Exploring the Bilingual Identities of Young Learners in Japan: A Practice-Based Approach

This practice-based paper presents my implementation of a second language (L2) identity- focused classroom activity and offers a critical reflection on the pedagogical insights that emerged. I based this task on a body silhouette activity designed by Dressler (2015), involving students expressing their L2 identity by drawing their own silhouette. While Dressler’s (2015) drawing activity took place with young multilingual learners in Canada, my adaptation of the activity was conducted with learners aged between five and six years old attending an English bilingual kindergarten in Japan. Experiencing this drawing-based task made me start to consider how I should further facilitate the exploration of linguistic identity within an immersive context.