Dialogical view on learner agency of immigrant pupils : a case study of the learners of Finnish as L2

Abstract

This study explores the dialogical nature of agency when two immigrant pupils, who are learning Finnish as their new target language, are authoring their selves. Bakhtin’s dialogism was the inspiration for this examination of the discourses that surround the L2 pupils’ agency and how they respond to discourses through their agency. Ethnographically oriented data collection included classroom observations, the pupils’ portfolios, and interviews with the pupils (as main participants) and meaningful adults. These data yielded a set of narratives from multiple voices. The results show that the pupils negotiate more subjective meanings of their selves, and re-color them with their internal goals and values, through the act of answerability, while the other sides of their selves react to others’ voices. It is concluded that we, L2 education providers, need to recognise the high level of engagement of young language learners’ agency and remember how our own voices might affect their navigation process of authoring their selves.