‘The aspect of the heart’: English and self-identity in the experience of preservice teachers

Abstract

Despite having almost no familial or social connection with English speakers and English-speaking countries, 19 interviewees, all preservice English teachers residing in the Israeli periphery, ascribe a central and surprisingly emotional role to English in their lives. The article presents the conclusions of a qualitative research project investigating the sources and nature of their attachment. It demonstrates that the students' professed love of the language has to do with their successful appropriation of various facets of the English languaculture for the enrichment of their self-identity, which remains fundamentally rooted in the local habitus. The interlacing of global and local elements, recognized and taken ownership of through the telling of life stories, does not lead the students to a rejection of one identity in favor of another. Rather, it results in a composite, richer self-identity, woven of different cultural strands. Finally, the article discusses possible pedagogical implications of the learner experiences delineated in the students' accounts and supports the call for creative, student-focused pedagogy in second-language education, rich in intercultural knowledge and in opportunities for self-development and self-expression.

Table

Keywords:

• language learning
• identity
• intercultural awareness
• English
• Israel
• language attitudes

Notes on contributor

Miri Tashma Baum heads the English Department and coordinates English for Academic Purposes studies at Givat-Washington Academic College of Education, Israel. Her research interests include issues of language and identity, particularly the relationship between foreign language learning and identity construction, English teacher education, and English Renaissance poetry.

Notes

1. In this study, I will be using the feminine form of the pronoun to denote nonidentified subjects, as this fits more closely with a research in which 18 out of the 19 interviewees are female.

2. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines the ‘Anglosphere’ as ‘the group of countries where English is the main native language.’

3. To reach this estimate, I have compared only the number of Israel-born Jews whose fathers were born in Asia or Africa with the number of Israel-born Jews whose fathers were born in Europe or America. Unfortunately, I could not bring into the account second-generation Jewish Israelis, as the report did not differentiate this group into Ashkenazim and Mizrahim.

4. This estimate is based on my own experience as lecturer and department head in both these colleges, over a period of 11 years.

5. In a survey from 2009, the CBS found that of those Israeli Jews who defined themselves as either religious or ‘traditional’ (Masorti) – over half were Mizrahi. Only 19% of those defining themselves as ‘non-religious’ (Hiloni) – were of this group. See CBS (2009) Social survey 2009. See also Liebman and Katz (1997).

6. Throughout the article, I have limited myself to three quotations at the most to illustrate each point, in the interests of brevity.

7. This is in line with findings that second-language learning as such tends to increase learners’ self-confidence (see Wilson, 2013).

8. This subject is explored in depth by Dewaele and Nakano (2013) and Pavlenko (2006, 2012).

9. See also Polkinghorne (1995), and McAdams (1993), on the achievement of identity coherence via storytelling and the construction of a ‘personal myth,’ as McAdams calls it.