4.1 Class setting

The studied class was an EFL program focused on learners’ communication skills, especially listening and speaking. The program consists of students planning to study abroad or prepare for foreign language competency tests (e.g. The International English Language Testing System), as well as other English learning enthusiasts. To attend this course, students had to visit a language center at a national university in Southwest Korea in their spare time after work or school. Each academic semester in this program runs for seven weeks, and students must pay for each semester separately. Thus, this program differs from regular school courses because learners must spend extra time (after work or school) and money (every seven weeks) for their English learning.

The focal class was held from 18:00 to 18:50, Monday through Friday. The teacher was a native speaker from America who had been in Korea for seven years and had taught EFL for three years. He could speak Korean and usually used Korean to clarify things related to local issues, like the local travel experience and daily life. This was considered a convenient method for supporting the learners in the class, all of whom were Korean.

The teacher began each class by chatting with learners about different topics, such as traveling, weekend life, and hobbies, for around 10 minutes. Then, he taught new words and expressions from the coursebook both English and Korean. Next, students practiced what they had just learned in individual groups for five minutes, after which the teacher practiced with the students one on one. Next, the students discussed the coursebook questions by themselves. Finally, every student presented his or her ideas based on the content learned in class.

Importantly, the only course evaluation was the students’ attendance; there was no entrance or exit examination. <Table 1> below presents the class information.

<Table 1>

BASIC INFORMATION ABOUT THE COURSE

4.2 Participants

The focal participants were selected through purposeful sampling, which is a widely used method for selecting the best participants for qualitative research (Patton, 2002). Before beginning the research, the researchers asked the teacher’s permission to observe the class. Both teacher and class observations were used to select the focal students based on the following: (a) active classroom performances, (b) consistent attendance, and (c) interest in engaging in additional self-study group outside of the class. Finally, the researchers asked consent to participate in the study from three participants, all of whom were willing to participate in this study, Anonymity was preserved by replacing the participants’ names with pseudonyms.

The class had a total of 13 students: 2 university students and 11 individuals working in different industries. The students attended this class in their spare time, after school or work. The requirement for learners’ attendance was not as strict as that for regular classes in official schools. Since everyone in the class had a separate school or work schedule, their attendance for this class was not the same. After one semester of observation, we identified three learners with almost perfect attendance; these were also found to be more active learners in this class. To obtain further information, the researchers interviewed the teacher about the three selected students’ participation in the class. The teacher reported that the chosen students—referred to as Jack, Lucy, and Tom for the purposes of this paper—were top students with excellent performance. For example, Jack was always the first one to answer questions in class. Lucy sat next to Jack, and they responded quickly and correctly during in-class discussions. All three could communicate with the teacher in English, whereas others in the class could not; with the others, the teacher often had to speak Korean to help (teacher interview, in English, November 2019). In addition, Jack, Lucy, and Tom created a self-study group for extra learning, studying in a coffee shop near their EFL classroom or arriving at school an hour early every day for additional study. The study group completed review work first, including words and expressions they learned in the last class, then conversed using the reviewed words and expressions. They also spoke English throughout their individual study.

Jack, a primary teacher of math and art in Korean, was the most active learner with the highest class attendance class. He always sat at the seat nearest to the teacher and was usually the first to answer questions. He was so active in answering that the teacher sometimes had to ask others, despite him knowing the answered. Jack and Lucy always studied together in class and came to school one hour early for additional learning.

Lucy, whose attendance was similar to Jack’s, was a government worker who sat near Jack and engaged in a class discussion group with him. During the class discussion, this group generally responded first, and their responses usually received “excellent” and “good job” remarks from the teacher. Lucy also created a self-study English learning group with Jack and Tom.

Tom was a junior majoring in math at the national university in which the language center was located. Tom had an English class at his university, but he did not consider it helpful for his English learning. He had the third highest attendance in the class and generally answered questions after Lucy and Jack. Since he wanted to improve his English for volunteer work in three months, Tom also joined Lucy and Jack’s self-study group.

Although the three participants shared some similarities, such as high attendance, self-study, and active performance (e.g. fluent class communication, correct responses to coursebook questions, and prompt responses to the teacher’s questions), high attendance, and self-study, observations of their self-learning group (which arrived one hour early every day for self-learning) revealed different social identities and English learning (EL) investment (<Table 2>).

<Table 2>

THREE KOREAN PARTICIPANTS’ BACKGROUNDS

4.3 Data collection

After getting permission from the management office, the teacher, and all students in the class, we continuously observed two academic semesters from October to December 2019. During these two semesters, we attended class every Monday and Friday, observing learners’ discussions, presentations, attendance, and teacher-student interactions and noting them in the field notes. The study data were collected via class observations, semi-structured interviews, and a student attendance sheet.

4.3.3 Course documents

The course lacked exams, tests, and graduations; its only assessment was learners’ attendance. Thus, we approached the management office to access the roll book for the target class, which recorded the attendance of all learners in the class. A total of 35 classes were held during the first semester (seven weeks, except for holidays). The three focal participants, Jack, Tom and Lucy attended 32, 30, and 26 classes, respectively. <Table 3> shows their class attendance.

<Table 3>

THREE KOREAN PARTICIPANTS’ ATTENDANCE

4.4 Data analysis

Qualitative research uses methods like narrative inquiry, case study, ethnography, action research, and mixed methods in identity studies to elucidate and refine the dynamic and complex personal identities that exist in different language contexts (Heigham & Croker, 2009). Consequently, the present study utilizes a qualitative case study to explore the construction of EFL learners’ identities and investments. Triangulation can be used to ensure validity in case study research via data convergence in different areas, including findings, sources, and methods (Farquhar et al., 2020). Thus, the data in this study were collected via a triangulation of class observations, field notes, class documents, and semi-structured interviews with open-response items from focal learners and a teacher.

In the data analysis, the participants’ perspectives assisted in understanding EFL learners’ investment in English learning. The data were analyzed in two phases, highlighted by Charmaz (2006) as follows: (a) an initial phase and (b) a focused, selective phase. In the first phase of the study, 15 semi-structured interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed with the interviewees’ consent. In the second phase, we sorted and classified the class observation field notes and interview transcriptions into two categories: learners’ social identities and their English investment. The focused data were then selected from each word, line, or segment of data according to the two categories.

5.1 Lucy: From student to worker, from motivation to investment

Lucy was an English major who majored in American literature. At the time of the study, she was working for her local government in Korea. She started learning English in primary school. In the EFL program, she insisted on engaging in group study with Jack and Tom one hour before EFL class every day because she believed they all wanted to improve their English for various reasons (e.g. traveling, job promotions, and volunteer work). She discussed her position in English learning as follows:

“…I go to… went to a class. I do not understand her [the former English teacher]. I do not know… I am an English major student… My English is not good…My score is not good… [smile and looks awkward]” (Lucy, original in English, student interview 1, October 2019).

Lucy, who was an English major, considered English learning to be a course. At the time of the study, she may not have realized the social context for English outside of school, because she did not mention any other identity beyond that of an English major student. For this reason, she discussed feeling terrible about not understanding her teacher’s English speaking well. In Lucy’s case, this was a necessary course that was influenced by English teachers and assessed as either “good” or “bad.” Both Gardner and Lambert (1972) and Gardner (1988) pointed out that instrumental motivation refers to learners’ pursuit of the values and advantages of the language they are learning. At the point of the study, Lucy believed that the “value” of learning English manifested as a “good score.” Since English was necessary for her major, she was motivated to learn English in order to get a good score. She also believed that an “English major student” should be good at English, although she felt she was not. This indicated a contradiction to her, leading her to feel nervous and awkward when she talked about her student experience in English learning. As a student, Lucy focused only on the relationship between English learning and school, meaning that her motivation to learn English was a “good score.” However, when she graduated school and became a worker in the local Korean government, her ideas concerning English learning had changed.

“I come here [the EFL program] because the teacher is come from America. I can learn speaking English from him. A lot of people can speak English [in Korea]… and if I can speak English in my job… I can have good thing in my workplace…” (Lucy, original in English, student interview 4, December 2019, during the individual study group).

Lucy viewed attending this EFL program as important because the teacher was a native speaker, and she felt that English could only be learned from a native speaker. Thus, instead of evaluating English learning by “score,” she realized the importance of the target language speaker’s authority. Since working in the local government, she began to focus on social context. As she mentioned, “a lot of people can speak English in Korea.” In addition, as a local government worker, she observed that “a lot of people can speak English,” noting that she now regarded English learning as a perceived benefit—a “good thing.”

As Norton (2015) remarked, English learning can enhance learners’ cultural, social, and economic capital and future benefits. By positioning herself within the local government, Lucy believed that she could get a “good thing” in return if she invested in English learning. Therefore, Lucy’s identity as a local government worker forced her to invest time and money in the EFL program and extra time in the self-study group. In Lucy’s investment, she constantly organizes and reorganizes a sense of who she is and the way in which she relates her English learning to her social world, which is diversified, contradictory, and changeable. In transitioning her self-identity from an English major student to a local government worker—and shifting her classes from school to society—Lucy’s transformed her English learning from motivation to investment.

5.2 Jack: From a student to a teacher; from score to skill

Only one-third of students attended the EFL program on Mondays and Fridays, which was the allowed fieldwork period. The teacher attributed this to “Monday and weekend syndrome,” suggesting that learners do not usually attend class when finishing a relaxed weekend or preparing for a relaxing coming weekend (teacher interview, November 2019). Nonetheless, Jack’s attendance was the highest in the program. He explained his English learning experience by drawing the following picture, with two distinct self-identities over time. Refer to <Figure 1> below.

[Fig. 1]

Jack’s self-identity

“In the past, when I was a student, English was a score for test… my parent `said, ‘You must get high score. You must learn how to solve the questions on book. You must enter better university with high score’… My parents use their money to let me learn English. My parents want me to learn English because my parents want me to go to better university. But now, I am not a student, I have my money; I want to learn English with my money. I want to be move… I want use visa and world map to travel, so English is really important. English is a skill. There is no exam here… I can make friends and have interesting experiences…” (Jack, original in English, student interview 4, December 2019)

When interviewed about English learning, Jack mentioned the word “score” a lot. When he was younger, he believed that he could be admitted into a well-known university if he obtained a satisfactory English score. As demonstrated in the picture, when his social identity was that of a student, his English learning was driven by his parents and school requirements. He used “you must…” when discussing his English learning goals, demonstrating that he learned English passively as a student. He also had limited freedom when he was a student: he recalled his parents’ money and “parent want,” as well as “you must,” indicating that he had to listen to his parents’ or teachers’ instructions on English learning.

Conversely, “now,” with his social identity as a primary teacher, Jack used the words “my money” and “I want” to illustrate his new position in English learning, which was subjective and active. As shown in the picture, Jack wants to learn English “to be move” as a traveler not only because he has money was a primary teacher, but also so that he “use visa and a world map to travel” (student interview 4, December 2019). Thus, as he stated, “English is a skill” (student interview 4, December 2019). Norton (1995) highlighted that learners’ investment in language learning is equivalent to their investment in identity. When Jack was a student, English learning represented a “score” however, when he became a teacher, he invested in English learning for his future identity: one as a traveler who could speak English and make friends, yielding a symbolic return. It is important to note here that Jack’s identity as a student did not actively motivate English learning in his school, since all his references to early English learning involved the word “you.” However, in his new identities as a teacher and a traveler, he actively learned English in the EFL program and his self-study group after work every day. As an EFL learner, Tom changed his perception of English learning from a passive one to an active one—that is, from a “score” to a “skill”—as his identity changed from a student to a teacher and international traveler.

5.3 Tom: From student to volunteer, from school to society

At the time of the study, Tom was in his junior academic year, majoring in math. He said he began learning English in primary school. He came to the program to learn English because he planned to volunteer in Vietnam during the upcoming winter break as part of his vow to teach his major (i.e. math) in Vietnam. Although his mother tongue was Korean, as an international volunteer, Tom had to speak English or Vietnamese at work; since he could not speak Vietnamese, he went to the classes to quickly improve his oral English. He joined this EFL program and the individual study group every day after school despite having an English class at his university every week. When asked why he invested much time in English learning as a math major, he replied:

“I have English class in my university, but it is only for the class for English exam in my school… so I become teacher [volunteer teacher in Vietnam], so I want to teach them math… I think this is important to me, so I can use this in my resume… I hope I can improve my English very quickly.” (Tom, original in English, student interview 3, December 2019)

As a Korean student, Tom shared a perspective on English learning similar to that held by Jack and Lucy. All three believed that English learning was mainly examination-oriented in schools in South Korea. Nevertheless, when Tom got a chance to volunteer to teach math in English in the coming winter, he felt that learning English was his responsibility as a teacher. Because of his position as a math teacher and international volunteer who could not speak Vietnamese, he had to augment his oral English quickly. He said, “It [learning English] is important” to him because it allowed him to add desirable and professional performance in his volunteer job to his resume.

Norton (1995) remarked that language both constructs and is constructed by a learner’s social identity. On this note, Tom’s social identities included a math student, an EFL learner, an international volunteer, and a math teacher (in the coming winter). In pursuing English competency, he shifted his identity from a university math student to an international volunteer who needed to speak English. To accomplish this, he invested money and time in English learning. English learning can also be transformed into cultural capital, since teaching math in English is a competitive social experience that Tom could add to his resume. Thus far, Tom’s intertwined identity made his reasons for learning English outside of school clear.