When students learn a second language (L2), their cognition and perceptions may be influenced by various social and environmental factors at the same time (Csizér, 2019). Understanding the underlying constructs of the L2 Motivational Self-System (L2MSS) (Dörnyei, 2005) becomes vital for language learners and teachers alike, as it plays a key role in directing the success or failure of the language learning process in the language. Dörnyei's L2MSS is composed of three constructs that direct learners’ behaviour: the ideal L2 self, the ought-to L2 self, and the L2 learning experience. This literature review focuses on the L2MSS in English writing through the process writing approach — one of the writing approaches theorized by Hyland (2021) — which centres on the writer and describes writing in terms of the processes used to create texts, and which emphasizes the personal creativity of the individual writer, the cognitive processes of writing and the writer’s immediate context.

​​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.