26.66, Review: Applied Ling; Lang Acquisition; Ling & Literature: Barkhuizen, Benson, Chik (2013)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-26-66. Tue Jan 06 2015. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 26.66, Review: Applied Ling; Lang Acquisition; Ling & Literature: Barkhuizen, Benson, Chik (2013)

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Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 14:42:21
From: Susan Joffe [susanjoffe at gmail.com]
Subject: Narrative Inquiry in Language Teaching and Learning Research

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/24/24-5263.html

AUTHOR: Gary  Barkhuizen
AUTHOR: Philip  Benson
AUTHOR: Alice  Chik
TITLE: Narrative Inquiry in Language Teaching and Learning Research
SERIES TITLE: Second Language Acquisition Research Series
PUBLISHER: Routledge (Taylor and Francis)
YEAR: 2013

REVIEWER: Susan Joffe, Bar-Ilan University

Review's Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

In the first chapter the authors introduce the topic and focus of the book,
which is how narratives can be studied to enhance the study of language
teaching and language learning. When narrators tell their stories they both
make sense of their experiences and offer a glimpse of their inner lives to
their readers and listeners. Narratives are presented as a vehicle for
understanding the experiences of language learners and language teachers in a
qualitatively broader and richer way than quantitative measures allow. In
fact, the book is exclusively focused on the qualitative analysis of
narratives, to the exclusion of quantitative analysis. 

The authors offer four reasons for qualitative analysis of language learning
narratives. The first is the belief that psychosocial phenomena should not be
studied in the same quantitative ways that we study natural phenomena. The
second reason is their belief that questions of identity and self are
addressed more effectively on a personal level  than in attempting to create
broad theories. The third reason they offer is that self-narratives
demonstrate the way narrators situate themselves in broader society. Finally,
the qualitative analysis of narratives gives voice to the narrators and may
potentially empower them. 

A distinction is made between 'narrative analysis' and 'analysis of
narratives.' ''Narrative analysis refers to research in which storytelling is
used as a means of analyzing data and presenting findings.'' Analysis of
narratives ''refers to research in which stories are used as data.'' Many
examples of each are given in this chapter and throughout the book.

It must be noted that the topic of inquiry here is not the language of the
narratives of language learners and teachers.  Rather, the narratives are a
source of information about the experiences and feelings of language learners
and language teachers. Language learning and language teaching are the topics
of the narrative research presented in the book.  The authors list five
categories of narratives that fit within this narrow focus: language memoirs,
studies of language memoirs, autobiographical case studies, biographical case
studies, and studies of multiple narratives. 

Chapter 2 is concerned with methods of collecting and transcribing oral
narratives. The research participants may be adult language learners, heritage
language learners, migrant learners, teacher trainees, or veteran teachers.
Two methods of interviewing are discussed: semi-structured interviews and open
interviews. Both methods are discussed at length. The authors present several
examples of research using each method and their benefits and shortcomings are
examined. A detailed list of the questions from the semi-structured interviews
of one study (Coryell et al 2010) is given to enable the reader to understand
exactly how the research was conducted. A similarly detailed discussion of a
study using an open interview technique is included as well. Particular
attention is given to the frequency and length of the data collection process,
including the advantages of longitudinal studies. The chapter concludes with a
section on data transcription. The authors note that very few researchers give
detailed descriptions of their transcription methods. This is a very serious
problem when the focus of the analysis is the actual language of the
narratives. In the studies cited in this book, however, linguistic analysis of
the narratives in not the goal. The goal, instead, is to use the narratives to
understand the experiences of language learners and language teachers. This
qualitative analysis makes transparency of the the transcription methods seems
much less crucial.  

Chapter 3 shifts from oral narratives to a focus on written narratives. The
authors begin the chapter by noting that written narratives are created in a
variety of contexts, and are not exclusively generated for research purposes.
Four types of written narratives are discussed in the chapter: learner
diaries, language learning histories, teacher narratives, and what the authors
refer to as teacher and learner narrative frames. Examples of each type of
narratives are given and their usefulness for researchers is described in
detail.

The fourth type of written narratives, teacher and learner narrative frames,
requires some explanation. This refers to narrative templates that are given
to students and teachers in order to elicit written narratives. They are the
written equivalent of structured or semi-structured interviews discussed in
Chapter 2 on oral narratives.  Given the requirement that the topic of the
narratives must be the language learning experience it would seem that this
approach to data collection will be extremely useful, if not absolutely
necessary.

Chapter 4 introduces the reader to two novel ways to elicit language learning
narratives. The authors call these multimodal narratives. These narratives are
elicited (and sometimes presented) with written questions accompanied by
drawings, two dimensional images, and video segments. All of these materials
offer the narrators a richer means of accessing their stories and their
emotions related to their stories. The chapter also includes discussion of
another method of narrative elicitation and presentation: online platforms for
creating and sharing language learning narratives.  The shared language
learning histories and narratives can include individual presentations as well
as collaborative stories. The authors include examples of such platforms and
several suggestions for how to host them.

Chapter 5 presents several methods of qualitative data analysis for
narratives. The chapter begins with some general observations about
qualitative research. Citing Dornyei (2007) they note that qualitative data
analysis is characterized by three qualities: it is iterative, emergent, and
interpretive. The iterative quality refers to the fact that qualitative data
collection is not a linear process whereby the data collection phase is
completed and followed by data analysis. Rather the research often swings back
and forth between the two phases.  Related to the iterative quality, the
emergent quality of qualitative research refers to the fact that repeated
rounds of data analysis may be necessary to identify significant findings.
When doing quantitative analysis the areas of focus are likely to be
predefined by the researchers. And of course qualitative data analysis is
necessarily interpretive. Without the strength of quantitative methods
researchers must give strong persuasive arguments to support these
interpretations. 

The various methods of data collection described in the previous chapters will
yield both narratives and non-narrative data. The non-narrative data cannot be
analyzed using all of the same methods of narrative analysis. Nevertheless the
authors encourage researchers to recreate some of the non-narrative data into
what they call ''story form'' (page 73). This would involve retrieving
narratives embedded in interviews, journals, and other sources. The authors
argue for a very broad definition of narrative. In addition to retrieving
elicited narratives from interviews, they include two additional sources of
narratives: narratives created by the researcher based on interviews, and
non-elicited narratives within interviews. 

One way researchers analyze narrative data is to look for themes in the
narratives.  This thematic analysis may look for themes within a single
narrative, or across multiple narratives. Examples of both are given. The
discussion helpfully includes both the types of themes that emerge from the
analysis as well as a practical discussion of how the themes are identified.
The themes that emerge from this type of analysis may reflect the narrators'
attitudes toward themselves as learners, toward their linguistic environment,
or toward the language learning experience itself.

Another way research analyzes narratives is to look at the narrative discourse
itself. There are endless possibilities for this type of analysis. The authors
give several detailed examples which focus on very diverse aspects of
narratives, including metaphors, narrative structure, and the role of
narratives in interaction (see Gao 2010, and Chik 2011 among others).
 
While qualitative analysis is somewhat less structured as an approach than
quantitative analysis, it nevertheless needs to be credible regarding its
validity. The chapter includes discussions of the need for the analysis to be
rigorous, trustworthy, and generalizable. The methods of analysis must be
systematic and thorough. The researcher must be careful not to cherry pick
examples which support his or her hypothesis. The authors point out that
narrative accounts often represent the emotional response to events rather
than the facts of those events. In order for the analysis to be deemed
trustworthy, researchers may need to clarify whether they consider the
research narratives in question to be accurate representations of, or
subjective responses to events. Furthermore, they cite several authors (Chik
and Benson 2008, among others) who bring their analysis back to the narrators
for their feedback and verification that their analysis is correct. Finally,
generalizability is understood here to mean that narrative research findings
relate to a wider set of contexts than the individual study cited.
Furthermore, the findings should ideally relate to theory. A study which does
not contribute to a broader understanding of language, people, settings, or
theory is not much of a scholarly contribution. The authors complain that this
is indeed a fault of much of the language learning narrative analysis
literature.

Chapter 6, “Reporting Narrative Studies”, explains how to write up narrative
analysis studies. Most of this chapter is generalizable to writing up any
research. The report must include the following sections: introduction,
literature review, methodology, findings, discussion, and conclusion.
Nevertheless, there are a number of suggestions that are of particular
importance to narrative analysis research. In the methodology section, when
discussing the research participants, the authors recommend that the section
include a description of the researcher(s) as well as the narrators, and
clarify the relationship of the two. Another suggestion is that the purpose of
the research be made explicit. Because the focus of the book is on a subset of
narrative research, the research of narratives on language learning, many of
the studies are done with a focus on understanding and improving the language
learning experience. This distinguishes these studies from others that focus
on language proficiency, identity, narrative structure, and other topics.
Making the purpose of the research explicit increases the likelihood that the
proper target audiences will benefit from the research, and that those whose
interests lie elsewhere will quickly move on to more appropriate reading
material. The importance of including examples from the narratives is
emphasized, and examples from the authors' own research are given, along with
research by others (Casavane 2012).

EVALUATION

This book is a very user friendly presentation of how to do qualitative
narrative research with a focus on language teaching and research. The authors
intend the book to be a how-to manual. The entire book, and each individual
chapter, is well laid out. Very useful examples and illustrations are given
throughout, and there is a boxed summary at the end of each chapter with a
bulleted list of the topics covered. Another important feature is the
discussion of ethical issues in almost every chapter. Often this topic
receives a perfunctory mention in the literature, if even mentioned at all. It
is particularly important that it be discussed in this book for two reasons.
One is that much of the research cited here, and the type of research the
authors are encouraging, uses narratives that were collected in language
learning settings. Often this data was not collected with an a priori intent
to make it the basis of analysis. This raises ethical considerations not often
faced by researchers who have obtained consent before their data is ever
collected. The second reason this is important is that many of the readers who
are likely to want to do the type of narrative research discussed here will be
language teachers. As people who normally work outside the sphere of academia,
they are less likely to be familiar with research ethics and most likely to
benefit from the discussion here.

It is important to note that this book discusses a very narrow field of
research: the use of narrative analysis in the context of language teaching
and research. Within this context the focus is narrowed even further. Only
qualitative studies, which focus on identity and the language learning
experience, are discussed. As stated above, the authors give clear reasons for
this focus. 

The book's almost complete absence of discussion of the merits of narratives
as a source of quantitative data about L2 proficiency is puzzling. Perhaps the
authors feel that the use of language learners' narratives is discussed
extensively elsewhere. Perhaps it is not the authors' area of interest or
expertise. The book is almost unique in its discussion of qualitative analysis
of L2 learners' narratives, so perhaps they mean to fill in a gap in the
literature. They certainly give many and varied examples of qualitative
analysis. Nevertheless, the absence of a meaningful discussion of quantitative
analysis makes the book feel somewhat unbalanced. A discussion of both would
offer language teachers a broader, more complete presentation of the many ways
that learners' narratives can be used as a source of information about the
language classroom, the learning process, and the learners themselves.

A careful reading of the examples of narrative studies cited throughout the
book reveals another way in which this book is unique. Many of the studies use
learner materials that would not be considered narratives at all by other
researchers (give examples). The authors discuss this directly in Chapter 3
when they list possible sources of learner data. These sources include
narratives in the traditional sense, responses to questions which may or may
not follow a narrative construction, and narratives that the language teacher
''constructs'' from students' responses to classroom materials. This brings
two concerns to mind. It might be argued that the qualitative methodologies
proposed by the authors make the distinctions between these data sources
irrelevant. If the researcher is not interested in narrative structure, for
example, then the fact that some of the data is not, in fact, actually
narrative data may not be important. If that is the case, perhaps it would be
better to identify it as narrative and non-narrative data. Of greater concern
is the generation of narratives (by teacher/researchers) from non-narrative
learner material. It is hard to imagine that this can truly be done without
the researcher's own biases becoming part of the new ''narratives.''
Language teachers, and researchers of language learners, will benefit from
this book's presentation of some of the many ways that qualitative analysis of
language learners' narratives can be used to understand the experiences of
students and teachers. 

REFERENCES

Barkhuizen, G.  (2010). An Extended Positioning Analysis of a Pre-service
Teacher's Better Life Small Story. Applied Linguistics, 31, (2), 282-300.

Casavane, C.P. (2012). Diary of a Dabbler: Ecological Influences on an EFL
Teacher's Efforts to Study Japanese Informally. TESOL Quarterly, 46 (4),
642-70.

Chik, A. (2011). Learner Language Awareness Development among Asian Learners
and Implications for Teacher Education. In S. Breidbach, D. Elsner, and A.
Young (Eds.) Language Awareness in Teacher Education: Cultural-political and
Socio-educational Dimension. Berlin: Peter Lang.

Chik, A., and Benson, P. (2008). Frequent Flyer: A Narrative of Overseas Study
in English. In P. Kalaha, V. Menezes, and A.M.F. Barcelos (Eds.), Narratives
of Learning and Teaching EFL (pp. 155-68). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave
Macmillan.

Coryell, J.E., Clark, M.C., and Pomerantz, A. (2010). Cultural Fantasy
Narratives and Heritage Language Learning: A Case Study of Adult Heritage
Learners of Spanish. The Modern Language Journal, 94 (3), 453-69.

Dornyei, Z. (2007). Research Methods in Applied Linguistics: Quantitative,
Qualitative, and Mixed Methodologies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gao, X. (2010). Autonomous Language Learning Against All Odds. System, 38 (4),
580-90.
Labov, W. (1972). Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black Vernacular.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Polkinghorne, D.E. (1995). Narrative Configuration in Qualitative Analysis.
Qualitative Studies in Education, 8 (1), 5-23.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Susan Joffe is a PhD student at Bar Ilan University. Her dissertation research
looks at the relationship between motivation, identity, and second language
proficiency. Her areas of interest include bilingualism, narrative analysis,
corpus linguistics, and research methodologies.








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