, as a Chinese student in America, initiates a self-study by exploring her English learning experiences through the concept of "image", which is originally developed in the field of teaching. Based on its essential concept, the English learning "image" in this research is defined as a nexus connecting students’ experiences, on-campus and off-campus, with their learning practices. The images are originated from learners’ individual experiences and embodied in their actions. Therefore, the "image" concept provides a channel for researchers to explore the dynamic interactions between experiences and English learning. Being driven by the puzzle in her mind that English has not been substantially improved as expected after she arrived in America, which is also true for many Chinese international students, the author probes into her English learning images through the narrative inquiry method. The data are mainly collected from narratives regularly recorded in the form of journal entries. As for the interpretation section, what is incorporated is the "three-dimensional narrative space" including the temporality (past, present and future), people/society interaction and situation (place). Through a deep digging into those narratives, the author’s early English learning image of "memorization is the key" comes to the surface. It originates from her learning experiences at middle school and keeps exerting influences on her learning behaviors in the following years until she moved from China to America. The change of the context brings her totally new experiences, which gradually lead the author to give up the original image and form a new one:"learning by using". It indicates that the author starts learning English through the repetitive use of language. In the meantime, several factors of the experiences in two landscapes (China and America) are found to play significant roles in forming, modifying and even changing the author’s English learning image. They include language philosophy, goals, identity, culture and emotions. How those different factors are entwined with the author’s learning images will be further discussed in detail. This study, through a narrative exploration of the author’s English learning images, puts learning and the learner with her life experiences together under the spotlight. Instead of providing further suggestions for English learning and teaching, this study aims at provoking readers to consider learners as human beings with their own unique experiences, which integrates language learning with learners’ life. Methodologically, narrative inquiry is held to explore deeply into learners and thus provide an alternative perspective for the field of second language acquisition.