This paper documents the identity negotiation and strategic language efforts of a female postgraduate learner of English from a rural Arab background. She needed to obtain a high score in the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) exam as a prerequisite to getting an unconditional offer from a UK university. The narrative inquiry reported…

This article provides a qualitative inquiry into the influences of immediate family members (i.e. parents and siblings) on a group of Gulf Arab EFL students regarding their language learning experiences and strategy use in their Arab homelands. The participants came from financially comfortable families, with different levels of education. The…

This paper reports on a longitudinal phenomenographic inquiry into understanding how two postgraduate Syrian students' ways of approaching English language learning in their homelands influenced the shape of their personal study abroad goals, language strategy use and L2 identity. It is guided by Norton's [(2013). "Identity and language…