Discourse and Identity Among ESL Learners: A Case Study of a Community College ESL Classroom

By: Melanie Sperling
Publication: Research in the Teaching of English
Date: August 2014

Summary: This study of a community college ESL class explores the ways in which an online forum space allowed students to explore and assert identities in their new language other than the strictly academic discourse used in the classroom.

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This case study has revealed other possibilities, embedded in classroom work itself, for students to legitimately display some spectrum of who they are while negotiating responses to academic assignments. For the focal students in this study, the experience of interacting in class-sanctioned online forums not only drove them to write (sometimes a great deal), but also afforded them opportunities to use varied discourses to accomplish multiple social functions. The study invites L2 practitioners to try out online as well as face-to-face communication in ways that give students more control over their discourse, and to engage them in dialogues that invite a range of ways of speaking and writing without sacrificing academic goals."

Chang, Yueh-ching, and Melanie Sperling. "Discourse and Identity Among ESL Learners: A Case Study of a Community College ESL Classroom." Research in the Teaching of English 49:1 (2014) 31-51. Copyright ©2014 by the National Council of Teachers of English. Reprinted with permission.

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