Transnational Identities And Practices In English Language Teaching

The self-inquiries in this edited volume exemplify the dynamism that permeates global ELT, wherein English language educators and teacher educators are increasingly operating across blurred national boundaries, creating new ‘liminal’ spaces, charting new trajectories, crafting new practices and pedagogies, constructing new identities, and reconceptualizing ELT contexts. This book captures the diverse voices of emerging and established ELT practitioners and scholars, originally from and/or operating in non-Western contexts, spanning not only the so-called non-Western ‘peripheries’, but also peripheries created within the ‘center’ when certain members are minoritized on the basis of their race, language, and/or place of origin. The chapters address a range of related issues occurring at the intersections of personal and professional identities, pedagogy and classroom interactions, as well as research and professional practices in liminal transnational spaces.

The edited volume contributes to the comprehensive and inclusive understanding of the global ELT landscape in instructional settings within and across countries. It brings together language teachers, educators and researchers who use their experiences of shuttling across borders to reflect on the shaping of their pedagogical and research practices.

This innovative volume showcases the possibilities of autoethnography as a means of exploring the complexities of transnational identity construction for learners, teachers, and practitioners in English language teaching (ELT). // The book unpacks the dynamics of today’s landscape of language education which sees practitioners and students with nuanced personal and professional histories inhabit liminal spaces as they traverse national, cultural, linguistic, ideological, and political borders, thereby impacting their identity construction and engagement with pedagogies and practices across different educational domains. The volume draws on solo and collaborative autoethnographies of transnational language practitioners to question such well-established ELT binaries such as ‘center’/’periphery’ and ‘native’/non-native’ and issues of identity-related concepts such as ideologies, discourses, agency, and self-reflexibility. In so doing, the book also underscores the unique affordances of autoethnography as a methodological tool for better understanding transnational identity construction in ELT and bringing to the fore key perspectives in emerging areas of study within applied linguistics. // This dynamic collection will appeal to students, scholars, and practitioners in English language teaching, applied linguistics, TESOL education, educational linguistics, and sociolinguistics.

Exploring the roles of students’ pluralistic linguistic and transnational identities at the university level, this book offers a novel approach to translanguaging by highlighting students’ perspectives, voices, and agency as integral to the subject. Providing an original reconsideration of the impact of translanguaging, this book examines both transnationality and translinguality as ubiquitous phenomena that affect students’ lives. Demonstrating that students are the experts of their own language practices, experiences, and identities, the authors argue that a proactive translingual pedagogy is more than an openness to students’ spontaneous language variations. Rather, this proactive approach requires students and instructors to think about students’ holistic communicative repertoire, and how it relates to their writing. Robinson, Hall, and Navarro address students’ complex negotiations and performative responses to the linguistic identities imposed upon them because of their skin color, educational background, perceived geographical origin, immigration status, and the many other cues used to "minoritize" them. Drawing on multiple disciplinary discourses of language and identity, and considering the translingual practices and transnational experiences of both U.S. resident and international students, this volume provides a nuanced analysis of students’ own perspectives and self-examinations of their complex identities. By introducing and addressing the voices and self-reflections of undergraduate and graduate students, the authors shine a light on translingual and transnational identities and positionalities in order to promote and implement inclusive and effective pedagogies. This book offers a unique yet essential perspective on translinguality and transnationality, and is relevant to instructors in writing and language classrooms; to administrators of writing programs and international student support programs; and to graduate students and scholars in language education, second language writing, applied linguistics, and literacy studies.

With contributions from some of Canada's leading historians, political scientists, geographers, anthropologists, and sociologists, this collection examines the transnational practices and identities of immigrant and ethnic communities in Canada. It looks at why members of these groups maintain ties with their homelands -- whether real or imagined -- and how those connections shape individual identities and community organizations. How does transnationalism establish or transform geographical, social, and ideological borders? Do homeland ties affect what it means to be "Canadian"? Do they reflect Canada's commitment to multiculturalism? Through analysis of the complex forces driving transnationalism, this comprehensive study focuses attention on an important, and arguably growing, dimension of Canadian social life. This is the first collection in Canada to provide a comprehensive and interdisciplinary examination of transnationalism. It will appeal to scholars and students interested in issues of immigration, multiculturalism, ethnicity, and settlement.

This edited volume contributes to the creation of a comprehensive and a more inclusive understanding of an increasingly complex global ELT landscape across countries as well as across teaching and learning settings. The volume brings together inquiries from language teachers, educators and researchers from different backgrounds in the Global South and the Global North, who use their experiences of shuttling across borders to reflect on the shaping of their pedagogical, research and professional practices across higher education settings. The chapters weave the personal, professional and theoretical in a seamless manner, examining transnational identities and pedagogical practices formed and informed by both communities – ‘home’ and ‘host’ – and include narratives that are not unidirectional. The contributing authors also use a variety of qualitative research methods, along with reflexive writing and exploration of the authors’ own positionalities, to shed light on transnational identities and critique dominant pedagogical assumptions.

Drawing on Bakhtin’s notion of ideological becoming and the concepts of intersectionality and transnationalism, this volume offers a unique conceptual framework to explore and better understand the identity construction and negotiation of international TESOL students. Focusing on female graduate students studying in the U.S., the text utilizes rich narratives to illustrate how nuanced language teacher identities develop through complex dialogic processes relating to language, race, and gender—as well as migration experiences—and individuals’ integration in academic and professional communities. Ultimately, the text contests deficit reductionist views of transnational students that are implied by educational policies and administration. This text will benefit scholars, academics, and students in the fields of bilingualism, TESOL, multicultural education, and language identity more broadly. Those involved with teaching and teacher education, as well as language and culture in general, will also benefit from this book.

TESOL Teacher Education in a Transnational World critically examines theories and practices in contemporary TESOL teacher education to shed new light on the intersection of transnationalism and language teacher education. It emphasizes the scholarship of transnational mobility of language teachers, and showcases critical research from diverse contexts. The book fills a critical research gap by more fully examining the theory and practice of teacher education in a changing time when national identities and cross-border mobilities continue to figure prominently in scholarly discussions. Through a diverse set of epistemological, historical and theoretical perspectives along with methodological innovations, contributors of this volume not only index the dynamism of the scholarship of teacher education, but they also offer new forums for lively pedagogical debates. Featuring contributions from diverse educational and geographical contexts, including Europe, Asia, North America, and Latin America, the book moves the existing scholarship forward to more fully examine TESOL teacher education in relation to transnationalism. This book will be of great interest to academics, scholars, post-graduate students, teacher educators, policymakers, curriculum specialists, administrators, and other stakeholders interested in language teacher education, TESOL and applied linguistics