Other related findings

Another external factor that affects the convertibility of English into cultural capital is the current English education system in China. Firstly, the prevalent approach to teaching language content in most English courses places an emphasis on the learning of grammar (lexicon, syntaxis, morphology) rather than the ability to use the target language (Ren & Yu, 2013). There has been ample research in foreign language teaching methods that demonstrate a teaching approach can have either beneficial or adverse effects on learner investment. For instance, Kumaravadivelu (2001; 2002;

2003) brings out the need for teachers to fully understand how their students’ life experiences, goals, and learning and communication styles may have an impact on the amount of investment a learner is willing to give. Thus, a ‘non’ communicative approach to language learning may have a negative effect on a student (e.g.

disengagement, boredom) or it may have a positive effect in the case that it fits the learner’s style, as was the case of Serena, who defined herself as a ‘bookworm’ or Lily, who excelled as a language learner. At the same time, a communicative approach may have an adverse effect on a learner who is more introverted and unwilling to speak in front of others (e.g. Ding).

Secondly, because of the examination-driven educational system, the main consideration in China is to classify the level of students as part of their rapid transition through the system. For instance, as was seen in the previous chapter, Cherry complained that the school only focused on their examination scores, which made her stressful.

This was the case for the participants of the study. The systemic patterns of control have determined their access to learning resources, or “affordances of learning” in the words of Darvin and Norton (2015). This includes the allocation of budgets to local

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schools for buying teaching materials and for high-quality teachers as well as access to extracurricular learning activities such as private tutors or technology resources.

When they first encountered English learning at college almost all of the participants encountered difficulties because of their non-standard pronunciation, their listening ability was not as sharp as expected or their oral English was not as fluent as their peers from urban cities. Lily even mentioned that when she first went to college, there was a big gap between her and her classmates who were from urban areas, especially in her listening and speaking skills. When she first communicated with English native speakers, she felt she had little fluency, except some simple and short sentences. This often led the participants to position themselves as ‘less knowledgeable’ in comparison with others, in particular in relation to various indicators of English proficiency and made them lose their confidence in their language competences, based on their lower scores in the state examinations.

It appears that education is increasingly becoming a means of reproducing social class as well as promoting the mobility between different social classes in China, even if it still may not be perceived as such. As English examinations have become a powerful mechanism of social stratification, overturning the egalitarianism in the pre-reform era (Xu, 2004), English learning provides tangible opportunities for upwards social mobility, or at least that is the predominant ideology and one which the participants and their more immediate relatives position themselves towards. (In reality, language skills are not a guarantee of job security, as exemplified in the cases of Serena and Ding).

It appears that in the end, the imagined community (Norton, 2015) is unattainable for the participants. As it has been explained previously, while investing time, money and energy in English learning, the language learners also make investment in the intangible communities of practice, which they imagine they are becoming a part of.

As Norton (2000, 2006) claims, although not yet real, these private visions may

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provide a strong impetus for language learning. For many language learners, the target language community is not only a reconstruction of past communities and historically constituted relationships among members, but also a community of the imagination, a desired community which can offer possibilities for an enhanced range of identity options in the future. An imagined community assumes an imagined identity, and the language learners’ hopes for the future are integral to these identities, so all of learner’s investments in the target language should be understood within this context.

If the language learners project themselves in their imagined communities, it again enhances their confidence and their English learning.

It is important to note that positioning towards the imagined communities of language speakers is not fixed and static.

While the concepts of ‘positioning’ or ‘subject position’ are metonymic of the imposition of power, they can also allow learners to regard themselves as

‘choosing subjects’ (Davies & Harré, 1990), who can rethink this ‘place’ that has been filled and internalized. (Darvin & Norton, 2015, p. 46)

For example, when Serena returned to her hometown, she finally stopped investing in English after approximately ten years’ dedicated to the learning process. The main reason for this shift was because the desired community where she could imagine herself involved in English had disappeared. In comparison, Lily, who is the only participant who continued investing in English after she graduated from college, has a community where she can practice English and re-construct her identities through communication with other members of this community.

For several of the participants, there is no target language community, which may have led them to have ambivalent feelings about speaking or practicing English. For most of the participants, during their time at school they were unable to create their

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own imagined communities, perhaps in a large part due to the teaching approach promoted in the schools. However, for some of the participants the opportunity to shift from imagined