DATE: Thursday 13 October 2022

TIME: 16:00 - 17:30

LOCATION:   Online

The next meeting for the ESOL Research Community will be on 13 October at 4pm. The group is lead by Cathy Clarkson and Kathryn Sidaway. 

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Narrative Inquiry in ESOL Research

October's meeting will consist of two talks where narrative inquiry was utilised to share the experiences of participants.

   
Stories matter, as does who tells the story about whom. Diverse narratives exist on integration, migration and English languages; including those told by policy makers, educators and migrants themselves. This presentation is on my dissertation research for my MSc TESOL, in which I conducted Urdu-medium interviews with Pakistani adult migrants in Bristol in 2021. Using narrative inquiry and touching on issues of identity and relationships, I present my findings to questions including: What does it mean to “settle” in a country different to where you were born? How does that happen? What is the role of language in that? How do adult migrants describe their English language experiences, particularly those who choose not to engage in classroom learning? This research provided fresh insights into conceptualising the what and particularly the how of language development and settlement, which challenges some dominant narratives. I conclude with practical implications for TESOL, as well as for researchers working in cross-cultural, multilingual contexts.

About the speaker:
Eleanor works for Community Learning, part of City of Bristol Council, as Core Tutor for Functional Skills English. She graduated from the University of Bristol in 2022 with an MSc TESOL. Prior to this she taught ESOL and FS English abroad and in the UK for several years.  

   
In this talk, I will share the emerging findings from my PhD, the aim of which is to discover the language learning motivation of intermediate level adult ESOL students; what motivates them to enrol and what affects their motivation during a course. Collecting this data during a pandemic presented an unexpected opportunity to learn about the experiences of students who are often overlooked in the wider literature (Boo et al., 2015; Ushioda, 2020) during a particularly difficult time to be an adult learner. Using the ‘Person-in-context’ (Ushioda, 2009) approach to data collection and self-determination theory as a basis for analysis, this study provides first-hand accounts of how the participants’ needs were met and challenged through the academic year.

About the speaker:
Kathryn taught ESOL to adults and teenagers in FE colleges in England for 11 years and is currently in the final year of an ESRC funded PhD in English Language Teaching at the University of Warwick. Her research interests lie in language learning motivation and the teaching of people seeking sanctuary in English speaking countries.  

Here is a padlet containing more information.

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