Exploration Of Emotional Experiences Of Learning English First Additional Language: Autoethnographic Poetic Inquiry

Abstract

This poetic autoethnography inquiry explored the emotional language learning experiences of the writer during his schooling years when learning English First Additional Language. Furthermore, it seeks to understand the writer’s particular experiences and emotions through ten autobiographical poems and their analysis. The methodology used to collect data and the writer’s context of second language learning is outlined to get a good perspective of the writer’s emotional language learning experiences. As a result, the poems are categorized in accordance with challenges and success of learning a second language, methods used in teaching and learning a second language, contact with Americans and diverse culture. This categorization explicitly explains and reveals the writer’s understanding of second language learning and emotions and contributes to the understanding of experiences as a social, cultural, and educational phenomenon. Most poems reflect the writer’s challenges and successes of learning second language. These poems present a complex progression and transformation of emotions on the part of the writer. These emotions include anxiety, inferiority complex, anger, frustration, confusion, disappointment and excitement or enjoyment. These emotions reveal the writer’s custom of first language usage and willingness to learn second language despite his disapproval. The writer’s success to learn English is interwoven with the approaches used by his teachers to make second language learning interesting and educative. The writer’s second language learning experiences through diverse cultures where he met students from different countries exposes him to language choice and usage in different context with the same form. This emotional experience harmonizes social interaction while second language learning becomes easier to the writer. In conclusion, the emotions presented in this paper about second language learning tend to be more positive than negative. However, the challenges of using second language in a classroom setting and outside the class offer the opportunity to understand these experiences from the writer’s perspective.