Multilingual learners confront challenges not only in mastering new languages but also in forming new identities. Guided by the investment model, we traced the learning of Chinese and English of two Uyghur women who attended a coastal Chinese university and investigated how they navigated the Chinese mainstream education system to university…

The Korean heritage language (HL) speakers exercised their "agency" to speak Korean HL, and transformed their ambivalent language experiences, caused by the contradictory ideologies of assimilation and racialization operating in the United States, into a conducive "third space" (Bhabha, 1994), where they recreated their ethnic…

This study investigates what characteristics are considered important for a hypothetical multilingual person to be perceived as a "native" speaker of English. The data was collected from 521 participants from the United Kingdom, Singapore and South Korea, responding to a survey comprised of 30 questions with opportunities for qualitative…

This study explores the identity positions that L2 English learners/users would take in case of hypothetical miscommunications. Based on positioning theory, at the time of L2 interaction, L2 learners assign themselves and others specific positions which are established through their learning experiences. It was hypothesized that their current…

The number of international students in U.S. higher education has increased in recent years. Many of these students face English language challenges, but we know little about what faculty across the disciplines are doing to support their linguistic needs. This article presents findings from a qualitative study comprised of interviews with 15…

Internationalization of university curricula is the main reason why the number of bilingual teaching practices (BTPs) in university courses is on the rise around the world. This article reports the perceptions of this type of practice from 70 science students (43 females and 27 males, 17-24 years old) from a Colombian university. A questionnaire…

This article discusses a Saudi female student's experiences in the United States over two years, focusing on the process of negotiating and constructing her gender identity. The analysis addresses her conflicts and struggles with Saudi gender ideologies in and out of classrooms. Examining the intra-group conflict concerning gender and culture in…

There has been an influx of school-aged North Korean refugees defecting to South Korea in recent years. Research examining their integration into South Korean schools has shown that these students consider English to be one of the biggest obstacles to their academic endeavors. However, not much attention has been paid to examining the difficulties…

This article proposes translingual dispositions as a way to move beyond the NES/NNES dichotomy in understanding language teacher identity. Recent scholarship in TESOL and Applied Linguistics has problematized the NES/NNES binary from a poststructuralist perspective, highlighting how NES/NNES subjectivities are discursively and performatively…

The current study examined how a North Korean defector attending a college in South Korea transformed her identity while learning English. This study was grounded in the notion of second language learning as a struggle of a socially constituted being in which the language learner constantly structures and restructures his or her social identity.…

When educators do not facilitate English language learners' (ELLs) social integration in schools, this can perpetuate ELLs' marginalized status and the plateauing of ELLs' English language development. This study highlights a program for secondary ELLs called the ELL Ambassadors program, which partnered ELLs with non-ELLs based on shared…

This study was based on the view that collective conceptions of learners have intimate connections with both social and linguistic analysis and language education. It set out to examine systematically the perceptions of Chinese college students on English and English education against the background of both the increasing role of English in the…

Taking a broad interest in the linguistic, educational, and identity issues relevant to young people, this article examines the experiences and discourses of linguistic minority youth in the French-dominant context of Québec City. Our analysis is based on qualitative interviews conducted with 10 young people who speak a language other than French…

This article investigates university students' attitudes and perceptions about language in a multilingual country where most instruction is in English and annual national literacy results have been declining for at least 15 years. Despite this decline, English seems to be entrenched as the language of instruction, and at university it seems a…

It has been suggested that in foreign language learning and ELF situations, identity might not be implicated in any great extent. Focusing on the impact globalization has on identities, the purpose of this study is to consider whether identity might be involved in Swedish students' reasons for enrolling on an English-medium university program and,…