'Like a Piece of Wood': The Potential of Multimodal Translingual Storytelling for Restoration and Peace

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  • Author(s): Zhang-Wu, Qianqian (ORCID Zhang-Wu, Qianqian (ORCID 0000-0002-4393-0940)
  • Language:
    English
  • Source:
    TESOL Journal. 2023 14(4).
  • Publication Date:
    2023
  • Document Type:
    Journal Articles
    Reports - Research
  • Additional Information
    • Availability:
      Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
    • Peer Reviewed:
      Y
    • Source:
      16
    • Education Level:
      Higher Education
      Postsecondary Education
    • Subject Terms:
      Multilingualism; Story Telling; Teaching Methods; Asians; Foreign Countries; Foreign Students; Graduate Students; Private Colleges; Self Concept; Student Attitudes; English Language Learners; Peace
    • Subject Terms:
      China; United States
    • Accession Number:
      10.1002/tesj.732
    • ISSN:
      1056-7941
      1949-3533
    • Abstract:
      Faced with linguicism, racism, and xenophobia aggravated by COVID-19 and political tensions in recent years, multilingual international students, especially those of Asian descent, are in urgent need of engaging in healing practices for meaningful identity expression, restoration, and peace. Translingualism is a justice-oriented literacy practice that disrupts the boundaries of named languages and allows communicators to draw upon all resources in their linguistic repertoires. Storytelling, as a powerful research method and a pedagogical tool, offers a unique opportunity to encourage multilingual students' translingual meaning making for healing. This qualitative case study examined how multimodal translingual storytelling functioned as a form of restoration and peace for a first-semester Chinese student pursuing her graduate degree in English at a private university in the United States. The findings indicate that when offered opportunities to reflect on her cultural and linguistic identities, the participant was likely to detach deficit self-perceptions as an "English language learner" and embrace her differences as a strength, which benefited her first-semester language and academic experiences. This study calls for pedagogical strategies and curriculum design that open up humanizing spaces for culturally and racially minoritized multilingual students by acknowledging, valuing, and inviting their whole linguistic repertories through multimodal, translingual storytelling.
    • Abstract:
      As Provided
    • Publication Date:
      2023
    • Accession Number:
      EJ1399099