6.3.1 Leona:Independent Learning Self, and Distant...
Leona’s biographical background
Leona was born and grew up in a large city in northern China.Her father received tertiary education and her mother finished secondary school study.Both of her parents were not able to enter more prestigious universities due to their low English scores in the China College Entrance Examination.They therefore had placed high expectations and demands on Leona’s English learning.Inspired by this, Leona invested effort to learn English well.Nevertheless, her parents did not want Leona, their only child, to leave them and study abroad, which was one of the reasons why they chose this university.
Leona looked forward to ‘a colourful life’, and aggressively joined many university associations.She said she was ‘willing to interact with different people in the university’ (Free chat 1, February 2014).For her, academic study was the priority, but extracurricular activities were also important life experiences for developing more learning skills and knowledge.During the contact, Leona never self-described her own personality, but she did self-evaluate herself as ‘a pretty successful learner with respect to academic achievements and outside classroom activity performance’ (Free chat 3, May 2014).This confidence can also be found in her clear future orientation and goal:‘I am interested in International Communications, but I will choose Marketing for my master level study after graduation, because I will establish my future career in relation to media, and business or public relations’ (Free chat 2, March 2014).Influenced by her longterm investment in English learning, Leona showed positive attitudes towards global culture and experiences:‘I had planned to travel around the world before I entered this university.I want to visit different countries and experience different cultures.’ (Free chat 1, February 2014).
Leona’s attitudinal orientation to the field of discipline
Leona begins the recount with the stage of Past by recognising the value of independent learning， which she considers as what has impressed her ‘most big’ （最 大 的） in Year 1.She positively justifies and appreciates learning as an ‘independent process’ （自 主 的 过 程）.In her Judgement of independent learning， she considers that students need to ‘autonomically and independently’ （自觉并自主） search for reading materials.
Leona then enumerates her independent learning events outside the classroom along with positive valuation.Before class， she prepares for the lesson， previews the PowerPoint slides and memorises technical terms， which she both judges and appreciates as ‘fundamental’ （基本） and ‘practical’ （实用的） learning strategies that will ‘profoundly’ （大大） enhance efficient learning in the classroom.After class， she reads the textbooks， and conducts a review and extracurricular tasks.In the classroom， she prefers to take notes.To conclude the evaluation on these learning events， she uses the signal ‘from these learning experiences’ （从这些学习经历） and appreciates ‘independent learning’ （独立自主学习） as positive and important.
Leona ends the recount with a Present and Future stage.It is followed by a double layering of Affection and Appreciation ‘I hope’ （我希望）， addressing her explicit desires for the present and future teaching and learning.In particular， the following modal auxiliary ‘can’ （能） represents a higher degree of probability （cf.Halliday & Matthiessen， 2014， p.177）， which thus reveals her implicit less appreciation with the quality of teaching.The followed use of Amplication of ‘more’ （更多地；更多的） indicates that she needs the teachers to provide opportunity to ‘speak English’ （说英语） and increase interaction in the classroom.Regarding her own learning， she appreciates intense English speaking involvement and full module-related learning engagement.
Leona’s proximity of disciplinary selves in the field of discipline
There is a positive proximal continuity between Leona’s past, present and future learning selves in consequence of cohesive imagination and actual action.She constructs her independent learning self at the Past stage as a person who can learn independently and conducts ‘purposeful and deliberately activity’ (Moore, 1973, p.662).At the end of the Present and Future stage, she reviews her present positive attitude towards these past independent learning actions and appreciates the values of lesson preview and independent learning, which implies that the positive past disciplinary self shaped by previous educational experience has a certain impact on the present one.In expressing her desires for the present and future disciplinary practices, Leona advocates the values of English and module-related knowledge learning, which facilitates shaping a positive future self from the impact of the past and present experiences.Yet her emphasis on English learning implies that she is struggling to adapt herself to the module-related discipline, and she is also still on the way to familiarising with and adapting herself to the disciplinary convention in the new education system, which is different from her previous experiences in previous schools.This struggle can be reflected in the contradiction between her tutor’s expectation for students’ more oral engagement, and Leona’s desires for having more English speaking opportunities in the classroom.It is worthwhile to point out that the Year 1 students are required to attend the English courses conducted by the Centre for English Language Education (CELE) at the university.Thus, it would not be surprising to find that Leona confusingly adapts herself more like an English learner rather than a disciplinary-related one in the context.In other words, she is trying to align herself to English learning but not yet to the discipline.Another interesting thing to be found is that there is no fear or explicit negative affect involved in her narrative; reviewing her biographical background, this may be because she has been a very independent and confident learner since her secondary school days.