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Running head: FORMATION OF A NEW IDENTITY

Formation of a New Identity of a Newcomer in a New Country

in a New Language with an old Skill
EDEM 609
Instructor: Dr. Shaheen Shariff
Eva Yu-Ti Huang
#260574607

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Running head: FORMATION OF A NEW IDENTITY

Summary
As an immigrant myself, I understand the hardship of immigrants when it
comes to their language learning and new environment adaptation. Learning a
new language in a new country for a newcomer is like finding a new identity.
How well newcomers/immigrants can adapt to the new country/environment depends
heavily on how well they learn their new language. However, not everyone is
talented in language learning. Many newcomers drop out of language class and
lead a life without much interaction with the local residents. When the
procedure of learning a new language is shaky, immigrants face the crisis of
finding themselves. The old me with skills, common sense, and knowledge
suddenly becomes an incompetent person who cannot even express themselves
well. All of these issues make adaptation to their new environment more
difficult.
If the government can design a program on top of their regular language
learning to guide and help the immigrants find their new identity with their
old skills, they will not feel lost and the dropout rate in immigrants
language classes will be lower. Immigrants will thus have greater success in
their language learning as well as their environment adaptation. This proposal
is designed to help the government, the Quebec government specifically, with
curriculum making for the immigrants language acquisition and better
adaptation to the new environment in a new country with their old skills and
existing knowledge. When a new, confident and positive identity of a newcomer
is formed, their family as well as the society around them can also benefit
from the outcomes. Here are the key issues and the contribution of this
project proposal.
1) Key issues: Immigrants new identity searching faces obstacles when
language learning becomes shaky, thus the dropout rate in language
classes is high and isolation from the mainstream culture prevents
them from putting their existing skills and knowledge to use.
2) Contribution to the policy vacuum: The program at the top of Quebec
government language training for immigrants can group the advanced
language learners, and the newcomers/ language beginners together to
form a new social network and put their skills to use. They can
search for help within the group which consists of the members who
have similar skills and first language backgrounds. They can thus
find their new identity in a new country in a new language with their
old skills. A strong adaptation by these new immigrants will lead to
strong families and further with the next generations can cooperate
with the local families to contribute to a flourishing society and
country.

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Running head: FORMATION OF A NEW IDENTITY

Rationale and Context

Language is not simply a medium for conveying messages. The culture
behinds it comes along as well. When the new language possesses a greater
power than the learners own first language and its corresponding culture,
their language and identity become a big issue (Heller, 2003) and language
learning becomes a procedure of cultural assimilation (Tove,1979), which then
relates to language socialization (Duff,2010). Also, when we get on the
website of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, we can find numerous kinds
of assistance for immigrants, including language learning and job searching.
However, they are offered only in two languages, French and English. Before
immigrants new language skills get anywhere, there is not much immigrants
can do for their new careers in this new country. Although, there are also
some private ethnic associations which offer services to the immigrants, most
of them are delivered in the immigrants first languages. How can the
immigrants combine these two separate services together and apply their
skills, learnt through their first language, in this new country, where people
speak a new language that they are not familiar with. Under such a
circumstance, a curriculum designer of language learning would have to come up
with more efficient and effective programs to have the learners develop
greater ownership of their language learning and thus lead to a greater
success of language acquisition. Here are the theoretical perspectives that
this proposal builds on.

Theoretical perspectives:
1) Vygotskian Sociocultural theory and language socialization
Duff, P. A. (2010).
Vygotskys sociocultural theory describes human learning as a social
process. Applying this to language learning becomes the language
socialization. Through the interaction with others, novices, children or
adults, are inducted into a new domain, which could be a new geographical
region, a new professional realm, or just a new environment, such as a
classroom, in their own first language or in a new additional language, which
is called language socialization. That is why we need our mentors to help our
newcomers adapt to their new environment.
2) Poststructuralist theory of language and identity

Norton, B. (2010). Gordon, D. (2004).

According to Poststructuralist theory of language, language is not just a
neutral medium of communication, but a dynamic set of relationships
between the human agents and cultural backgrounds with different social

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Running head: FORMATION OF A NEW IDENTITY

meaning behind it. Through conveying the language, people could see the
identity of the language as well as the speakers. Gender identity shifts
happen under these circumstances as well. It is very nice to help newcomers
seeking a new identity in a new language with their old skills. It gives them
a more thorough identity.

3) The task-oriented communicative Approaches for language learning

Brandl, K. (2007).
Communicative language teaching (CLT) methodologies emphasize the
learners communicative competence, which is the ability to enact
appropriate social behaviors (p.5) in real-life situations, and the
learners full involvement in target language production is highly needed. If
we can combine language learning with the newcomers greatest concerns,
jobs/careers, as tasks, learners language production can thus improve in a
great deal.

4) Counterbalanced hypothesis for language learning; form-focused and

content-based interventions
Lyster, R. (2007).
In counterbalanced instructions, students are pushed to the opposite way of
intervention to counterbalance the learning environment that they are familiar
with to fulfill the shortcomings of their accustomed learning styles. Many
studies have been conducted to prove the good results of counterbalanced
instructions. Students can thus communicate with others in their target
language with proper forms and structures. The teachers want the newcomers not
only to be able to convey some basic messages through a new language, but also
to be capable of properly addressing themselves in the domain that they are
familiar with.
From the theoretical perspectives above, a program can lead to a better
language acquisition when the curriculum can incorporate learners first
language knowledge as well as their old career skills and help them to
position themselves in this new country in order to find their new identities.

Background:
When newcomers receive services only in a language that they are not
familiar with, they cannot put the services to great use. Also, what if their
language learning has been hindered due to different personal reasons? How can
they search for help when they cannot even express themselves well? We need to
have another program that can synthesize all the language learning resources
and the available immigrants who, having already reached a greater level of

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Running head: FORMATION OF A NEW IDENTITY

adaptation, can act as mentors, and who are already successful in their
language learning as well as their career finding.
In this program, language teachers can assign tasks to the newcomers who
might have trouble dealing with their new language skill. With the help of the
mentors, they could adapt themselves to this new environment with their old
first language skills.

Details

1)

Objectives:

As mentioned earlier, this project needs to be at the top of the regular

government language learning programs. Language teachers thus are our
important resource for connecting the mentors and the new language learners.

Project A:

Push this project to be enforced in immigration service centers in

Quebec.
Build up a mentor network.

Project B:

Train teachers to be capable of designing job-oriented tasks.

Find out newcomers career interests and needs.
Have students fulfill the tasks with the help of mentors and their
first language.

Project C:

2)

Collect and report the results.

Originality and contribution to knowledge:

There is mentor recruitment held by Citizenship and Immigration Canada,

however it is not offered in many centers. It is more like an information
service, not for language learning. This project is to let language learners
work on tasks related to their future career choices and learn a new language
with the help of their first languages.

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Running head: FORMATION OF A NEW IDENTITY

3)

Methodology
3.1 Project A: Quantitative/ online survey
a) The coordinator of this program will contact the only five
immigration service stations offered mentor service in Quebec to
receive the permission of enforcing this project.
b) The coordinator will retrieve immigrant information through
Citizenship and Immigration Canada and contact potential mentors
and actively recruit them to work with new immigrants. The
coordinator can also recruit mentors through different private
ethnic associations, which often offer help to immigrants as well.
The coordinator can then build the mentor network. In a small
city/town, one of the language teachers can be the coordinator.
c) The coordinator will contact potential mentors and have them fill
out a questionnaire related to their first language backgrounds as
well as their career information. Mentor networks will be built up
from the potential mentors who have shown interest in helping
newcomers. Our goal is to have at least 10 mentors in the network.

3.2 Project B: The task-oriented communicative approach as well as the

counterbalanced instruction.
a) The coordinator of this project will regularly hold seminars for
teachers at these 5 language centers for immigrants. There should
be approximately 5 teachers who teach the 5 intermediate level
classes in these centers. In these seminars, teachers can share
experiences and receive information related to career information
for immigrants. Teachers can freely design career-oriented tasks
for their students.
b) In these 5 classes, there should be approximately 10 students in
each class so there should be 50 students. The teachers will use
task-oriented commutative approach to have their students fulfill
the task with the mentors that the coordinator finds through the
mentor network. Students with the same career interests and the
same first language background will work with the mentors with the
same careers and first languages.
c) With the help of the teachers by applying counterbalanced
instruction, students will have to express and explain their tasks
in their new language with proper form and content. Teachers
should then make a record of the information and print it out as
students personal career-oriented manuals.

3.3 Project C: Qualitative/ one on one and group interview

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Running head: FORMATION OF A NEW IDENTITY

a) The 50 students will be interviewed individually and in groups to

test the results of the project. Two types of questions will be
asked, one related to the satisfaction with this type of approach,
and the other related to the satisfaction with their job-oriented
language ability. The interviews will then be transcribed.
b) The answers to the satisfaction with the approach will be coded
with 1) positive 2) neutral 3) negative. The answers to the
satisfaction with their language ability will be coded with
1) highly-improved 2) mildly-improved 3) not sure 4) not at all
improved.
c) The results of the coded responds will then be presented with
descriptive statistics, with means, deviations and graphs.
d) The descriptive statistics along with the interview transcriptions
will then be organized and presented in a paper.

4)

Timetable:

First three months,

Email and visit the government immigration service and private ethnic
associations to obtain the opportunity of opening up seminars for teachers as
well as to contact the already existing mentors for immigrants.

Second three months,

Build up mentor networks, organized and sorted by the mentors first

language backgrounds as well as their new career types.

Third three months,

Open up seminars for language teachers to learn more information about

job searching with the help of the officials in the immigrant service center.
The officials can help teachers to form or design tasks for newcomers.

Fourth three months,

Start the task-oriented language lessons, more specifically, job

oriented. Teachers assign different tasks to newcomers according to their
career interests after they have already finished their first six month of
basic language training. The newcomers will fulfill the tasks with the help of
the mentors who happen to be in the same domains of careers and to have the
same first languages as the newcomers.

The last month,

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Running head: FORMATION OF A NEW IDENTITY

Evaluate the learners by interviewing them individually and in groups.

Report the results.

Anticipated outcomes
Newcomers will have a better understanding of the new environment,
incorporated with their old skills and their newly learnt language after this
new program. Their new identities and social networks can be built and they
will have better attitudes and thoughts towards the changes and shifts in
their lives. The former newcomers now can be the mentors to help other
newcomers building a new life in a new country with a new language with their
own old skills.

Knowledge mobilization
The first results of project A, B and C can be published in McGill
Journal Education as well as the website of Citizenship and Immigration
Canada. The project proposal can thus be offered to more language centers in
Quebec, and then Canada. Workshops and seminars will be held regularly for
teachers experience sharing as well as problem solving. Projects can thus be
altered and modified regularly to meet the variant needs of newcomers as well
as the language teachers.

References

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Running head: FORMATION OF A NEW IDENTITY

Brandl, K. (2007). Principles of Communicative Language Teaching and TaskBased Instruction, Communicative Language Teaching in Action: Putting
Principles to Work, Pearson, Chapter 1, pp1-38
Duff, P. A. (2010). Language Socialization, Sociolinguistics and Language
Education, Multilingual Matters, Chapter 16, pp427-454
Gordon, D. (2004). Im Tired. You Clean and Cook. Shifting Gender
Identities and Second Language Socialization, TESOL Quarterly, 38(3),
pp437-457
Heler, M. (2003). Globalization, the new economy, and the commodification of
Language and Identity. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7/4, 2003, pp473-492
Lyster, R. (2007). Counterbalanced instruction, Learning and teaching
languages through content: A counterbalanced approach, John Benjamins
Publishing Company, Chapter 5, pp125-138
Norton, B. (2010). Language and Identity, Sociolinguistics and Language
Education, Multilingual Matters, Chapter 13, pp 349-369
Tove, S. (1979). Language in the Process of Cultural Assimilation and
Structural Incorporation of Linguistic Minorities. National

Clearinghouse for Bilingual Eucation.