1st Edition

Communicating Identities

By Gary Barkhuizen, Pat Strauss Copyright 2020
    286 Pages 12 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    286 Pages 12 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Communicating Identities is a book for language teachers who wish to focus on the topic of identity in the context of their classroom teaching. The work provides an accessible introduction to research and theory on language learner and language teacher identity. It provides a set of interactive, practical activities for use in language classrooms in which students explore and communicate about aspects of their identities. The communicative activities concern the various facets of the students’ own identities and are practical resources that teachers can draw on to structure and guide their students’ exploration of their identities. All the activities include a follow-on teacher reflection in which teachers explore aspects of their own identity in relation to the learner identities explored in the activities. The book also introduces teachers to practical steps in doing exploratory action research so that they can investigate identity systematically in their own classrooms.

    Acknowledgements

    Part 1 - From Research to Implications

    A. Introduction

    B. Organization of Part 1

    C. Starting with the Big Issues

    D. Conceptualizing Language Learner Identity

    E. Conceptualizing Language Teacher Identity

    F. Implications of Identity Research for Application

    G. Looking Ahead: Communicating Identities

    Part 2 - From Implications to Application

    A. Introduction

    B. Reflexing Identities

    Activity 1: This is (not) like me

    Activity 2: Celebrating birthdays

    Activity 3: What makes me me?

    Activity 4: Tweeting

    Activity 5: Memories and smells

    Activity 6: Maps of the world

    Activity 7: Using our brains!

    Activity 8: The gender of objects

    Activity 9: Food and identity

    Activity 10: Author presence

    Activity 11: Chickens in cages

    Activity 12: My ideal holiday

    C. Projecting Identities

    Activity 13: Introducing ourselves

    Activity 14: What’s in a name?

    Activity 15: Gay men playing rugby

    Activity 16: Relationships and age

    Activity 17: The clothes we wear

    Activity 18: Why is Facebook so popular?

    Activity 19: Idiomatic language

    Activity 20: Make your own cartoon

    Activity 21: There’s a little bit of good in everyone

    Activity 22: Proverbs and you

    Activity 23: Justifying your opinion

    Activity 24: Pictures at an exhibition

    D. Recognizing Identities

    Activity 25: A good friend

    Activity 26: Who are these women?

    Activity 27: Film critic

    Activity 28: Identity theft

    Activity 29: Teacher roles

    Activity 30: Gendered identities in occupations

    Activity 31: Stereotyping

    Activity 32: Questioning national identities

    Activity 33: Designing a questionnaire

    Activity 34: Writing a report

    Activity 35: No laughing matter

    Activity 36: The language of ads

    E. Imagining Identities

    Activity 37: What kind of wild animal?

    Activity 38: Me flying high

    Activity 39: My dream room

    Activity 40: Names for (online) gamers

    Activity 41: The aliens have landed

    Activity 42: Speaking English tomorrow

    Activity 43: Identity quotes

    Activity 44: Different perspectives

    Activity 45: What makes them them?

    Activity 46: Social justice and advertising

    Activity 47: Consumer identity

    Activity 48: Transport of the future

    Part 3 - From Application to Implementation

    A. Introduction

    B. Organization of Part 3

    C. Characteristics of the Curriculum

    D. Planning Activities

    E. Implementing Activities in the Classroom

    F. What Should We Do After the Activities?

    Part 4 - From Implementation to Research

    A. Introduction

    B. Organization of Part 4

    C. What is Exploratory Action Research?

    D. Selecting Topics to Explore

    E. Gathering Information

    F. Narrative Inquiry

    G. Making Sense of the Information Gathered

    H. Sharing Your Findings

    I. Conclusion

    References

    Index

     

    Biography

    Gary Barkhuizen is professor of applied linguistics at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His teaching and research interests are in the areas of language teacher education, teacher and learner identity, study abroad, and narrative inquiry. He is editor of Reflections on Language Teacher Identity Research (Routledge, 2017) and Qualitative Research Topics in Language Teacher Education (Routledge, 2019).

    Pat Strauss is associate professor at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. Her teaching and research interests include academic writing, student and teacher identity, language teacher education, and English for research and publication purposes.