“Opening windows for myself”: Autobiographical writing to support adult newcomer English language learning

• In Event: Young and adult language learners

Proposal

In 2019, the government-funded Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) program decided to remove the autobiography component as a mandatory one (Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks, 2019). However, research over the years promises excellent potential in the use of autobiographical writing in language education. By incorporating lived experiences, learners can increase their engagement with the English language and strengthen their identities in new environments (Cummins, 2000; Park, 2011; Geres, 2017; Coultas, 2018). Contrary to the common assumption that autobiographical writing will (re)traumatize newcomer learners, Sanderock (2003) suggests that this type of writing can help learners process difficult emotions and heal from trauma. Furthermore, Waterhouse (2017) believes that storytelling may increase teachers’ and learners’ chances of critically engaging with stories and their responses to others’ stories; storytelling activities can make the classroom a transformative space where the newcomers realize their power and agency. Curating a “safe space” while overlooking learners’ life experiences likely only further silences the learners’ who already lack access to venues of free expression.
Moreover, programs like LINC tend to have an intense focus on functional English that aims to train the newcomers to become good consumers or join the labour force (Flemming, 2010). This tendency reveals that the ultimate goal of education has become employability. However, this educational goal gratifies neoliberalism, an ideology that prioritizes competition and profit while undermining education’s humanizing aspects (Giroux, 2019).
Against such a sociocultural and political backdrop, I carried out a multi-staged action research project that focuses on learners’ life stories, challenges neoliberal ideas, and provides evidence to the importance of centring adult newcomer English instruction around the learners’ lived experiences. Through my study, I aimed to examine how adult newcomers’ participation in English autobiographical writing influences their language learning and settlement experiences in Canada. I first interviewed experienced language teaching practitioners to inform the development of a set of autobiographical writing lesson plans. I then delivered a six-week writing class to a group of volunteer adult newcomer English learners. I conducted pre- and post-class interviews with the learners, made ongoing revisions to the lesson plans during the six weeks based on learner feedback and classroom observations, and provided timely feedback to the learners after each time they submitted a piece of writing. In this presentation, I will discuss key findings from my study, focusing on Jasperine, one of the learner participants, and her experiences in my class.
Critical approaches to autobiographical or life writing suggest that “[We should] move away from modes of writing… [that organize] the telling of a life into pre-conceived scripts and instead attempts to both examine and write lives that are complex, flawed, and realistic” (Mulvihill & Swaninathan, 2017, p. 9). In agreement with this viewpoint, my research aims to understand the adult newcomer learners’ unique experiences and the affordances of engaging them in autobiographical writing practices.
Considering the relatively small learner sample size and short duration of instruction, I have decided that a qualitative and inductive approach to data analysis is the most suitable. Guided by Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss, 2017), which allows theory to emerge from data collection and analysis, I inductively developed my understanding of the influences of autobiographical writing on the participants’ learning and settlement experiences through my analysis. First, I qualitatively analyzed the learners’ writing samples and interview data. Then, following the thematic analysis procedures (Braun & Clarke, 2006), a method used to identify and analyze themes in a given data set, I conducted close readings of the above data to discover any prominent themes to address my research question.
Through my study, I discovered the potential benefits of autobiographical writing that adult newcomer English programs often disregard. The learners in my study shared powerful life stories of them migrating to and becoming valuable members of Canadian society. These stories demonstrate the power and tenacity these learners have, and they call for more research on and support for adult newcomers’ language learning and settlement journeys. This study thus sheds light on the experiences of the often marginalized immigrant population. Notably, the learners reported increased confidence in their writing skills through participating in this class. As well, they acquired techniques to organize their thoughts and construct their writing coherently and cohesively. Furthermore, the case study of Jasperine how autobiographical writing has helped overcome her fear for English writing, connected to her passion for arts, processed difficult emotions without blaming herself, and in her own words, “[opened] windows for” more creativity to flow.

Author

• Yiran Zhang, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto