El divorcio, un riesgo con muchas aristas y con varias opciones de respuesta

As discussed in the previous section, from the Chinese EFL learners’ perspective, English learning nowadays is more considered a way of achieving diverse personal interest and happiness, which is different from the situation 20 years ago when EFL learning carried one’s patriotic feelings for the nation and contributions to the society. This conceptual change of EFL learning from the national to personal interests agrees with Yan’s (2009) observation of the evolution of Chinese society’s individualization. In the past 10 years, Chinese EFL learners’ identities have drawn

complex social conditions within which learners are situated (e.g., Norton & Gao, 2008; Gu, 2008; Xu, 2012.).

2.4.2.1 International and Modern Communities

Gu’s (2010) study provided the understanding of the impacts of English language learning on Chinese learners’ construction of national identities. This study took the view that the national identities were discursively constructed by the EFL students through three stages in the process of EFL learning: (1) a mania for western cultures; (2) a burgeoning awareness of the richness of the mother culture and of the threat of “linguistic imperialism”; (3) a reconciliation between national identity and global identity. As learners’ awareness of Chinese culture increases over time, they vary their positions in relation to English learning, turning from a Western culture admirer to an antagonist of foreign things, to a global and national citizen. According to Gu, learning English plays a significant role in constructing the national identities of L2 learners. The participants in the study “developed a stronger sense of national identity as their English proficiency permits them greater access to information and as they constantly compare and contrast Chinese and western cultures” (Gu, 2010, p.65). It suggests that learning English is a process of knowing about other cultures and then comparing them with learners’ home cultural and historical heritage.

Taking a different view from that in the above study, Zhang (2011) focused on the national, the regional and the individual identity constructions in the context of China’s preparing and hosting the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Before this biggest

international event in China’s history, there was a widespread craze for English learning among people of different ages and from different walks of life in the host city of Beijing and across China. In learning English, the Chinese people wanted to present to the world a harmonious nation, an internationalized and modernized city of Beijing, and a global population. This national movement of English learning was embedded in China’s persistent dream to become an Olympic power, which was considered a feasible way to regain the national pride and national identity. This study demonstrated the strong national and individual desires to integrate into and be accepted by the international community.

The national identity seems to be one of the major themes in the study of Chinese EFL learner identities. The Chinese history of the 100 years before the 80’s was filled with consecutive revolutions, wars and political movements. China did not’ regain its lawful rights in the United Nations until 1971. The Chinese people, who had lived in a county ruined by wars and revolutions and isolated from the international community, had strong desires to revive the nation and to live a life with dignity. Against such a historical backdrop, EFL learning becomes a way to construct a national identity either through comparing the Chinese culture with others (Gu, 2010) or through presenting a global and modern image to the world (Zhang, 2011). This national identity consists of the self-recognition of the Chinese culture and heritage, and the desires to participate in the imagined international and global community.

2.4.2.2 Investment in Diverse Communities

In contrast to the research interest in Chinese EFL learners’ national identity, some authors focus on the identities and imagined communities based on personal social lives.

Gao, Zhao, Cheng and Zhou (2007) investigated how a group of EFL learners developed their self-identity through the process of constructing their own learning community on the internet. The learners collaborated to create and maintain the cohesion of their own English learning community through their persistent negotiation and participation in the online community. This virtual community was different from the traditional learning site of the classroom at schools and universities that were controlled and ruled by teachers, textbooks and tests. This online English club was more than an English learning site to improve their language skills. It was a social community for EFL learners where their “inner needs for social exchanges and assertion in English” (Gao, 2007, p.267) could be satisfied. In this imagined community, the participants felt secure to express their reflections of life experiences and listen to others. This online learning community was a new path to learning in which autonomous learning played a significant role.

The active participation in EFL learning is also demonstrated in a study by Gao, Cheng and Kelly (2008) investigating students’ regular presence at an English learning event. By attending the English speaking event every week, the students exchanged their experiences and thinking and formed their social groups. English was perceived as the means to attain self-promotion and self-development and a tool to

gain desired social status and identity. This weekly event was a site for learners to develop their sense of ownership of English and voiced their future vision. The discussion event was a site for socialization, fostering individual changes and developing new identities. These persistent participants conceptualized English learning as access to an emerging imagined community of educated bilingual Chinese elites who were different from the majority of monolingual Chinese.

Another study showed that Chinese college students constructed an imagined community of high social status people living in cities (Gao, 2008). Students worked hard in English learning in the anticipation that they were able to wear “leather shoes” rather than “straw sandals” in the future. Shoes and straw sandals are emblematic of two communities in the student’s imagination-- urban residents in higher social status and peasants in the lower status.

Xu (2012) investigated the transforming process of professional identity development of novice EFL teachers from the initial imagined identities formed in the pre-service stage to the practiced identities constructed in the novice stage. The findings show that novice EFL teachers often construct imagined community of language experts, learning facilitators and spiritual guides before starting their teaching practice. However, this community is very likely to collapse at the beginning stage of teaching. In most of the cases in the study, novice teachers encountered “reality shock”- their initial imagined community collapsed. They gave up investing in the initial imagined community and transformed to identities of routine performers

and problem analyzers.

Based on his analysis of a writer’s life experiences in Urumqi in Northwest China during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Gao (2011) argued that English learning was a spiritual adventure and religious experience for Liu, a junior middle school boy, who regarded English as gospel and his English teacher as the Messiah leading him out of a chaotic and dehumanizing world. English learning “becomes a path for Liu to associate himself with an imagined world of love and compassion, and empowers him to grow and transform himself into a man of dignity” (p.435). The English learner, in this case, invested in learning English, without anticipating returns of money and materials, but seeking love, dignity and power. This perspective is resonated in Kaplan’s (1994) discussion of her French teaching.

Moments like this one make me think that speaking a foreign language is, for me and my students, a chance for growth, for freedom, a liberation from the ugliness of our received ideas and mentalities. (Kaplan, 1994, p.211)

Both Gao (2011) and Kaplan (1994) in their studies conceptualized learning a foreign language as a site for taking refuge from the cruel and ugly reality and a site of the mental home of security and freedom.