Appraising paper

The research article titled “Invesitigating Chinese Learners’ Interaction in Relation to Gender and

Sexuality in the ESL Classroom in the UK” is written by Associate Professor Feng Gao with a rich and thick

description. This appraising paper divides into two main sections which are the positive orientation and the

points of consideration as follows:

Overall, the introductory section of the article contains fundamental structures including three

moves: (1) establishing a research territory, (2) establishing a niche, and (3) occupying the niche. The

researcher subtly puts forward his agenda for conceptualizing the poststructuralist theoretical framework on

gender and sexuality in terms of postmodern feminist approach as well as a queer theory. In the first

paragraph, the researcher starts to establish a niche or the ‘gap’ that “Only a few authors have undertaken

detailed examinations of the diversity of gendered interactions in ESL classrooms.” In the second paragraph,

the researcher establishes his research territory and refers to previous studies in the field by claiming that,

“Little is known about how learners, who are non-queer-identifying, react and express their sexual identities

when discussing LGBT topics in ESL classrooms,” to guide the readers to expect the purpose of the present

study. In the third paragraph, the researcher occupies the niche in the study by investigating how a group of

Chinese participants construct their gender and sexual identities as well as putting the emphasis on the

concepts and concerns with gender and sexuality in a postmodern feminist approach as the scope of the

study.

Subsequently, the researcher makes references to previous studies and reviews three main issues for

his study including (1) concepts of gender and sexual diversity, (2) gender and performativity, and (3)

sexuality and queer theory with several in-text citations. He arranges this section according to three topics

with different points of views by combining the historical background of the theoretical framework, and

previous literature reviews from traditional to contemporary studies in the field. The researcher claims that

“Sexuality is not natural or inherent, but it is constructed and contingent, which implies that people may

construct different sexual identities in different periods of time or in different discursive practice.” To

discover the key concepts of gender and sexual diversities, the researcher problematizes the ideology of

homosexuality and heterosexuality as a binary phenomenon. For instance, he criticizes the performativity

theory in the second language classroom by advocating that, “Second language learners may draw on past
gender performances as discursive resources, and thus repeat over time, or they can draw upon past gender

performances, but also alter them in significant ways, as target society opens to new gendered possibilities

and relaxes old, gendered constraints.” Furthermore, the researcher provides the definitions of the technical

terms such as ‘heterosexual’, ‘heteronormativity’, and ‘queer’ to help the readers understand what these

words intentionally mean in conjunction with this research study.

To collect the data, the researcher makes it clear that this present report is a part of his ‘longitudinal

ethnographic research project’ and the focal participants are six Chinese students of an ESL classroom in

Britain. The research questions are arranged in alphabetical order: (a) How do the Chinese learners perform

their gender and sexual identities through classroom interaction? and (b) How do the ESL teachers present

and deal with issues of gender and sexual identities in the classroom?

Notably, the researcher identifies the methods for data collection and data analysis as well as ethical

issues and justification for conducting the research. Firstly, the researcher primarily states that he

implements multiple instruments for collecting the data and triangulation such as classroom observation,

writing fieldnotes, interview with ESL teachers, and face-to-face conversation with ESL Chinese students.

Secondly, instead of recording the whole session in class, the researcher respectfully complies with the

prohibition requested by school to record only significant discussions and writes his fieldnotes. Finally, the

researcher takes notes immediately after having informal conversations with the participants in various

situations and ensures his correctness by checking with the participants on the phone, which is also known

as ‘member checks’, to strengthen an internal validity and a reliability of the study. It is also worth noting

that the researcher declares his virtues and justifies his position as an ethnographer to the focal participants;

thus, the relationship between the researcher and the focal participants is presumably established to discover

the findings of ‘truth’ through formal and informal interactions. For all these reasons, the present research

can be viewed as a moral, dependable, and trustworthy study.

To analyze the data, the researcher examines the classroom conversation regarding gender and

sexuality before analyzing the qualitative data by means of content analysis approach through coding and

categorizing into themes. Ethically, the researcher does not only ask the focal participants for informed

consent prior to the collection of data, but he also ensures the participants’ anonymity and confidentiality by

using pseudonyms to protect their identities. Remarkably, the researcher officially declares his position that
he is not only the researcher and the insider, but also jointly engages in their interaction and discursive work.

Therefore, it can be expected that this research findings would be filled with subjectivities and biases from

both participants and the researcher. As well as the researcher’s positionality and reflexivity, the methods of

triangulation and adequate engagement with the focal participants in a longitudinal period of 36 weeks,

either formal or informal forms of interaction, can possibly help to ensure the research validity, reliability,

and generalizability.

To display the results qualitatively, the researcher seems to occupy these following moves: (1)

presenting meta-textual information, (2) presenting the results, and (3) commenting the results. By

entrusting the findings, the researcher categorizes them into thematic titles: (i) learning about new gender

and sexual performances, (ii) incorporating new gender performances, and (iii) resisting undesirable gender

performances.

While discussing, the researcher applies a great deal of stance and engagement strategies to make

claims and commentaries after showing samples of his longitudinal findings under such three thematic titles.

He presents his judgement and opinions by employing stance strategies such as self-mentions. For example,

the researcher asserts that, “Xu’s question seems to be a bit ‘annoying’, but I can see how a young student

has fun with the previous perceived taboo topic in a formal classroom setting,” while discussing on learning

about new gender and sexual performances. Furthermore, the researcher arguably engages the readers by

employing strategies of engagement such as reader pronouns, personal asides, and appeals to shared

knowledge. For instance, “My observation outside the classroom suggests that gender identity can change

daily, as the Chinese students vary their performances.” As a result, it is likely that the researcher can

persuasively convince the readers to engage in a focal point of his study, commit their attention to his

argument, and eventually acknowledge his judgmental interpretation.

To conclude, the researcher seems to apply the typical structures of thesis-oriented conclusion: (1)

restatement and report of the issue being researched, (2) summary of findings and claims, and (3)

implications for practical applications in the ESL classroom context. For example, the researcher restates

that, “In this study, the six Chinese students’ gender, sexual, multiple subjectivities operate within an

intricate network, which influences their engagement in the classroom discussion, and their access to

particular linguistic resources.” Besides, the researcher concludes that, “I found considerable diversity in
gendered involvements with classroom interactions among the focal students.” Finally, the researcher

recommends that, “By undertaking this responsibility, ESL teachers must respect students’ diverse gender

and sexual identities.”

Apart from the positive orientation from the paper, the latter section explains about the aspects of

consideration and the implication. Firstly, the researcher only has apparent headings of ‘Introduction’ and

‘Conclusion’ and lacks the obvious headings of ‘Literature Review’, ‘Methodology’, and ‘Findings and

Discussions’. It would provide readers a better understanding since there is an explicit structure for writing a

research article. The distinctive titles throughout the paper might be considered as sub-headings in which

reviewing the concepts of theorical frameworks are included in the literature review section. Explaining the

procedure of data collection and data analysis, and describing participants and researcher’s position can be

subcategorized for methodology section. The findings and discussions section could be divided into three

subcategories according to the research questions which are learning about new gender and sexual

performances, incorporating new gender performances, and resisting undesirable gender performances. It is

because these subcategories derived from the themes and analytical categories discovered in the

phenomenon.

The second aspect is about the discussion section. The paper requires to have more comprehensible

connection between the reviewed of theorical frameworks and the findings and discussions section. In

addition, it seems to be one topic that is not mentioned in the literature review, but it appears in the findings

section which is LGBT theme. From our perspectives, the themes or theorical frameworks mentioned across

the paper should be related and have some connections so that the readers will not have questions about the

unfamiliar terminology. Another part of the discussion is concerned with the strong arguments made by the

researcher in the ‘resisting undesirable gender performance’ part. On the one hand, the researcher presents a

rich and thick descriptive comment from emic perspective. He reflects and justifies himself by saying that

‘he would like to address the issue as to raise awareness and does not personally have an intention to blame

the particular teacher’. On the other hand, he excessively has his position and concludes this issue with a

high degree of subjectivity and bias. We both recognized that this is a typical characteristic of qualitative

research; however, the researcher might have alternative ways to address his stance with less-judgmental

words rather than the use of, for example, ‘these ill-prepared teachers’.
 The next aspect is concerned with the confusion parts from readers’ points of view. The questionable

parts are including the use of word choices, the explanation of the extract, and the presence of unfocused

participants. For example, ‘the researcher addressed herself as a focal participant’ stated in the researcher

position section. The use of the word ‘focal participant’ might be misled the reader to understand that the

researcher is one of the focal participants in the research. Moreover, the description of the extracts should be

relevant from in the data collection section such as deriving from the observation (field notes, audio

recording, or informal conversation). The description of ‘Talked with Jin’ extract could be puzzled since this

is not a part of the data collection sources. Another confusion is the presence of other students who takes

parts in the classroom setting and has been mentioned in the extract. One student named Lin is also a

Chinese student and the researcher tends to compare Lin to a focal participant in the study. In our opinion,

this comparison gives a confused commentary element since Lin is not one of the focal participants in the

research.

The fourth aspect is that the paper could be improved by using the same pattern of indicating the

date, reordering some adjective orders, and having a visual display to present some information. The use of

the identical format of the date such as November 22, 2005 or 22/11/05 could provide the coherence of the

paper. Moreover, the notification of using descriptions e.g. ‘… a man Turkish student’ or ‘… Chinese

woman students’ could show the researcher’s English language competence. Furthermore, some part of

information such as the participants or details of participants in the appendix could be presented in the table

instead of a long paragraph.

The last aspect of the consideration is in the conclusion section. The conclusion part does not have

the limitation of the study and the researcher might include suggestion or guidance for the issue raised

throughout the study. The researcher should indicate what could not include in the study and recommend the

future research to fill the gap. Apart from raising the issue about teacher responsibility to be aware of the

gender and sexuality identities, the researcher might provide the solution or ways to address this issue in the

classroom setting where international students come from diversity of cultural background. In our opinion,

the paper could be well concluded to have some solutions as an implication for the instructor.

In short, this appraising paper examines both strengths and limitations of the article, and we can

finalize that its merits outweigh the shortcomings in the light of gender and sexuality in the ESL context.
By

Bussaya Hanchanachaikul

Nannalin Insamien