Las uniones consensuales son un riesgo paradojal

Norton’s theory of language learner identity has made many pedagogical implications for foreign language teaching. Teachers are required to consider which pedagogical practices are “appropriate and desirable” (Norton, 2010, p.1) to students and which will better support students development of capacity for imagining wider range identities across time and space. The concept of “student-centeredness” has to be reshaped in language classroom based on the understanding of students’ desired

communities and their investment in learning. Norton’s theory emphasizes the sense of ownership over meaning-making on the part of the student as the precondition for the enhanced identities. Since enhanced identities will lead to more active participation in learning practices, it is an important task of language teaching to develop students’ power to make sense of their own world. Without the ownership over meaning-making, “learning becomes meaningless and ritualized” (Norton, 2010, p.10). In order to enhance the learner’s ownership over meaning-making, she indicated that a wide range of texts such as comics, drama and photography provided opportunities for students to explore diverse identities with regard to their positions of relative power in a given literacy event.

Though it is true that teaching practice should enhance students’ ownership of the language by developing their capacities for imagining diverse communities and identities, it can be a very challenging task for the EFL teaching in an EFL context. With little exposure to the English language in their homelands and few opportunities to use English outside of the classroom, EFL learners face great challenges in establishing their relationships with English than those who live in English-speaking regions. In the EFL context, it is not enough to celebrate students’ agency in negotiating conflicts, overcoming challenges and actively constructing their imagined communities. In such a context, a common paradoxical phenomenon is that despite various desires to learn English, some students may opt to quit investing in learning at the cost of their education and employment at risk (e.g., Li, 2010). Therefore, in

addition to understanding how the human agency works in language learning, it is important for EFL teachers and researchers to study why and how the language learners’ desires to learn end up with investment withdrawing.

Another challenge that EFL teachers and researchers face to develop students’ ownership of English is the impacts of “the local” (Canagarajah, 2005; Pennycook, 2010) on students’ investing in EFL learning. Situated in a particular local discourse, EFL students’ community imagining and attitudes towards investing can be greatly shaped by, for example, the local knowledge, the local values and the local ideology. On the other hand, EFL students do not have as much exposure to the English language and culture and as many opportunities to practise using English as the learners in English-speaking regions do. Therefore, EFL researchers need to consider how students’ capacity for imagining diverse identities can be discursively supported through teaching practices. In this process, students’ identities, existing knowledge and personal experiences should not be degraded. Unfortunately, it remains an under-researched area how “the local” plays a role in EFL students’ imagining of new communities and new identities.

A third concern about EFL teaching practice is the influence of the dominant ideology of English as economic capital (e.g., Heller, 2003) on learners’ imagining of communities. While this dominant ideology exerts hegemony on linguistic minorities in English-speaking regions (Tollefson, 1991), it also influences EFL learners’ identity and community imagining. Driven by this ideology, English learners often have high

expectation of material and symbolic returns from learning it, so much so that they may imagine the communities of English speakers in biased and distorted ways. As Norton and Kamal’s (2003) study shows, young Pakistani students often overestimated rewards of learning English in education and material wealth. Li and Simpson (2013) also found that migrant workers built up their imagined identities of English language speakers as better-paid workers, successful professionals, and British residents. Similarly, they had a belief in the role of English proficiency in gaining local friendship, accessing employment and achieving professional success. However, their imagined community collapsed when they could not obtain those rewards after achieving a high English proficiency.

Based on the discussion above, the imagined community and investment are significant theoretical constructs to be used in the field of EFL language teaching and learning. However, it is not sufficient to find out what imagined communities in which the EFL students desire to participate and how they invest in learning the language. In an EFL context, more studies need to focus on the challenges with which the learners are confronted in constructing their identities in EFL learning. I argue that it is more important to uncover the subtle forces that influence students’ construction of certain imagined communities or pose challenges to their participation in certain imagined communities.

The nuanced perspectives of language learner identity are based in “the local”—the local historical and social context, the regional values and cultures, and

the learners’ experiences and aspirations. Norton and Toohey (2011) call for more research on identities and imagined communities of language learners in different social context.

…the imagined identities and imagined communities of learners are central in the struggle for legitimacy. As language learners in every region of the world claim the right to speak and be heard… (Norton & Toohey, 2011, p.437)

My research on Chinese EFL learners from rural areas is a response to this call and contributes to enriching the understanding of language learners based in the rural context of China and the rural students’ experiences. Moreover, The nuanced understanding of language learner identity also lies in discovering the hegemony that influences EFL students constructing of their identities. We can not assume that students’ desires to learn English come from nowhere, and their identity construction is completely active and independent. Considering the hegemonic nature of ELT, investigating students’ challenges in constructing identity is of general significance in developing an EFL education with less hegemony. This current study contributes to uncovering the hidden forces of the EFL education in China and their relationships to the rural students’ challenges in constructing their EFL learner identities. I elaborate the context of the EFL education in China in the next section.