Fulfilling a Dream: Two South Korean Students in Japan more

Sun, May 1, 16:30-17:00 Asia/Seoul

​​TESOL has been criticized as “traditionally [giving] more attention to the process of [language] acquisition than to the flesh-and-blood individuals who are doing the learning” (Kramsch, 2009, p. 2). At times, TESOL has also been labeled as suffering from monolingual bias (May, 2013; Meier & Conteh, 2014). The current study aims to contribute to the research on flesh-and-blood learners' translingual, transnational identities. The participants are two South Korean female university students studying in Japan. They use English, Japanese, and Korean regularly and are learning other languages as well. Having also lived in English-speaking countries, the participants have a transnational identity, which results in unique perspectives on their university life in Japan. The presentation focuses on their experiences in the classroom in Japan. I investigate how the students’ investment in language learning (Norton, 1995, 2013) shapes their experience with education and language use in Japan as an Expanding Circle country.