Petra Trávníková is an Assistant Professor in English, teaching EAP and ESP to students of social sciences. Her long-term research interests are intercultural pragmatics and linguistic politeness, student autonomy, and self-reflection. She specializes in teaching presentation skills. Email: travniko@fss.muni.cz

 

Introduction

In recent years, there has been a major rise in adopting self-reflection as a tool in language learning (e.g. Godínez Martínez 2018), going hand in hand with the ever-growing emphasis on the learner-centred character of language education. Self-reflection helps students become more aware of their own performance in the language they study. In other words, self-reflective tasks make learners think about what they have done, read, or learned. Most importantly, students consequently try to understand the meaning of it all. It is especially the last point that becomes prominent in the entire process of self-reflection, i.e., understanding the meaning of the process, as it enables students to contextualise what they have learnt and adjust their learning to their individual needs (Tang 2000).

The focus of this text is on how students describe their history of learning a foreign language or languages. It aims to show how students view their learning process in retrospect. Based on a qualitative analysis of nearly 150 language learning histories of university students of humanities, the most frequent topics occurring in their texts will be identified. As the students’ experiences have been both positive and negative, it will be shown how these experiences could have affected their own approach to learning. Furthermore, the most typical patterns in students’ transformation narratives will be identified to show how they themselves described their changed attitude towards learning over the years. Last but not least, the article will demonstrate how teachers can benefit from using language-learning histories in their classes.  

 

Background

Language-learning histories (LLH) are defined as “self-report-based, introspective research narratives written by students about their own language learning. … students thoughtfully take a second look at their own past learning experiences” (Oxford 1995). LLH are also referred to as learning histories, life stories, memoirs, or personal narratives (Mercer 2013). The word that most stands out in the above definition is narrative. Very often students’ accounts of their memories resemble colourful memoirs, autobiographies, or diaries. Nunan (2013: 204) claims that “stories touch the human heart as well as mind”, which is certainly the case of many of the texts under examination. In their LLH, students tend to be very personal as well as emotional, describing both their positive and negative experiences while learning languages.

LLH are not useful only for students; they are also rich sources of data for their teachers, who learn how their students approach learning languages and what they think about their previous teachers’ methods. The first advantage of LLH is drawing attention to students as individuals, as their accounts are quite intimate. By sharing their memories, students give their teachers access to their inner worlds, describing their motivations, strengths, and weaknesses. However, these individuals are not taken outside their milieux. As emphasised by Mercer (2013: 163), “successful teaching involves not only understanding of the linguistic and cognitive needs of our learners, but it requires a respectful appreciation of their emotional and social needs as individuals”. Thus we can learn how people around them have shaped them as language learners. Whether the memories are positive or negative, both offer a valuable resource.

Secondly, LLH can even challenge or debunk teachers’ deeply rooted stereotypes. We may come to realise what students really think and how they feel about our teaching methodology. Students’ LLH help teachers realise what has worked for their students before or, on the contrary, what has not. For example, if the LLH reveal that students enjoyed reading authentic texts in high school, teachers should try to use authentic texts as much as they can in their classes as well. Likewise, teachers can adopt other methods mentioned in LLH as positive, such as watching movies in the original language or having class discussions on specific topics occurring in the texts, and avoid those mentioned as negative.

Thirdly, in writing LLH students become much more aware of their own learning strategies and their own “preferences and attitudes towards language learning” (Nunan 2013: 134), which is especially important if they come from traditional classrooms and have not done self-reflective tasks before. Surprisingly, many students’ accounts of their elementary and secondary school studies in the third millennium evoke standard teaching practices of the 1980s. Hence, the process of reflecting upon one’s learning strategies is essential, as a vast majority of students claim writing their LLH has been the first time they have been asked to look at their own learning more closely.

 

Material used

The material presented in this article is based on a self-compiled corpus of 147 LLH written by the author’s students. All of them were master’s students of social studies (majoring in psychology, sociology, media studies and journalism, political science and international relations, environmental studies, and social work) enrolled in a compulsory academic English course focused on presentations.

Students are asked to keep so-called self-reflection journals throughout the semester and add a new entry after every presentation they give. The LLH is the first entry in their journals, mapping their journey to language proficiency to date. Though self-reflection is not a method commonly applied in Czech elementary and secondary schools, as mentioned above, it should be pointed out that as master’s students they are at the end of this path, at least as regards institutional language education. At this point, the students are in their mid-twenties, have had over 15 years of various language studies inside and outside school, and are often experienced enough to critically judge their progress and achievements. Most of the authors of the LLH under examination are very advanced (at least C1+ level of CEFR), which enables them to express their opinions and emotions in a very eloquent and complex way.

The form of the LLH entries is very loose. The students can decide themselves how they want to proceed, receiving only the following instructions from their teacher:  

Write the first entry in the self-reflection journal about your language learning history. Describe your memories of studying languages, how and when you started and how you felt about it. Did you study any other languages? What helped you on the way? What did /did not work for you? Think about your emotions (you can be absolutely honest, you won’t have to show the journal to anyone else but me.) Take it as an opportunity to reflect on your learning process.

In class, students are explained the philosophy behind the journal and its aims. They are not expected to produce perfect written texts; rather, they should concentrate on being honest, thinking deeply and taking this assignment as an exercise they themselves will profit from most. They know the entire journal is intended for their own use; the teacher will only have a brief look at it after the semester is over. As previously some students perceived writing about emotions as inappropriate, the relevance of including emotions into their reflections is emphasised and students are encouraged to do so in their LLH. 

While there are of course individual differences between the LLH, they are many similarities too. Most students proceed chronologically, describing their first encounters with a foreign language. Many of them start as early as in kindergarten, the rest at elementary school.

The qualitative analysis of the material under examination has revealed four topics most frequently dealt with in the texts: students’ beginnings, teachers, teaching methodology, and learning outside the classroom. These are scrutinised more closely in the following section.

 

Topics

Kindergarten memories

As mentioned, an overwhelming majority of students proceed chronologically and start by describing their first encounters with a foreign language. Many of them go back as far as kindergarten and have surprisingly lively memories of that rather distant period. As shown in Example 1 below, students typically mention a focus on learning simple vocabulary and very often specify certain areas (animals, toys, colours). They also stress the playful character of their lessons, and most seem to have happy memories, though some mention they did not enjoy the classes.

Example 1:

First time I encountered the English language was surprisingly in the kindergarten. I remember being very excited for every class, because we would split in two groups and there wouldn’t be any mean kids in mine. Of course, it wasn’t an extra efficient learning experience. The classes mainly consisted of repeating some basic English words and connecting them with pictures. There were words like pig, tram, mom, egg, butter, etc. I remember those five very clearly as they were the first ones I learned and couldn’t stop repeating them to my parents at home.

Many descriptions are remarkably similar to Example 1 above. Students accentuate how proud they were they could “speak” a foreign language and describe the games that stuck in their minds over all those years. Several students emphasise that it was hard for them later to get used to a much stricter and less amusing atmosphere once they started to learn the language at elementary school.

Overall, students who started to learn English (no other language was mentioned) in kindergarten describe their experience in a detailed and vivid way. They had mostly positive memories of this period. Some mention they do not regard kindergarten English as the real start of their studies and take it as a preliminary stage of their language learning, while a few state that they did not like the games or that they found them too trivial and childish.

Teachers

Unsurprisingly, teachers are mentioned in every single LLH, and they fall into three categories—inspiring, average, and horrible. When describing great teachers, students mention such attributes as kind, friendly, encouraging, experienced (e.g., She knew how to work with us very well.), inspiring, passionate, highly motivated, or patient. They quite frequently highlight the fact their teacher was a native speaker and see it as a positive trait helping them acquire better language education than with non-native speakers of the language taught. They often cite a teacher’s exceptional teaching skills and wonderful personality as the reason they fell in love with the language and decided to study it further (e.g., English was my favourite subject because I really liked the teacher.).

On the opposite end of the spectrum, many students blame a teacher’s poor teaching skills for making them not want to study the language at all. They also attribute their own underachievement or slow progress to such teachers, as in the following quote: My progress was slow because my teachers were not really good and sometimes did not really know how to teach.

As mentioned above, it was astonishing that many students had been taught by teachers using conservative methods typical of those applied in communist Czechoslovakia before 1989, i.e., years before the students entered the school system. There are several accounts of elderly teachers who had only recently switched to English from other languages. Example 2 below presents a prototype of such a teacher, who originally taught Russian. Interestingly, the student points out the importance but lack of context for remembering vocabulary.  

Example 2:

My first English teacher was an old lady who, …, used to teach Russian back in the old regime, and I do not remember anything other than learning words without any context.

Besides describing an outrageous learning experience and inefficient teaching methods, Example 3, as in the previous example, also illustrates how emotional students tend to get in their LLH. It is clear that even though the student was among the teacher’s favourite pupils s/he still suffered from the unpleasant, humiliating and stressful atmosphere in the classroom. This is again a typical picture of the traditional Czech(oslovak) classroom under the communist regime, where the teacher stood as the only authority and the students were afraid of him/her.

Example 3:

I clearly remember my high school English teacher who was a non-English speaker middle-age woman with a bad pronunciation, boring, and ineffective teaching methods… Most importantly (and this is why I call her a *****), she always implicitly sorted children in her classes to ‘her favourites’ and those she hated. I was lucky as I belonged to the favourite ones. However, those she hated were anxious all the time because she often screamed at them and humiliated them.

Teaching methods  

As the above examples show, some students give incredibly detailed depictions of their past teachers’ personalities, even including their age and looks. Yet they often go even further to describe their teaching methods. Looking at how much careful attention students pay to describing the way they were taught, they recurrently criticise the traditional “transmission” (frontal) teaching model and having to memorise vocabulary rather than practising communication in the language.

In Example 4 below, the student starts by referring to the teacher’s personality and age. S/He goes on to explain how the teacher’s methodology made her/him feel and concludes by mentioning s/he finds it important to understand the rules, not only apply them by heart.

Example 4:

…our first English teacher was this old lady, that wanted to come off as sweet, but the truth was that she was quite the mean type. She was, probably, the “old school” type of teacher who would use the “memorise it all” technique. It was painful for me to memorise everything without proper explanation why is it the way it is.

From the texts under investigation, it is also clear what methods students value most. Being very critical of the traditional emphasis on rote-learning, they think highly of teachers who made them communicate and practise speaking as much as they could. Furthermore, they also praise hardworking teachers who invested lots of energy in teaching or, as indicated in Example 5, in error correction and giving feedback. In the below example, there is an amazing depiction of tiny details about how the teacher corrected mistakes, and the author also praises the teacher’s diligence.

Example 5:

I remember she used to give us back our homework with a picture of a little smile which had a number instead of its nose telling us how many mistakes there were in the homework (the mistakes were underlined). First it was written with a pencil and when we gave it back to her corrected, she would make a new smiling face with a new number. Every misspelled word we had to write correctly for three times. Despite the fact it was rather annoying (although I do not remember I would mind, I was a bit of a [teacher’s] pet in English classes) I think it was very useful, and I cannot imagine how much work she had to spend with our homework.

Lastly, students often appreciated the use of authentic materials (they repeatedly mentioned it was wonderful when their teachers did not stick to a course book but created and brought to school materials of their own). They reportedly liked watching videos, reading up-to-date newspaper articles, and writing short essays in which they expressed their opinions.

Overall, students demonstrated good knowledge of modern language teaching methodology. They frequently criticised outdated methods (such as learning by heart or concentrating merely on grammar and vocabulary) and placed emphasis instead on communication, group work, and using authentic materials and multimedia. They also stressed the crucial role of a good atmosphere in the classroom.

Learning outside the classroom

Besides studying a language at school, approximately three quarters of the students describe how they have enhanced their language skills outside the classroom. Among the most frequently mentioned ways are watching movies and TV series with or without subtitles, reading books in the original language, and using apps such as Duolingo on their smart phones. Many cite playing video games as helping them learn and practise the language. Some even mention that they benefited more from playing video games than from learning the language in the traditional way at school, as in Example 6 below.

Example 6:

But the real breakthrough came with my later found passion about videogames. And let me stress, that if somebody tells me that video games are a waste of time, they can’t be any more wrong. It was video games what gave me my deep passive understanding of English language. They extended [my][PR1] [PT2]  vocabulary more than any other English teacher would.

Some draw a clear line between what they learned at school and by themselves. The main difference appears to lie in being able to enjoy learning the language on their own. For example, they contrast the boring atmosphere in the classroom to being able to do what they themselves find important. Some even refer to the moment when they left school and started studying the language by themselves as a breakthrough, such as in Example 7. Only then did the writer realise how nice and important the language is.

Example 7:

A breaking point came right after a high school graduation. Suddenly, I was free, so I decided to watch TV shows, movies, and videos in English, of course. Those everyday activities somehow had initiated a change in my approach to English. I realized its importance and niceness.

Occasionally the students describe how other people have helped them learn a language, such as their parents or other relatives, parents’ friends, or even foreign boy/girlfriends. A few have even attended English camps, and those that have usually describe it as an especially useful and enjoyable experience.

A majority of the LLH authors describe how they have studied in a foreign country, usually in Europe but some on other continents as well. One student nicely sums up what resonates with other experiences—studying abroad not only improved her language tremendously but also gave [her] a lot of new power and reasons to continue improving [her] English. Going abroad often made students realise studying a language is more than cramming vocabulary and filling in gaps in grammar exercises. Moreover, some of them depict their stay abroad as a great challenge (they may have cried in their pillows but they also had a profound sense of accomplishment after their stay had ended). They often describe how proud and happy they were to have made it and how this experience has boosted their self-confidence and motivation to go on studying languages. Studying abroad is thus often described as an eye-opening experience in studying a foreign language.

 

Transformation narratives

The final part of the article deals with the so-called transformation narratives as defined by Karlsson and Bradley (2018). Narratives have become an increasingly popular self-reflective tool, enabling both the learner and the teacher to go in greater depth when searching for motivations and previous experiences as a basis for further learning. Karlsson and Bradley, who are counsellors in the Autonomous Language Learning Modules at the University of Helsinki (i.e., the programme which served as inspiration for our Language Centre’s autonomy classes), came up with a typology of 4 narratives:

1. Personal growth
2. Looking to the future
3. Continuing to learn
4. Revisiting learning

They claim this classification is not a set of four separate, mutually independent narratives, but rather the four narratives are intertwined and there is great overlap among them. This can be also said about the narratives found in the LLH in the analysed corpus.

The analysis of the LLH corpus revealed that the students employed all four narratives listed above. The first, narrative of personal growth, was quite frequent. In this narrative, students describe how they have developed from language learners to become language users. This narrative goes hand in hand with accounts of boosted confidence and how over the time students realise they can use the language in their daily lives (e.g., I can handle everyday communication pretty well and it doesn’t stress me in any way.).

The growth narrative often co-occurs with the staying-abroad topic. Following a smaller or greater culture shock, students report how they have realised they have grown into real language users. This process also helps them see their up-to-then language studies more clearly and to suddenly know what matters (mastering a language is not about being afraid of making grammatical mistakes, as they believed when they attended secondary school).

In this type of narrative, students have become highly active and have their own learning under their control, as exhibited in Example 8 below. I would especially like to draw attention to the part where the student realises language is a skill, which is a turning point that makes them change their attitude towards language learning as such. Furthermore, in this sample the student is fully aware it is up to them to take full control of their learning, which is also a prominent sign of personal growth as well as learner autonomy.

Example 8:

English became my favourite subject at school, and I also had a feeling that I learn more on my own, than at school. I realized that foreign language is a skill, not knowledge. To become proficient at it, one must make the effort to learn it, classes at school are a good addition, but they are not enough at all. I was really enjoying learning English.

The second narrative, looking to the future, does not take place in the past/present but is more about students’ future expectations. It often concerns making plans for their own development and being aware of the necessity to learn. In this narrative, students appear more insecure and less self-confident, recurrently expressing their disappointment at their language competence and need to improve it. Typically, they describe a gap between their school-leaving exam for the particular language, when they felt they had reached their top level, and a much worse situation later in their master’s studies. Sadly, they feel their language skills have deteriorated after they left school, since they did not have an opportunity to practise them. This happens especially in those study fields where they do not have to use a foreign language much, as demonstrated in Example 9. However, with the awareness of insufficient current language competence also comes plans to develop it in the future.

Example 9:

 … because I am not as sure of my spoken English as I was before, when I had the opportunity to practise often. I would like to work on that. I hope it will be better again. I hope that we will travel again soon and speak the language more actively...

In this narrative type, students do not take such an active approach towards their language studies as in the other types. They more likely acknowledge the need to study due to some outside circumstances. Their motivation is thus external, which makes it different from the internalised motivation common in the personal growth narrative.

The third narrative, continuing to learn, resembles the second as regards the absence of transformation from a language learner to user. Here, students are very thoroughly acquainted with the learning process itself, knowing very well what they would like to work on and improve. However, they are somehow stuck in the learning process and often underestimate their capabilities. To put it briefly, they never feel good enough and always have an urge to work on their language skills, even if they are told by people around them (typically their teachers) that their language skills are excellent (see below). In Example 10, the student vividly depicts their feelings of inferiority, even though they exceeded their peers. It is quite a typical example of students’ insecurities and doubts.

Example 10:

My secondary school English teacher was very proud of me in class. There was no way I wouldn’t get straight “As” for every test, presentation, and essay. But what I realized at that moment was that I was only good at English in comparison to my classmates. But internally I would really struggle, because I knew I was not that good in expressing myself. Even though my passive vocabulary would bloom with every Netflix show I binge watched, I wasn’t able to come up with right words at moments of improvisation and discussions. Even though I got better I think, there is so much work to do on my speaking skills.

This type of narrative is quite frequent in the context of a prestigious faculty, where students are often high-achievers and perfectionists. In the presentation skills class, students typically give very good talks but when they describe this experience in the self-reflection journal later it is full of complaints about how they have failed. Based on this finding, one of the aims in the class has become to change their approach to learning, which they often find a liberating thought, as is evident from their self-reflection journals and feedback forms at the end of the term.

Lastly, there is the fourth type of narrative, in which students revisit their own learning. Here, they often realise they can afford to make mistakes and that nobody is perfect. They also emphasise the idea that learning a language is a never-ending process, so they are both language learners and users at the same time. However, as opposed to narrative three and perhaps two, they no longer want to learn the language (only) to get excellent grades or to please their parents but to be able to use the language. Moreover, they also claim the learning experience is more fun for them once they have reduced their perfectionist tendencies. This approach is aptly illustrated in Example 11, in which the student is aware they cannot speak the language perfectly but at the same time admits openly this is not their aim.

Example 11:

Now I use English every day in my work but I can’t speak English fluently, there is still room for improvement. I learned that speaking a foreign language is not about perfection and making mistakes is natural. It’s all about practicing. I became more comfortable speaking and writing English and that is the best step forward.

In a nutshell, the aim of the qualitative analysis was to discover the trends in students’ LLH rather than measuring the occurrence of each type in these texts. All four types of narratives as defined by Karlsson and Bradley (2018) were identified in the corpus under investigation. In the growth narrative, students are aware of how they have mastered the language and what has helped them along the way, which can be further developed in the course. Types two and three unveil students’ insecurities and doubts, often expressing their dissatisfaction and complaints about their current language skills, regardless of their objective performance. If teachers find these two narrative types, they should help their students overcome their lack of self-confidence and uncertainties. The lessons from the final narrative of revisiting one’s own learning can be helpful in this respect. It is important to make students understand that it is OK to make mistakes and that the purpose of learning a language lies in its practical application, not in an ability to construct perfect sentences.

 

What else can teachers do with LLH in the everyday classroom?

The previous text has demonstrated what we can learn from our students’ LLH designed as a semi-free-writing exercise. If teachers want their students to concentrate on particular topics, they can, for example, do so by asking them to write tasks based on questions like the following:

Who was your most inspiring teacher and why?

What is your earliest memory of starting to study a language? How did you feel?

What is the most efficient/awkward teaching method your teacher has used?

How can you learn a language outside the classroom?

When did you realise your English is good enough to get on in a foreign country?

These questions can also be used for follow-up discussions in the subsequent class after the students were asked to write their LLH. Having reflected upon their learning past, students can then discuss any of the topics identified in this article in pairs or groups. Furthermore, students can conduct a SWOT analysis based on their LLH. Based on these texts, they should be able to see their strengths and weaknesses more clearly now. Later, they can also set goals based on this analysis. These might include specific short-term goals relevant to the course, such as concentrating on their body language while giving a presentation or writing a short text every week to practice their writing more frequently. As a further follow-up, the teacher can also organise short one-on-one sessions in which they will discuss both the LLH and the plans students make based on the SWOT analysis.

The narrative types can be practically used in situations where there is a “resistant” student in the class. We all have taught students for whom it was difficult to participate in classes, whether due to poor language skills or unwillingness to engage in pair or class activities. When asked if anything is wrong, the teacher usually does not obtain a relevant answer. In this case, it may be useful to work with the student’s LLH, which might reveal underlying reasons. Very often, this may have been caused by a previous teacher and their teaching methods. Such students often describe the third narrative, i.e., they are insecure and underestimate themselves based on their previous performance. By discovering the cause of the student’s reluctance, the teacher can help them to change their approach to language learning. 

 

Conclusions

The aim of this article is to show how students on their route to language mastery view their learning process in retrospect. In the texts in which students “make sense of their lived and felt experiences” (Karlsson and Bradley 2018), 4 types of personal narratives were identified, which were then illustrated with examples. As the LLH are authored by experienced, successful, and advanced students, their narratives offer extensive data revealing what topics the students found significant and how they have transformed themselves over time. Thanks to the genre of autobiographical narrative, we can also see what most of them share and how they differ.

First, we can generalise that they have improved their language learning and enhanced their cognitive skills over the years. From their often very detailed accounts of their past learning, it is evident that they are fully aware of the role of teachers in their lives, be it positive or negative. Furthermore, they pay significant attention to teaching methodology, which implies they may know more about it than teachers usually expect. They are highly observant as regards efficient and incompetent teaching methods and, moreover, they know what works for them individually, which is of special importance for their further development. As they grow older and become more advanced learners, they also tend to become more autonomous and learn more outside the class than at school.

Second, LLH offer a rich source of information for teachers too. From these texts, it is evident what students enjoy doing and what they appreciate in the classroom. Hence teachers can use these findings for inspiration in their own practices.

Third, the four transformation narratives identified show how students differ on their way to becoming competent language users. While some of them have already become active language users and stopped being mere learners (the growth narrative), others are still afraid to use the language fully, mainly out of fear they are not good enough to do so. Consequently, they either make study plans for the future (looking to the future narrative) or try to improve themselves now (continuing to learn narrative). Finally, the last narrative of revisiting their learning seems to show the most flexible approach to language learning. From the perspective of learner autonomy, this fourth narrative is what we want our students to adopt. We want them to realise learning a foreign language is a continuous process, which should never stop. Moreover, we want them to overcome their inner doubts and insecurities and become more optimistic towards their future language use.

In this article, I have tried to explain and illustrate why I see LLH as an extraordinary self-reflective tool, worthwhile both for students and their teachers. For the many reasons mentioned above, I strongly recommend it as a rewarding, authentic, and gratifying activity that can help all of us in the language classroom in our effort to make the entire learning process as efficient, effective and enjoyable as possible.

 

References

Karlsson, L. and F. Bradley (2018). Storytelling for Learning and Healing: Parallel Narrative Inquiries in Language Counselling. In Learner Development Journal, Vol. 1, Issue 2. pp. 100-116.

Martínez Godínez, J. M. (2018): How effective is collaborative reflective practice in enabling cognitive transformation in English language teachers? In Reflective Practice, 19(4), 427-446.

Mercer, S. (2013). Working with language learner histories from three perspectives: Teachers, learners and researchers. In Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, 3(2), pp. 161-185.

Nunan, D. (2013). Learner-Centred English Language Education. The Selected Works of David Nunan. Routledge.

Oxford, R. L. (1995). When emotion meets (meta)cognition in language learning histories. In International Journal of Educational Research, 23(7), pp. 581-594.

Tang, C. (2000). Reflective diaries as a means of facilitating and assessing reflection. Paper presented at the Pacific Rim Conference on Higher Education Planning and Assessment. Hilo, Hawaii, USA. 3-7 June 2000. https://www.nursing-midwifery.tcd.ie/assets/director-staff-edu-dev/pdf/ReflectiveDiaries-CatherineTang.pdf