Shizhou Yang

Payap University, English Communication - International Program, Faculty Member

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Shizhou Yang, PhD (La Trobe University, Australia) is an applied linguist, second language writer, writing teacher, and researcher affiliated with Payap University. His current research interests include TESOL, translanguaging, and Global South epistemologies. He reviews for and publishes in international journals. His two books feature L2 autobiographical writing and identity.
Supervisors: Tony Silva, Audrey N Grant, Howard Nicholas, and Peta Heywood
Address: West Lafayette, Indiana, USA

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Autobiographical Writing and Identity in EFL Education

The book explores the pedagogical potential of autobiographical writing in English-as-a-foreign l... more The book explores the pedagogical potential of autobiographical writing in English-as-a-foreign language, approaching the topic from an educational, longitudinal, dialogical, and social perspective. Through a number of case studies, the author delineates four phases that EFL writers may experience in their identity construction processes, illustrating the complexity of EFL writers’ social identities. This book will provide a valuable resource for language teachers and researchers interested in the pedagogical applications of autobiographical writing.

Literacy Autobiographies from the Global South

Routledge eBooks, Nov 28, 2022

Drawing on autoethnographic research on literacy autobiographies from a Chinese EFL writing conte... more Drawing on autoethnographic research on literacy autobiographies from a Chinese EFL writing context, this book provides unique insights into literacy, voice, translingualism, and critical pedagogy from a Global South perspective. The book presents literacy autobiographies as a cultural tool for analyzing and refashioning learners’ and teachers’ sense of self in ever-expanding dialogical spaces. In addition to highlighting teachers’ own stories around autoethnographies and translanguaging, it showcases literacy autobiographies from Chinese students themselves. The book theorizes the Global South as an ontological positioning that challenges colonial mindsets and practices concerning literacy, language learning, and narratives. It argues that literacy autobiographies from a Global South perspective can be reimagined as critical pedagogy for EFL writing teaching and learning, as well as teacher development. Validating and expanding student voices by presenting these literacy autobiographies, this book will be of great interest to researchers and students in the fields of TESOL, applied linguistics, English language teaching, second language writing, and literacy studies. Link: https://www.routledge.com/Literacy-Autobiographies-from-the-Global-South-An-Autoethnographic-Study/Yang/p/book/9781032265391

Autoethonography in ELT: Transnational identities, pedagogies, and practices

The journal of Asia TEFL, Jun 30, 2021

The paradigm of English as an international language (EIL) has emerged in the field of English la... more The paradigm of English as an international language (EIL) has emerged in the field of English language teaching (ELT) (Marlina, 2018; Matsuda & Matsuda, 2018; McKay, 2003). While teaching EIL is considered a crucial component of English educational practices, little is known about English language teachers' reflections on teaching EIL, particularly in the Asian context. Hence, any relevant book examining EIL related pedagogical implications in Asia is highly welcome. The book The place of English as an International Language in English Language Teaching, Teachers' reflections edited by Phan Ngan Le Hai presents a thorough examination of EIL disciplines by exploring how English teachers perceive the teaching of EIL with a focus on Vietnam. It provides an insightful and updated overview of the emerging English teaching paradigm based on front-line English language teachers' reflections. The book is organised into six parts. In Part I (Chapters 1-2), the author presents an overview of English history and establishes its relevancy to the current status of English. Chapter 1 brings to the fore the need for a discussion of significant changes in English. Chapter 2 provides a discussion of English globally through multi-facet changes ranging from demographic, geographic to structural changes of English. The author reviews previous studies on teachers' and students' perceptions of English worldwide. Deriving from those findings, it is evident that English language teachers and learners need to raise their awareness of English varieties and recognise all varieties of English as equal. It is worthwhile for readers to understand how previous studies develop the various strands of scholarship on EIL concerning teachers' and students' perceptions of English. Part II (Chapters 3-4) adopts Sharifian's (2009) definition of EIL that does not refer to a single variety of English but emphasises that "English, with its many varieties, is a language of international, and therefore, intercultural communication" (p. 2) as the framework, and critically points out issues relating to teaching EIL, such as teaching models, the teaching of culture(s) and teaching materials. In Chapter 3, as a Vietnamese scholar, the author reconstructs EIL pedagogical approaches in the context of what Kachru (1985) terms as "Expanding Circle countries" and proposes that teaching EIL should make learners communicate with people from diverse lingual-cultural backgrounds, other than with English native speakers. Therefore, language teachers should be responsible for introducing varieties of English to learners. Chapter 4 presents the historical, cultural and sociolinguistic context of Vietnam, along with English development and current challenges ELT in Vietnam faces.

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BOOK REVIEW: Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations

Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research, 2015

In his recent book Translingual Practice, Canagarajah argues for a paradigm shift in language tea... more In his recent book Translingual Practice, Canagarajah argues for a paradigm shift in language teaching and research. Instead of seeing language as entities isolated from each other, and norms as prescribed and fixed, the readers are challenged to consider constant interactions between languages and negotiation of norms through practice. All ten chapters of the book are devoted consistently to this central argument, which contributes some new understandings to recent discussions in composition studies and applied linguistics on postcolonial approaches to the use of English in diverse contexts (e.g.

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“Like special oriental spices added into Western food”: An ecological study of an <scp>EFL</scp> student's literacy autobiography and its pedagogical implications

TESOL Journal, Jun 6, 2022

Insider perspectives on indigenous social media and the language/culture maintenance: A case study of WeChat use among the Naxi of China

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Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research

Describing the trends and developments in language teaching practice and research has been of con... more Describing the trends and developments in language teaching practice and research has been of considerable interest to the practitioners and researchers involved in the field. This study sought to provide a rough outline of Iranian language teaching research by analyzing a large collection of titles from language teaching research reports of Iranian researchers published in English-language academic journals. The 2612 titles came from articles published from winter 2006 to summer 2016. The main source of the articles was 21 journals published in Iran or international journals which featured a considerable number of Iranian authors. In several exploratory rounds of content analysis, the article titles in five language teaching journals were examined to identify their topic areas. Then, by collapsing some of the topics, a final list of topics was prepared. Then, the titles in all journals were examined and the topic area or areas which each covered were tallied. To triangulate this subjective analysis and furnish another frequency report for the topic areas of research in language teaching, the titles were submitted to the text-analyzing software AntConc 3.3.5w (Anthony, 2012), which put out two lists: a frequency-tagged list of two-to seven-word chunks, and a frequency-tagged list of key conceptual words. The subjective content analysis and the machine-based analysis together demonstrated how different sub-fields of language teaching were emphasized and received attention in Iran. The findings help researchers become more informed about the Iranian context and set better priorities. The limitations and weaknesses of the study and some caveats are also discussed.

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Critical Pedagogy for Foreign-Language Writing

L2 journal, Sep 16, 2020

Despite the vast literature on critical pedagogy in general, a clear understanding of what critic... more Despite the vast literature on critical pedagogy in general, a clear understanding of what critical pedagogy entails in foreign-language (FL) writing has not yet been articulated-perhaps due to the field's pragmatic orientation. In this article, I propose four intertwined key elements of a critical pedagogy for FL writing: relationship, agency, identity, and power. I argue first, drawing on Freire's theory of education and Bakhtinian philosophy, that the essence of applying critical pedagogy to FL writing lies in carving out a dialogical space in which FL learners can form new self-other relationships to disrupt their oftenmarginalized status. Second, inspired mainly by sociocultural approaches to language and literacy studies, I define agency as individuals' goal-oriented capacity to act, which lies at the core of the effective application of critical pedagogy in the FL context. Depending on power dynamics, agency may take negative (e.g., resistance) or positive (e.g., investment) forms. Third, identity, defined from the perspective of poststructuralist and narrative practices as individuals' multiple and evolving relationships with the world, is implicated in each literacy activity; as such, practitioners of critical pedagogy in FL writing should design ways both to validate learners' existing identities and to expand their identity options. Fourth, power, defined from the perspective of literacies as unbalanced yet pervasive social relations, shapes all human interactions and individuals' capacity to act as agents. These key elements influence each other, and the contextualized configurations of these interrelated elements provide flexible pathways to critical pedagogy in FL writing. A case study within a creative writing course illustrates all four elements and the effectiveness of such critical pedagogy in FL writing education in developing learners' agency. It is hoped that this study will encourage further discussion and localized explorations of critical pedagogy in FL writing education.

format_quoteAll but one student indicated increased confidence in their writing abilities, attributing improvements to the course.format_quote

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“I Am Like a Lost Child”: L2 Writers' Linguistic Metaphors as a Window Into Their Writer Identity

Frontiers in Psychology, Apr 8, 2021

The past two decades have witnessed a burgeoning literature on L2 writers' identities, especially... more The past two decades have witnessed a burgeoning literature on L2 writers' identities, especially their discoursal identities. In contrast, little attention is paid to the writers' felt sense of self when they write in an L2, which is an integral dimension of their autobiographical self. In this article, we provide empirical evidence of the nature of this aspect of L2 writer identity. To illustrate, we analyzed linguistic metaphors elicited from three groups of L2 writers (N = 83), majoring respectively in Thai, Japanese, and English in a Chinese university. Descriptive analysis shows that, due to challenges in content, language, organization, and cultural differences, a majority of L2 writers, especial Thai and Japanese L2 writers, experience a diminishing sense of self when they write in L2. In contrast, some L2 writers, especially English L2 writers, find writing in an L2 liberating, revealing the impact of their individual learning trajectories and pedagogical practices on L2 writers' felt sense of self. Findings suggest that L2 writers' identity work is both complex and dynamic. L2 writing teachers can utilize the metaphor questionnaire as a tool to facilitate their learner needs analysis and to raise L2 writers' metacognition.

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Translanguaging Pedagogies in EFL Writing Education

International Journal of TESOL Studies

Research on translanguaging in applied linguistics and language education is on the rise, and tra... more Research on translanguaging in applied linguistics and language education is on the rise, and translanguaging application in English as a foreign language (EFL) writing programs has aroused great interest. Research on translanguaging practices testifies to the benefits of deploying multilingual, multimodal, multisemiotic and multisensory resources in multilingual classrooms, of which little presents the specific implementation and outcomes of translanguaging pedagogies applied in EFL writing education. In response, this ethnographic classroom-based research, one taking place in a comprehensive university in southwestern China, aims to explore the educational influence of translanguaging pedagogies particularly on learners&#39; critical thinking, content comprehension and effective communication. To triangulate data types and sources, data-collection methods include e-questionnaires, classroom observations, audio-recorded interviews and student writing samples. Data analysis reveals that translanguaging practices, as part of the classroom writing ecology, promote EFL students&#39; critical awareness. Additionally, translanguaging pedagogies facilitate students&#39; content comprehension and effective communication. This study demonstrates the affordances of a translanguaging lens for EFL writing education provided that it is reframed to serve students&#39; strategies to negotiate language differences.

Literacy Autobiographies from the Global South

Suresh Canagarajah. (Ed.), Transnational literacy autobiographies as translingual writing, 1st ed. Routledge, New York (2020)

Journal of Second Language Writing, 2020

Translanguaging Pedagogies in EFL Writing Education

by Shizhou Yang and Qi Yang

International Journal of TESOL Studies, 2023

Research on translanguaging in applied linguistics and language education is on the rise, and tra... more Research on translanguaging in applied linguistics and language education is on the rise, and translanguaging application in English as a foreign language (EFL) writing programs has aroused great interest. Research on translanguaging practices testifies to the benefits of deploying multilingual, multimodal, multisemiotic and multisensory resources in multilingual classrooms, of which little presents the specific implementation and outcomes of translanguaging pedagogies applied in EFL writing education. In response, this ethnographic classroom-based research, one taking place in a comprehensive university in southwestern China, aims to explore the educational influence of translanguaging pedagogies particularly on learners' critical thinking, content comprehension and effective communication. To triangulate data types and sources, data-collection methods include e-questionnaires, classroom observations, audio-recorded interviews and student writing samples. Data analysis reveals that translanguaging practices, as part of the classroom writing ecology, promote EFL students' critical awareness. Additionally, translanguaging pedagogies facilitate students' content comprehension and effective communication. This study demonstrates the affordances of a translanguaging lens for EFL writing education provided that it is reframed to serve students' strategies to negotiate language differences.

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Using a Translanguaging Approach to Capture Emergent Bilingual Creativity

International Journal of Virtual and Personal Learning Environments, 2022

The translanguaging theory encourages language teachers to view their learners’ linguistic backgr... more The translanguaging theory encourages language teachers to view their learners’ linguistic backgrounds as a resource for creative expression. This article proposes an autoethnographically oriented application of the translanguging approach to studying emergent bilingual creativity in online communication. It includes three steps—storytelling, cultural interpretation, and online research—thus linking personal experiences of bilingual creativity with communal practice. To illustrate the approach’s usefulness, the author applies it to his own observed cases of bilingual creativity in Chinese-English bilingual communication. Pedagogical implications for teaching language, World Englishes, and creative writing courses are provided.

“Even I Can Do It”: Chinese Ethnolinguistic Minority Learners’ Investment in Creative Writing and Its Impact

Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics

Although much is known about the benefits of providing creative writing courses to English learne... more Although much is known about the benefits of providing creative writing courses to English learners, little research is available on Chinese ethnolinguistic minority learners’ creative writing in formal education. In response, this ethnographic study explored three ethnolinguistic minority learners’ engagement with a three-month elective English creative writing course at a Chinese university. Data (drafts, interviews, and reflection) were analyzed to reveal the three learners’ investment in creative writing and its impact. It was found that creative writing helped the learners to develop more confident writer identities, that they became more proficient in writing, and that their language proficiency also grew. The study suggests creative writing can serve as identity texts, which reflect back on their emergent creative writer identity, and can be a beneficial pedagogical option for ethnolinguistic minority learners.

“Like special oriental spices added into Western food”: An ecological study of an EFL student's literacy autobiography and its pedagogical implications

TESOL Journal

Suresh Canagarajah. (Ed.), Transnational literacy autobiographies as translingual writing, 1st ed. Routledge, New York (2020)

Journal of Second Language Writing, Jun 1, 2020

Autobiographical Writing and Identity in EFL Education

Beth: "A Wonderful Book

Meaningful Literacy and Agentive Writer Identity1

Studies on learner identity and studies on meaningful literacy seem to have gone on parallel trac... more Studies on learner identity and studies on meaningful literacy seem to have gone on parallel tracks with little intersection between the two, leading to a lack of understanding regarding the impact of meaningful literacy on learners’ identities, particularly as writers in a foreign language environment. In this context, this article reports on a study in which the teacher examines how meaningful literacy in the form of life writing shapes his English as a foreign language (EFL) writers’ identity. The study used students’ writing samples and written reflections as the primary data and through the lens of a poststructuralist theory of learner and writer identity. The author found that extensive investment in life writing in a supportive social milieu, including both story writing outside class and free writing in class enabled EFL learners to achieve agentive writer identities, i.e., forming a new habit of writing, gaining confidence as a writer, and taking life writing as a craft. Th...

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Shizhou Yang

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