Keiko Sakui
Kobe Shoin Women’s University, Japan
Neil Cowie
Okayama University, Japan

Student Resistance, Identity and Imagined Communities
This presentation uses narrative self-study as a research method to illustrate student resistance from two teachers’ perspectives. The presenters will first describe the student resistance they experienced in two very different kinds of classes in their respective universities in Japan: non-English fashion and design students and future medical doctors. These narratives describe what these teacher-researchers experienced, how they responded to these episodes emotionally, in what ways they attempted to practically handle these issues, and finally how they made sense of their students’ resistance.

The presentation then discusses links between student resistance and critical pedagogy, especially focusing on student identity and investment in learning English. The study highlights that, in order to better understand student resistance, teachers need to gain a deep understanding of how their students’ gender, ethnicity, cultural and socio-political background, and projected image for their future can impact on their identity as a foreign language learner.

Presenters
Keiko Sakui teaches English at Kobe Shoin Women’s University, Japan. Her research interests include learner and teacher beliefs, critical pedagogy, and narrative inquiry. She has taught English and Japanese in the U.S., New Zealand and Japan.

Neil Cowie teaches English in the Foreign Languages Education Centre at Okayama University, Japan. He is interested in teacher and student emotions and their effects on language learning.