Stephanie Arnott

Affective Disruptions of the Immigrant Experience: Becomings in Official Language Education Research in Canada

ABSTRACT Our purpose is to use a Deleuzian-informed conceptual and theoretical framework to disrupt predominant representations of the immigrant experience in Canadian official language education and to open up to the affective potential of an immigrant life to become otherwise. Employing a rhizoanalytic research approach that acknowledges wonder as an analytic practice (MacLure, 2013), we map interview data from two qualitative studies with immigrant language learners to show (a) how affective relations involving an adolescent French second language student disrupt received understandings of motivation; and (b) how reading a poem in an adult English second language classroom disrupts anticipated, affective responses to a lesson. Our rhizoanalysis underscores the complexity and unpredictability of the becomings of an immigrant life in the context of meeting the primary objective of teaching Canada’s official languages. It also suggests how second language research itself might be conceived differently and become otherwise.

Second language education and micro-policy implementation in Canada: The meaning of pedagogical change

Using data from a study investigating the implementation of a popular French as a second language (FSL) teaching method in Canada (i.e. the Accelerative Integrated Method), this article presents a second language (L2) perspective on micro-policy implementation and pedagogical change. According to Fullan (2007), successful change implementation requires the establishment of ‘shared meaning’: a balanced vision of what the change represents and coordinated management of its implementation. This inquiry compared stakeholder perspectives (n = 36) on the method and its implementation in contexts where it was mandated and optional for FSL instruction. Data from interviews and focus groups were triangulated to provide a descriptive synthesis of the shared realities and practices of these local players. Findings showed that the bias for action and utility of the method, teacher agency and lack of collaborative monitoring emerged as factors affecting the short-term implementation of this change and its potential long-term sustainability. The findings present important implications for FSL education, micro-level L2 policy implementation and ongoing research focusing on L2 pedagogical change in the Canadian context.