From Narration to Performance: The Study of Identity Development of EFL Students at Bejaia University, Algeria

Pedagogical research in Algeria often focuses mostly on classroom concerns, such as the development of English language skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing), students’ motivation, autonomous learning, and anxiety. However, no research has tackled the issues of ‘learner identity’, ‘learner’s voices’, nor looked at innovative teaching approaches where these two elements of identity and language voices can be enhanced. The lack of innovative teaching/learning methods in the Algerian EFL classrooms may have limited the students’ opportunities to articulate their identities and voices in learning. The present research proposes an investigated and innovative course that involves a range of autobiographical writing and theatre activities for students of English at Bejaia University. It aims at exploring the effect of this course on both the students’ identity and their language skills development. The students were selected to participate in this study through purposive and opportunity sampling. Ten sessions of autobiographical writing, designing theatrical scripts, and performing those scripts onstage were undertaken. The participants’ life experiences, which revealed issues in regards to their studies, English language learning, social relationships, culture, religion, gender, and dreams, were present in their narratives. Those participants also contributed to semi-structured interviews and diary writing. Inductive thematic analysis and idiographic-case-by-case analysis were used in the analysis of the data. Furthermore, eight EFL teachers were interviewed to provide data on the willingness of the department for innovation and the integration of this course in the EFL teaching/learning program. The findings of this study recommend the integration of the proposed innovative course in the department of English based on the positive perceptions of the course by students and teacher participants, and the elements it developed in the learners. The thesis also recommends a teacher training to enhance their teaching methods and use new teaching approaches in their classrooms, such as the use of drama. Finally, this study adds knowledge to the reconceptualized model of multiple dimensions of identity (RMMDI, Abes et al., 2007) on how identities develop in a multilingual context such as Algeria. This contribution emphasised ‘time’, ‘becoming’, and ‘multilingualism’ as additional meaning-making filters to multiple identities. The study also contributes to understandings of learner identity development in multilingual contexts through the triangulated process of multiple identities that it developed, and the possibility of creating multiple communities (e.g. imagined communities and communities of practice) that were explored in this research.