Thriving in Multilingualism
Construction of the multilingual motivational other/self in Chinese EFL teachers.
About the project
This project investigates how motivation for learning multiple languages is shaped between teachers and students in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms in Guangdong. Guangdong is a linguistically diverse region of southeast China, which operates within predominantly monolingual education policies.
Building on Dörnyei’s L2 Motivational Self System and the Douglas Fir Group framework, the study explores how:
- teachers act not only as language instructors but also as important motivational “others”
- teachers' beliefs, practices, and classroom interactions influence how students imagine themselves as future multilingual speakers
- students’ own motivations, identities, and responses can shape teachers’ multilingual orientations and practices
Find out more
Lead researcher profile: Dr Yao Wang, Lecturer in Intercultural Communication and Education
Acknowledgements
Supported by a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant
Collaborators: Dr Miaomiao Zuo (Co-I, Huizhou University), Prof Kevin Tai (Co-I, The University of Hong Kong)