The use of multimodal narratives to explore English language learners' identity construction and re-construction

The present paper aims to provide an insight into English language learners’ beliefs, their ideal foreign language self and their language learner identity formation and transformation presented during the analysis of a set of visual and written narratives. The research involved 56 pupils who were asked to draw two portraits of themselves, one before being able to use English and one after, when they can already use the language. In order to better understand and interpret the drawings, students were also asked to provide a short, written description or explanation of their drawings. Results show that development in English as a foreign language comes with physical, professional, relational, experimental and psychological changes. Moreover, students’ answers suggest that they consider English language knowledge to be valuable and needed for understanding different applications, movies, TV-series, songs, books and other cultures. They believed that lack of English language knowledge excludes them from participating in such activities