From milk cartons to english roommates: Context and agency in l2 learning beyond the classroom

Abstract

In recent years there has been an increasing interest in examining L2 learning outside the classroom in terms of learners’ emerging identity, autonomy and agency (Benson 2011; Norton and Toohey 2001). Agency has been adopted relatively recently by L2 scholars as a key notion through which to capture critical social and cognitive aspects of L2 learning (Darhower 2004; Hunter and Cooke 2007; Gao 2010). Agency can be defined as ‘the socioculturally mediated capacity to act’ (Ahearn 2001: 112). In many ways, agency goes to the very heart of the main problem facing researchers into L2 learning: what is the relationship between the individual language learner - his or her cognitive, affective and social self - and the context?.