Impacts of positioning, power, and Resistance on EFL learners’ identity construction through classroom interaction: A perspective from critical classroom discourse analysis

 

Language and identity are terms that are deeply connected and related. Language and particularly learning a new language have important impacts and consequences in people identity. A good example of this is the generalized use of English in many countries of the world, in some of them as a second or foreign language and in others as the official language, moving even the local languages. In this way, a person with a nationality which did not use to be related to English and that now has to learn it and communicate with their peers by using this language suppose a serious conflict which has a lot to reveal.

Kumaravadivelu proposed the critical discourse analysis as a useful tool and strategy in order to analyze the power and positioning relations that could emerge in a language classroom. His ideas were complemented and applied with the support of the theory that Foucault has proposed in relation to power. In his view every relation and interaction is related to power and it always brings oppression to one of the sides of this interaction.

The study which I pretend to report in this text was developed in a Thai context, for this reason is necessary to understand some general things about this context. First of all that English is considered as a second language there and that it is taught at schools. Additionally it is relevant to mention the role of the teacher, who is a respected character and whose ideas and considered important and valuable. This study was developed with 31 undergraduate students in an English class. They all had the same cultural background and there ages were between 15 to 20 years old.

The researcher collected important data in the classroom and the analysis of it was guided by Kumaravadivelu’s ideas about discourse and its social background and inference. In order to analyze the data 6 steps were followed: familiarizing with the data, generating initial codes, searching for themes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes and producing the report. During the development of these stages, even in the first ones, the positioning and power relations were observed. Some of the students positioned themselves as less proficient participants by mentioning that they were not able to express their ideas in English in a clear and complete way. On the other hand, other participants positioned themselves as proficient and able to communicate and interact, even acquiring the role of translator for their partners.

Resistance was one of the most common and relevant aspects found in the data. At the time to interact, most of the students present resistance in communication. It means that they prefer not to take the power of trying to speak in English but staying in silence, because they cannot find the words or expressions to communicate what they are saying. Another evidenced form of resistance was the constant use of the mother tongue. Most of the participants had to use it in order to be understood because they considered that their English level was not enough and in this way they positioned themselves in a relegate place, this is an evidence of the circulating power in interaction, proposed by Foucault, taking into account that the position that learners take in class is connected to the way in which they decide to approach the language.

The power was found to be positioned in different ways, not always in an oppressive one. Participants proved that they could be absolutely competent but using other languages and culture, that the barrier of the communication was not because they were not competent but because of the differences they had among them. Leadership was another key concept found, taking into account that those participants who felt more capable to express their ideas took leader positions in order to help their partners and facilitate communication.

Culture as a source of empowering was also discovered. While taking about cultures, some participants suggested that their culture should be more included and studied and that it has very valuable aspects to show. Additionally it is important to mention that the power evidenced is generally set by the participants themselves, in the way in which they position, they will be seen and taken into account.

In order to conclude it is possible to see that power, resistance and self-positioning are strictly connected and that they play a very relevant role in the ways in which a classroom is organized and hierarchized. In addition learners are a fundamental part of this processes but, they generally are not aware of the implications that their actions and positions can generate in their role of the classroom.