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, thick description.

Overall, the introductory section of the article contains fundamental structures including
3 moves: (1) establishing a research territory, (2) establishing a niche, and (3) occupying the
niche. The researcher subtly put 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. To begin with, the researcher starts to establish a niche or the ‘gap’ in the first
paragraph by stating that, “It has received little attention in the ESL classroom discourse,” and,
“Only a few authors have undertaken detailed examinations of the diversity of gendered
interactions in ESL classrooms” with referenced citations to highlight the significance of this
study. In the second paragraph, the researcher establishes his research territory and refers to
previous studies in the field by claiming that, “Sexuality issues only come to be considered by
applied linguistics recently”. Furthermore, he emphasizes the inadequacy and knowledge gap
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 his present study. In the third paragraph, the researcher occupies the niche
in his study by investigating how a group of Chinese participants construct their gender and
sexual identities as well as putting his emphasis on the concepts and concerns with gender and
sexuality in a postmodern feminist approach as his scope.

Next, 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 review from traditional to
contemporary studies in the field. Probably influenced by queer theory, 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 diversity, the researcher

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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.” More significantly, the researcher also provides the definitions of his
technical terms such as ‘heterosexual’, ‘heteronormativity’ and ‘queer’, to help the readers
understand what these words intentionally mean in conjunction with this research study.

In his data collection section, 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?

Obviously, the researcher identifies his methods for data collection and data analysis as
well as ethical issues and justification for conducting his research study. First, the researcher
primarily states that he implements multiple instruments for collecting the data and triangulation
including classroom observation, writing fieldnotes, interview with ESL teachers, and face-to-
face conversation with ESL Chinese students. Second, instead of recording the whole session in
class, the researcher respectfully complied with the prohibition requested by school to record
only significant discussions and write his fieldnotes. Third, the researcher took notes
immediately after having informal conversations with participants in various situations and
ensure his correctness by checking with participants on the phone, which is also known as
‘member checks’, to strengthen an internal validity and a reliability of his study. Besides, it is
also worth noting that the researcher declares his virtues and justifies his positioning as an
ethnographer to the focal participants; thus, the relationship between the researcher and the focal
participants was 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 some extent.

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 In terms of data analysis, the researcher draws on the classroom conversation, related to
gender and sexuality issues, and explains that he would analyze the qualitative data by means of
content analysis approach through coding and categorizing into themes. Ethically, the researcher
did not only ask the focal participants for informed consent prior to the collection of data, but he
also ensured the participants’ anonymity and confidentiality by using pseudonyms to protect
their identities. In addition, the researcher officially declares his position that he was not only the
researcher and the insider, but he also jointly engaged them in their interaction and discursive
work. Therefore, it can be predicted 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 form of
interaction, can possibly help to ensure the research validity, reliability, and generalizability.

To display his 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 his 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 commentary after showing samples of his longitudinal findings under such
three thematic titles. He presents his judgement and opinions by employing stance strategies
such as hedges, boosters, attitude markers, 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, appeals
to shared knowledge, directives, and questions. For instance, he proposes that, “My observation
outside the classroom suggests that gender identity can change daily, as the Chinese students
vary their performances,” while discussing upon the theme of incorporating new gender
performances. In consequence of using those stance and engagement strategies, it is likely that
the researcher could persuasively convince the readers to engage in a focal point of his study,

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commit their attention to his argument, and eventually acknowledge his judgmental
interpretation.

In his concluding section, the researcher seems to apply the following typical language
structures of thesis-oriented conclusion, including (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.

However, this present research article may be argued for some points of considerations
unexpectedly as follows.