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About Meng-Wei Lin: A Teacher, a Language Learner, and a Language Lover

Download my CV

Languaging in the U.K.

    A Spanish teacher I met in Ecuador told me, “Once you become a language teacher, you cannot stop analyzing language wherever you go.” I found this to be true after noticing my “language pictures” increased when I went backpackaging in the U.K. I have come to realize, over the past two years, that I have turned myself into a language teacher from someone who was just interested in language.

As a language learner

    Born in a multilingual family (my father speaks Southern Min and Mandarin, and my mother speaks Hakka and Mandarin), I have a strong awareness toward languages and translingual practices. Because of my love toward Chinese literature and Chinese history, I chose History as my undergraduate major, but kept learning English and Japanese. The experience as an EFL learner led me to question the role of English education in Taiwan. 

Teaching EFL in Otavalo

Become a teacher

    My professional training was mainly done in the MA-TESL program offered by the department of Applied Linguistics in the Pennsylvania State University. The TESOL-Ecuador program also provided me with teaching and immersion learning experience, which gave me an insight of English teaching in other EFL context. Both of them prepared me with the knowledge as well as experiences to become an ambitious and enthusiastic teacher. 

Materials decorated in the classroom in Otavalo 

Living in languaging

Languaging in Ecuador

    Although in many textbooks language is presented as the prescriptive knowledge which is pretty stable, I take language as a living thing and a part of my life. This is also what I try to demonstrate to my students, since learning a language is for communicating. Even in contexts where a language is taught for testing or building up social capitals, learners still have to accept the fact that in this era in which information exchanging happens so frequently, they might need to communicate in their second or third language. This is why I would like to define my profession as teaching “languaging” rather than teaching language.

This blog records my development of “languaging.” Although the artifacts are categorized and presented as “products,” I hope you take them as “processes” which are still on-going. For a brief description about my education, professional employment records, and skills please refer to the CV above.

   

Developing Teaching Philosophy: a twisty path more than learning becoming a language teacher

Meeting objectives: 2, 3, 4

    Within these two years, I have written more than one “belief paper” for different courses. Probably, the very first one was the immature SOP starting with a cliché: “I love teaching since I was a child.” Now, I still love teaching, but I have more than just “love” to say. I am going to trace this path of my professional development by reflecting on three belief papers (you can also find them under MA-TESL and TESOL-Ecuador categories) as well as my teaching. Then I will come to the current, but not the final, version of “my belief.”

Worked with students in ESL015

From complex to pseudoconcept

    My identity as a language teacher tied with my identity as an English learner fight against the feeling of inferior. When I wrote my first belief paper, I could not help but relate my goal to “my fighting” by stating “Teaching is an empowering process which enables individuals to change the world, and language teaching is no exception — not because learners get a tool for communication, but they get a new way of thinking.” Although it seemed pretty open-ended to say “a new way of thinking,” the goal I set at that time was almost focused on how to help learners become aware of the power of language. This became my point of departure and my next step was specifying approaches or theories, which, on the one hand can cope with this power issue, and on the other hand, empower learners.

    While decoding my personal literacy development process, I embraced the language socialization paradigm and the Sociocultural Theory in my second belief paper. Although I “knew” them while working on the first paper, I did not know how to apply theories which did not provide specific methods (but then I found this is why SCT can situate flexibly in different contexts). I found SCT perfectly justifies my belief of acknowledging multilingual competence.

My students in Otavalo, Ecuador

Transforming through practices

    The teaching experience in Ecuador was a turning point. The impact of being a total “foreigner,” who had trouble communicating in everyday language, forced me became even humble to understand my students’ struggles. Additionally, through this practice teaching, I realized that I carried a distinct language learning experience from my American colleagues to Ecuador. As an EFL learner, I was more aware of my students’ difficulties, and I knew more strategies to deal with these problems. This was the first time I felt proud about my non-native English speaking background. I then felt relieved that my beliefs and goals were not that far-fetched.

    After I came back to Penn State, I got an opportunity to observe an ESL 015 class and tutored a student. The experience was not that different from the Ecuador’s, but it gave me an insight into ESL student’s struggle of mastering American academic writing. My observation then became a part of my third version of belief paper in which becoming a culturally responsive teacher was put into practices in my reacting toward students’ multilingual competence.

With my tutee from ESL015

Beliefs, developing and apply

        The beliefs below are the forth version of my developing philosophy.  

1.      Situated teaching is should be the first step:

Language teaching should be situated by analyzing sociocultural factors and mediating artifacts in different contexts. Instead of perusing effective teaching and learning as a final product, I take every process as a dialectical move which requires dynamic assessment and giving proper scaffolding.

2.      Transligual competence should be valued

When English become a global language, the understanding toward English learners should also be expended. Teachers should not neglect students’ multilingual competence, but think about how to develop students’ translingual competence. The learning objective should not be “mastering English,” but using both primary languages as well as English to become effective communicator.  

3.          Critical literacy skills toward language and language learning should be encouraged in EFL contexts  

Language teaching should not be limited to teach the language only. This is even true in EFL contexts. Thus, I hope my teaching can bring awareness to “English” and “English learning”: how it is selected, ideologically assigned, and context framed.

APLNG 589 Technology in FL/SL Education

Objectives:1, 2, 5, 7

Download the attached files

       Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) has been wildly applied for decades, not only because of its affordances of long distant learning, but also its providing multimedia interactions. Additionally, according to the Sociocultural Theory, learning happened in interactions. With proper design, technology can be used to scaffold learners according to their ZPD with fewer efforts.

        Aside from an individual final project, there were three mini-projects which students were required to incorporate technology tools introduced in class to design activities for teaching:1) listening, speaking, and pronunciation; 2) reading and vocabulary; 3) grammar and writing. Each design should consider the context, learning objectives and the sustainability. Moreover, designers should also consider how they are going to evaluate the outcome. Through designing mini-projects, I learned how to evaluate the affordances and restrictions of technologies considering specific contexts and theoretical bases.   

The first mini-project was designed for EFL learners with intermediate-high level students in Taiwan (please refer the attached file: mini project 1). We used the Windows Movie Maker to add captions and reflecting questions on a short clip in order to increase listening comprehension.

        The second mini-project was designed for ESL015 students to increase their reading comprehension (please refer to the attached folder—mini project 2). We used an online tool— Hypertext which has a dictionary on half of the screen and give definitions instantly. Also, Wordel and Wordsift were used for incresing effectiveness of reading prediction. Our goal was scaffolding students based on their ZPD accordingly.

Word cloud for pre-reading activity in  mini-project 2

      

      In the third mini-project, our group considered incorporating of both Google Docs and the PBworks (a type of wikis) to facilitate collaborative writing (please refer to the attached folder—mini project 3). We designed a task requiring students to use conditional tense in Spanish to report expecting activities, food and music they would like to explore in a Hispanic festival. By utilizing these tools, our goal is to increase the flexibility of collaborative writing and mutual scaffolding. 
      My final project was a literature review of wiki-based collaborative writing studies (please refer to attached file—final project) .Wikis are Web 2.0 tools providing highly accessible, interactive and flexible collaborative learning experience. In terms of collaborative writing, wikis’ trailing revisions, instant commenting, and co-editing present writing as a process rather than a product. However, although wikis currently draw much attention from educators, wiki-based collaborative wiring research is still in beginning and there is still no framework to ensure every student could on one hand maintain their autonomy, and, on the other hand, participate actively. Thus the review strives to explore possibilities of wikis in future task designing.

My Research

This is an archive for the research projects I did in MA-TESL program. Aside from the brief descriptions below, each of them also has a detailed description in course entries. To understand more about the projects, please feel free to click the quick links of the courses. 

APLNG482 Introduction of Applied Linguistics

Final project

This is a small research investigating two major shifts of “language in education planning” in Taiwan. The project describes the social, historical, and cultural contexts chronically, which aims at finding the cause of current existing language hierarchy in that multilingual society. Through doing this project, I experienced the difficulties of analyzing language issues, but I was also amazed by their complexity. This project raised my awareness toward the political and social factors involved in language teaching.

APLNG581 Discourse Analysis

Final project

This project analyzes how the local and the national scale Tea Party groups constructed their identities and using different promotion strategies to gain public acknowledgments. By using CDA, I understood power issues in language more clearly, and I get a different perspective to relate language to sociopolitical contexts. 

APLNG587 Theory & Research in L2 Teacher Education

Final project

This project first reviews the role of Teacher’s Language Awareness (TLA), and proposes a design of course for teacher education program in Taiwan to develop TLA Because of designing the course, I got a deeper understanding of negotiating the tension between micro-structure and macro-structure.

APLNG589 Technology in FL/SL Education

Finalproject

This review analyzes wiki-based collaborative writing case studies in the five years. The goal is addressing unsolved issues by providing a framework based on the cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) in order to add some inputs to wiki-based collaborative writing. When applying the activity theory (which I first learned from APLNG 587), I learned that using technology in language teaching is not simply “adding a tool,” but a “complex interplay between agents, artifacts, and the socio-historical context that weaves resources into a dynamic system of what could be called cultural tools (Lund & Rasmussen, 2008, p.388).

APLNG597A Meaning in L2 Learning

Final project

Using different perspective to analyze the identity construction processes of the Tea Party groups, this project starts from a metaphor analysis in Tea Part groups’ promotion texts and decodes the underlying ideology even further. In this projected I learned how to analyzing metaphorical language and applying it in CDA.

Reference:

Lund, A., & Rasmussen, I. (2008). The right tool for the wrong task? Match and mismatch between first and second stimulus in double stimulation. The International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 3, 387-412.

Teaching in Ecuador

Meeting objectives: 1, 2, 7

Lesson plans and teaching reflection

As a part of the training in TESOL-Ecuador program, I did a content-based English teaching (teach language through teaching content subject, which is a type of shelter ESL teaching) with two teachers in Otavalo for a month. Our content was geography (grade levels 9-12). The overall objective was raising students’ awareness of pollutions in their living environment. 

There were three teaching sections per week, and we teachers met every weekend and afternoon to plan our lesson (please refer to the attached file—lesson plan). In each class, every teacher was in charge of 30 minutes of teaching. After three sections, we did a simulate recall to reflect on our teaching and wrote a reflection journal (please refer to the attached file—teaching reflection).

post I made for teaching the life cycle of shoes

We started from discussing the life cycle of “stuffs” students used in their daily life (e.g., shoes, jeans, etc.) to help them related products with materials. Since one of Ecuador’s biggest exports is oil, it was quite successful to made students think about the relationship between oil consumption and a lot of products they used daily.

ceremony before the final open house

Then, we went on digging major pollutions issues around the world. This part was quit sensitive since Ecuador belongs to the third world which suffered for the first worlds’ exploitation economically and environmentally. Finally we narrowed the topic down to pollutions the students found in the cities where they grow up and reasoned causes and effects.

The final assessment was videotaping students’ 2 minute speeches about pollution issues they chose. The outcome was quit successful: all students prepared their speech well and presented in a proficient way. This recorded film was sent to one of our teacher’s Spanish class as an “international conversation” (students in that class also recorded a film to introduce themselves, and we showed our students this clip before we videotaped).

The experience was very meaningful not only because it was my first time teaching a class of students, but also because I felt I was connected to the topics while living in Otavalo. I learned Spanish, culture, and people while teaching. This experience motivated me further to become a teacher whose focus in not just language but the community, society, and culture.

APLNG 412 Teaching Second Language Writing

Textbook 1.

Meeting Objectives: 2, 3, 4, 6

Download the attached files

    Using one sentence to summarize this course—“it is more than second language writing, but sociopolitical issues related literacy development.” I admit that before taking this course, I viewed teaching second language writing as designing learning topics, choosing materials, and giving feedback to students’ papers. In other words, I took writing not so much as a skill, though I knew it was tightly connected to listening, reading, and speaking. However, this class turned my perception of writing to be a set of political issues correlating with power.

Textbook 2.

      The first project was a literacy biography (please refer to the attachment literacy biography). Before doing this project, I nearly forgot that becoming able to read and write was such a heavy, painful, self digging and identity constructing process, I have experienced the processes twice: learning how to read and write in Mandarin and English. This project still reminds me always put myself in ESL/EFL learners’ shoes to understand their struggle in their literacy development.

Textbook 3.

       Another project was an observation in the writing center (please refer to the attachment—reflective tutoring observation). Because of the observation, I learned that the center’s structuring tutoring process was not so natural and simple. It implied the center’s defining of “what is good writing,” but it was not necessarily consistent with expectations of instructors or literacy research.

Textbook 4.

      The final project was a combination of philosophy of literacy and a lesson plan (please refer to the file named philosophy of literacy). By the end of this class, the emotional reactions toward literacy development were refined with the theoretical knowledge. In this philosophy I articulated my feeling which intertwined with the scientific concepts, and they were applied in the lesson plan.
      Because of these projects and the issues explored in this class, I came to a whole new, more complicated understanding toward teaching writing. I decided that if I have a chance to teach writing, I will not present a “perfect” model of writing for my students to pursue, but encourage them to develop repertoire which will help them communicate effectively in different genres. 

APLNG 482 Introduction of Applied Linguistics

Meet objectives: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Download the attached files

What is the difference between linguistics applied and Applied Linguistics? Can Applied Linguistics simply be taken as language teaching?

Starting with these two questions, this course expended topics covered by Applied Linguistics from how to define “native speaker” to broader issues, such as language right and language policy. Although I have never taken Applied Linguistics as only the knowledge of language teaching, the topics introduced in this course were much broader than I expected

 

Textbooks 1, 2, 3

For every class, there was an assigned topic for one student to write a reflection paper to open up an online discussion (please refer to the file Reflection Paper and PPT file “the politics of text”). The topic I got was Critical Literacy, which takes language as a set of contextualized social practices containing ideology. 

I was leading the discussion related to Critical Literacy

The application of the concept proposed by Pennycook (2001) is a reversion of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The hardest part of the project was not understanding the concepts, but finding materials which did not obviously show the ideology (since one of the critique Pennycook gives to CDA is its revealing of ideology in political texts is sometimes too apparently), but still demonstrated the way that CDA approach to the text (please refer to the attachments). I then used the picture book, Slovenly Peter, to demonstrate how social changing affects the ideology changing, and why this is missing in CDA. 

One of the activities I designed: analyzing the picture book Slovenly Peter

What I learned from the assignment was designing activities to get my colleagues to apply the concept immediately instead of “telling” the concept. The experience of this practice was and is still “alive,” even after I started teaching.

 My final project was also related to “the politics of language.” I did a small research project reflecting on how the two major “language in education planning” in Taiwan have changed the status of languages (please refer to the attached file—final project). This small project demonstrated why language teaching should not be taken as teaching other content knowledge, but as a nationwide identity transforming process (for detailed research, please refer to the attachments).

  To conclude, this introductory course serves as a fundamental basis of my preceding professional development as a language teacher proposing teaching critical literacy.

APLNG 491 Second Language Acquisition

Meet objectives: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7

Download the attached file 

This course introduced five major themes in SLA research chronically from “SLA in the head (cognitive approach, Monitor theory),” “instructed SLA (Input Process Theory),” “social approach SLA,” “SLA as socialization,” and “SCT and SLA.” Each theme covered at least five key concepts and researchers. Instead of lecturing, the instructor followed the inquiry-based approach: students in a group of three were assigned one theme and taught all the key concepts in three sections of class. In addition, students chose another theme aside from the assigned theme to write a short research paper discussing its possible educational application.

My individual project was “SLA in the head” (please refer to file named SLA in the head—first project). Through doing the project, I found many concepts (such as input hypothesis, negotiation for meaning) were consistent with the theoretical foundation of many materials I had used before. I then understood the rationales of the sequences, followed Krashen’s comprehensible input hypothesis, as well as the activities (e.g., giving output), which helped me become able to give critiques.

In group teaching: I was giving an introduction course about language socialization

       The group project was more challenging in choosing assigned articles for the three class sections (they should be research which can explain the key concepts thoroughly). Additionally, we could not just lecture, but had to create at least two to three activities for our classmates to engage them to play around with the key concepts (for the material we developed please refer to the series files starting with “second project”). After designing the tasks, these concepts and theories became clearer than just reading through the materials. I not only internalized the knowledge, but also used the knowledge in teaching.

    

        What about I like this course particularly is how it brought me this major SLA research in one semester, and I became able to transform the knowledge in other courses (please refer to the final exam—concept, definition, and implication). This outcome reveals the power of inquiry-based teaching as well as SCT: the mode of learning, through doing inquiries, affects what learners will learn.

Map of the Portfolio

This blog is built to record my professional development process as a language teacher, language learner, and language lover. As the guild line for you to locate what you might be inserted in easily, this Map will introduce the contents and the categories in this blog.

To enjoy your exploring of this blog, please click the following link for more interactive guiding :

Map of the E-Protfolio 

After you go into the Prezi, click the gray arrow à to “animate” the Prezi

       To locate a particular entry, please follow the folloiwng lable. 

About Me: Self-introduction (my CV included) and my developing teaching philosophy

Professional development in Penn State MA-TESL program (MA-TESL): The courses I have taken and documents made for these courses

MA-TESL

APLNG 482 Introduction of Applied Linguistics APLNG 484 Discourse Functional Grammar APLNG 491 Second Language Acquisition APLNG 583 Methods of Language Assessment APLNG 595 Internship (ESL015) APLNG 412 Teaching Second Language APLNG 493 Teaching English as Second Language APLNG 581 Discourse Analysis APLNG 587 Theory & Research in L2 Teacher Education APLNG 589 Technology in FL/SL Education APLNG 597A Meaning in L2 Learning

Professional development in TESOL-Ecuador program (TESOL-Ecuador): Internship and learning in Ecuador

TESOL-Ecuador

WL ED 444 Language, culture, and the Classroom WL ED 483 Evaluating Schools’ Performance & ESL Programs WL ED 400 Foundations of Second Language Teaching

My Teaching: My experiences of teaching ESL015 and shelter English in Ecuador

Meanwhile, this blog demonstrates the Ma-TESL program objectives as the follow list. For each entry there will be a label indicating the meeting objective(s):       

Objectives of MA-TESL program (Form PSU, Department of AppliedLinguistics):

1. the ability to design and evaluate instructional materials, technology, media, and other resources that meet the specific instructional and language related needs and abilities of students;
2. the ability to reflect on, critically analyze, and evaluate your own teaching practices;
3. the ability to articulate a philosophy of language teaching grounded in current language and learning theories;
4. an understanding of the complex social, cultural, political, and institutional factors that affect language teaching and students' language learning;
5. knowledge of research and research methods for studying language teaching and learning;
6. knowledge of the teaching field (English);
7. participation in collaborative projects with others.

APLNG 484 Discourse Functional Grammar

Meeting objectives: 1, 2, 6

Download the attached files

As an EFL learner who has received grammar-based language teaching for many years, while seeing the title, I did not have any expectations of how this course might be different from the grammar courses I have taken. However, from the Introduction of Applied Linguistics, the notion of World English and descriptive grammar led me to question what I used to think about grammar. Thus, I looked forward to seeing if this grammar course may help me create a “new grammar teaching.”

Textbook for this course

       Although a great portion of this class was on-line, this course did not disappoint me in terms of its bringing the social functional perspective of grammar into discussions and blog reflections (please refer to the attachment blog entry 1-5). For example, the first discussion was analyzing the language of an invitation, a postcard, and a short conversation. Coincidentally, I did a conversational analysis project at that time in my discourse analysis class. The two courses worked as a good combination in helping me analyze from a researcher’s as well as a teacher’s perspective.

One of the activities we did: post card language analysis

        Moreover, more than just analyzing hidden meanings constructed by different grammatical choices, this course also provided chances to apply this functional grammar perspective into teaching. One lesson that impressed me was teaching “modals.” After this lesson, I wrote an entry about how I would plan a lesson for teaching modals (please see entry no. 2), and in my ESL 015 class I applied this plan.

        Aside from these specific topics, the final project consisted of both our discussions about the broader teaching issues (such as English only movement and its impact on teaching) and the design of a lesson for a specific learner after analyzing her speaking transcript and essays (please refer to the attached file- final project). Combining global and local assessments, this analysis helped me come to a pedagogical decision confidently.

        Language teachers definitely should encompass knowledge of language. However, what perspective teachers emphasize on while teaching grammar depends of how they define the knowledge of grammar. I defined the knowledge as socioculturally constructed, and the course did help me to accomplish this type of teaching.

APLNG 583 Methods of Language Assessment

Meeting objectives: 1, 2, 5, 7

Download the attached files

Textbook 1.

Under the umbrella term “assessment,” there are various assessing methods. However, no matter what assessment methods (e. g., small quiz, survey, journal, etc.) they choose, teachers must make decisions after assessing rather than assessing students only for its own sake. “Decision making,” then, became the buzz word in this course, since all major topics this class covered (designing assessment, analyzing assessment, choosing assessment targets, and technology assisted assessment) came to the same end: what should teachers do next?

        Speaking of assessment, the first word comes to people’s mind is probably “test.” However, if language teachers have to monitor every learning process, assessments should be conceptualized more than testing, but as an information gathering process. In other words, language teachers are not only looking for learners’ outputs, but, more importantly, measuring students’ Zone of Proximal Development.

Group presentation

         To evaluate different types of assessment and their rationales, we had assessment assignment for every class. They could be categorized as “assessment evaluation (e.g., analyzing an existing standardize test—its credibility, reliability and possible flaws, such as rater bias)” (please see attachment: assignment no. 9, 20), “choosing assess methods: rationale and effectiveness” (see attachment: assignment no. 1, 2, 6), “technology assisted assessment”(assignment no. 14), and “assessment designing” (see attachment group project: questionnaire). Although I dare not to say I understand every aspect of assessment thoroughly, I am confident to say that I can choose and design a small scale assessment considering contexts and learning objectives.

       

Textbook 2.

         As a learner coming from a context where language learning is test-based, this course changed my perception of assessment greatly and prepared a set of useful toolkits which I can apply in my future teaching. 

APLNG 493 Teaching English as a Second Language

Meeting Objectives:1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7

Download the attached files

Textbook 1.

Audiolingual method, TPR, Direct method, Natural approach, Communicative Language Teaching Approach…although I have some basic understanding toward these approaches and methods, until I took this course, their sociohistorical background were unfolded and clarified.

       Team teaching was the first project in which each group was assigned a method and designed a twenty minutes lesson (for the materials we developed please refer to the attached files starting with Audiolingual method). The method our group got was the Audiolingual method: a method that has been denounced for it did not allow authentic outputs. We came to a conclusion that although we could not change the routine practices (e.g., presenting dialogue, demonstration, and learner repeating), we could add culture factors as “flavor” to make the dialogue appealing. By engaging in this method, I understood the essence of the method instead of solely pointing out its strength and weakness.

The PowerPoint we made for Audiolingal 

demonstration

           

The second assignment was a classroom observation in which I observed an ESL class twice and wrote a reflecting observation (please refer to the attached file: second project reflective observation).It was my first time coming into the class purely as an observer, which helped me set myself objectively to understand every practice the teacher did and rationalize the purposes. I felt so humble after knowing how much effort and concerns the instructor gave in designing every activity. In observing, I learned how ESL teaching is constructed. Because of this great experience, I started a semester long observation in my third semester.

Textbook 2.

      

The final project was writing three sections lesson plans in which I needed to consider a specific context and design materials fitting learners’ needs (please refer to the attachment: final project— lesson plan and teaching philosophy). While doing this project, I felt the tension between teachers’ goals and the pressure from the broader contexts (e.g., the institution, test system). After that, I learned that I should never take teaching to be what I can control as a whole, especially when English teaching now intertwines with a various sociopolitical factors.

APLNG 581 Discourse Analyses

Meeting objectives: 1, 4, 6

Download the attached files

Textbook 1.

Discourse Analysis is a powerful research approach as well as a decoding tool for classroom practice. In this course we went through various types of analyses (their conventions and their purposes), such as conversation analysis (CA), interview analysis, gesture analysis, and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Apart from reading case studies, we had three mini-projects which allowed us to collect, transcribe, and analyze the data. In addition, the final project required students to incorporate these skills developed in these mini projects to analyze a series of texts. Personally, I like qualitative studies more than quantitative studies, but what I like about this course was that it not only provided me tools to design a qualitative study, but it also gave another perspective to approach teaching as a type of discourse.

In the first project, I used the CA convention to transcribe a short video clip (please refer to a series attached files start with first project-CA workshop). I then noticed that although there are many conventions for analyzers to follow, it does not suggest that every one will come to the same transcription even when they use the same convention. While doing the whole class transcription comparison, I also noticed that choosing conventions according to the different research purposes could be a big issue. Conventions can make some features stand out but also can hide them, which may affect the direction of the research. 

My demonstration PowerPoint of "participation 

organization" based on (Goodwin, 2007)

The second project required students to record a sound clip or a video clip including a narration (please refer to the attachment— second project-narration analysis). While doing this project, I gradually understood the reason why discourse analysis has frequently been used as an approach to investigate identity building process. Within this short six minute conversation, I saw how the speaker went back and forth framing the incident she saw, and this presented her identity shifting as a study abroad student for five years. She tried to synthesize two different value systems (Taiwanese vs. American) in this small narration to negotiate the conflict between the two. This project led me to reflect on how language works as an identity construction foundation.

The poster that inspired my topic 
choosing of the final project

The third project was a text analysis which I chose a promoting text from a local Tea Party Movement group and analyzed how it situated itself in this political movement (please refer to the attachment— third project- text analysis). To dig in deeper, I stayed in the same topic but used CDA and “narrative template” as the main approaches to analyze how local level and national level Tea Party groups constructed their identities differently as my final project (please refer to the attachment— final project).

 This course related tightly to another course I took, Meaning in Second Language Learning, and the ideas of discourse analysis and CDA were also used in my teaching of ESL 015 while teaching critical reading.