In Part 2, Chapters 4–6, we looked at pedagogy: how and why L1 and L2 are used by EFL teachers. With Part 3, Chapters 7–9, we move from pedagogy to look at the personal dimension of L1 and L2 use in EFL classes.

Earlier, in Chapter 2, I noted the heightened interest in language and identity over the past decade or so. It should be noted, however, that a great deal of work to date has been located in naturalistic, rather than formal educational settings, and drawing as it does upon personal biographies of L2 learning, displays the strengths and limitations of self-reported data. Indeed, Kramsch (2009: 2–3) speaks of the field being ‘flooded’ with accounts of language learning by bilingual or multilingual individuals.

But what about instructed foreign language learning? Block (2007a, 2007b) discusses studies of identity which relate to three domains of ESL, Study Abroad, and FLL (the latter including EFL), and observes that theorising in the third of these has produced only a handful of papers, and that where identity development has tended to occur, if at all, it has been in terms of learners’ sense of self as learners, rather than as a self entering into a second language/culture. It is therefore a matter of debate regarding the extent to which identity work can occur in FLL. On the one hand, Block declares that ‘the prospects for TL-mediated subject positions... are minimal to non-existent’ (2007a: 137); while Lee (2009: 121) responds that such contexts instead represent ‘a rather prolific site to examine the multi-layered nature of identity’. There is some evidence which supports Lee’s position in studies of foreign language learners conducted by, e.g. Belz (2002), or Kramsch (2009). However, such studies are nearly always of European languages which possess ‘areal affinity’, are conducted in Western contexts, and with advanced learners who are successful in their second language study.