“Siempre ha estado atrapado en mi interior pero ahora ha salido”: exploraciones de las identidades lingüísticas de los niños a través de actividades creativas

MONOGRÁFICO Levine, R. Revista Fuentes, 15, Junio, 2014, pp. 93-112 93 I.S.S.N.: 1575-7072 e-I.S.S.N.: 2172-7775 D.O.I.: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/revistafuentes.2014.i15.05 “SIEMPRE HA ESTADO ATRAPADO EN MI INTERIOR PERO AHORA HA SALIDO”: EXPLORACIONES DE LAS IDENTIDADES LINGÜÍSTICAS DE LOS NIÑOS A TRAVÉS DE ACTIVIDADES CREATIVAS. ‘IT'S ALWAYS BEEN STUCK INSIDE ME BUT NOW IT'S COME OUT’: CHILDREN’S EXPLORATIONS OF THEIR LANGUAGE IDENTITIES THROUGH CREATIVE ACTIVITIES Ruth Levine Lecturer in Education Liverpool Hope University Fecha de recepción: 12 de junio de 2013 Fecha de aceptación: 29 de junio de 2014 Fecha de publicación: 30 de junio de 2014 RESUMEN ¿Qué significa para los niños ser usuarios de diferentes lenguas? Una serie de actividades reflexivas y creativas se han desarrollado en un estudio doctoral reciente sobre las identidades lingüísticas de los niños, para ayudarles a explorar y articular sus identidades como hablantes de distintas lenguas. Los análisis de auto-representaciones explícitas de los niños en estas actividades establecieron que los individuos construyen, representan y negocian las identidades lingüísticas que pueden ser múltiples, cambiantes y a veces estar en tensión o contradicción. Por otra parte, las actividades utilizadas para la recolección de datos proporcionan un espacio en el que los niños exploran el uso de las lenguas dentro de sus diferentes comunidades y así aprenden a negociar sus múltiples y cambiantes identidades lingüísticas con mayor comprensión y confianza. Palabras clave: Lenguaje; Identidad; Plurilingüismo; Bilingüismo; Metodología de Investigación; Actividades de clase. ABSTRACT What does it mean to children to be users of different languages? A series of reflective and creative activities were developed in a recent doctoral study of children’s language identities, to support children to explore and articulate their identities as users of different languages. Analysis of the children’s explicit self-representations in these activities established that individuals construct, represent and negotiate language identities which may be multiple, shifting and sometimes in tension or contradiction. Furthermore, the activities used for data collection provide a navigational space in which children explore their use of languages within their different communities and so learn to negotiate their multiple and shifting language identities with greater understanding and confidence. Key words: Language; Identity; Plurilingualism; Bilingualism; Research Methodology; Classroom activities. “Siempre ha estado atrapado en mi interior pero ahora ha salido”: exploraciones de las identidades lingüísticas de los niños a través de actividades creativas. 94 Revista Fuentes, 15, Junio, 2014, pp. 93-112 I.S.S.N.: 1575-7072 e-I.S.S.N.: 2172-7775 D.O.I.: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/revistafuentes.2014.i15.05 1. OBJECTIVES In the early 21st century, a time of rapid social change and increasing cultural diversity in much of Europe, questions of social identity are at the fore in schools as in the wider society. The increasing heterogeneity of many communities in Europe is reflected in the growing number of languages spoken within these communities. In England more than 196 languages are now spoken outside London (e.g. Vidal Rodeiro, 2009). Schools in England reflect and are part of these social changes, and the increasing diversity is apparent in the increasing number of languages spoken by members of school communities. This has implications for the ways children understand and represent themselves and their place in school, in their local community and in the world. In light of the close relationship between individuals' language(s), identities and learning, a recent doctoral study (Levine, 2013) examined the ways a small sample of primary school children identified themselves as users of their different languages in linguistically diverse classes. In this paper, the term 'language identity' refers to the claimed and/or ascribed relationships between individuals and their language(s). This draws on Block's (2006: 35) definition of language identity as 'the assumed and/or attributed relationship between oneself and a means of communication which might be known as a language (e.g. English), a dialect (e.g. Geordie) or a sociolect (e.g. footballspeak)'. This definition, however, keeps the focus on languages rather than language varieties, and leaves open the possibility that individuals may identify themselves as pluri- or multilinguals in addition to users of particular languages. The overarching aim of the research was develop a detailed understanding of the ways nine children in two linguistically diverse primary schools in the UK explicitly identified themselves as users of their different languages and how they represented and negotiated their language identities in interactions in the foreign language classroom. The findings were drawn together in a preliminary model of children’s language identity (Levine, 2013). The objective of an early analysis in the larger study was to establish whether children’s explicit representations of their language identities could be meaningfully researched from a poststructuralist perspective. This is the focus of this paper. As poststructuralist thinking values fragmentation, fluidity, contradiction and context, it is fitting that there should be no fixed, consistent and unitary poststructuralist conceptualisation of identity (Block, 2007b). Poststructuralist research into identity varies in the degree of emphasis on the ways individuals' identities are shaped by their biographies, and MONOGRÁFICO Levine, R. Revista Fuentes, 15, Junio, 2014, pp. 93-112 95 I.S.S.N.: 1575-7072 e-I.S.S.N.: 2172-7775 D.O.I.: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/revistafuentes.2014.i15.05 deeply situated in their social, cultural and historical contexts; on the ways individuals position themselves and are positioned by others in social interactions and in relation to past and present experiences and to hopes, expectations and fears for the future. Recognising that social structures, often relating to demographic categories such as age, gender, ethnicity and race, constrain the ways individuals identify themselves, some poststructuralist research focuses on unequal power relations while other studies examine individuals’ demonstrations of agency in ongoing, self-conscious acts of self-identification (e.g. Block, 2007a and b; Norton and Toohey, 2011). However, Weedon's foundational writing (1987) nonetheless established certain broad principles: poststructuralists conceptualise identity not as the essential, stable core of the self but as 1) multiple; 2) shifting over historical time and social space; and 3) a site of struggle as individuals wrestle with tensions and contradictions. This study takes these three fundamental principles as its definition of a poststructuralist approach to identity. There has been extensive poststructuralist research interest in the subject positions that individuals take up in relation to the wellrecognised identity categories of gender, social class, race, ethnicity and national identity, and sexual orientation. Language identity is much less well known as a social identity, and there is a dearth of studies into language identity. It was anticipated that taking a poststructuralist perspective on children’s language identities would provide the data needed to build a detailed understanding of the children’s language identities. At the beginning of the study, though, it was not clear whether primary school children would identify themselves in relation to their languages in multiple and shifting ways, or whether their languages identities would be a site of struggle. This paper reports on early findings in the study that demonstrate that children’s explicit representations of their language identities can be meaningfully researched from a poststructuralist perspective. 2. METHODOLOGY The objective of establishing whether children’s explicit representations language identities could be meaningfully researched from a poststructuralist perspective had implications for the research methodology: rather than looking to uncover the children's 'real' language identities, the study set out to explore how the children represented and negotiated their subject positions as users of languages, whether these self-representations shifted over time and social space, and whether children expressed tensions or contradictions in relation to their languages. “Siempre ha estado atrapado en mi interior pero ahora ha salido”: exploraciones de las identidades lingüísticas de los niños a través de actividades creativas. 96 Revista Fuentes, 15, Junio, 2014, pp. 93-112 I.S.S.N.: 1575-7072 e-I.S.S.N.: 2172-7775 D.O.I.: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/revistafuentes.2014.i15.05 Establishing whether children's explicit representations of their language identities can be meaningfully researched from a poststructuralist perspective required a nuanced, qualitative approach because it was anticipated that the interest of the study may lie in the complex interplay between the children’s language identities as they hold multiple identities together and sometimes in tension, and as different dimensions of their identities are sometimes salient and foregrounded and sometimes hidden or even denied. To 'average out' the differences (Dornyei, 2007) through quantitative enquiry would have masked the very different ways the children perceived and positioned themselves in relation to each of their languages, and into the ways their language identities shifted across time and social space. The research was designed as a multiple case study (Stake, 1995) to support an in-depth examination of the ways the children identified themselves as users of different languages over the course of the school year. In line with Van Lier (2005) and Dornyei (2007), who assert that case studies can provide unparalleled insight into shifts over time in complex phenomena, the continuities and contradictions, changes and developments in the ways the children identified themselves at different points in the school year were of compelling interest in this study. Participants were selected for 'potential for learning' (Stake, 1998) not representativeness. Nine children (aged ten and eleven years) were selected from two primary schools in a city in South East England. The children came with a wide range of home language profiles: they spoke different languages; they had been resident in the UK for different lengths of time; three of the children used faith languages. The relevant details about the children’s languages are summarised in the table below: Child’s name Languages spoken in the home Where lived Other languages used Languages learnt in lessons Amber English (father’s first language) German (mother’s first language) UK French in school Used to learn Italian in extracurricular club Harunobu Japanese In Japan aged 0-5; lived in UK since English French in school Katya Russian UK English Russian in weekly Russian school French in school MONOGRÁFICO Levine, R. Revista Fuentes, 15, Junio, 2014, pp. 93-112 97 I.S.S.N.: 1575-7072 e-I.S.S.N.: 2172-7775 D.O.I.: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/revistafuentes.2014.i15.05 Child’s name Languages spoken in the home Where lived Other languages used Languages learnt in lessons Lizzie English UK Pedro English German (father’s first language) Spanish (mother’s first language) UK French in school Used to learn Spanish in extracurricular club Anuradha English Urdu In Pakistan aged 0-5 and 7-8; in UK aged 5-7 and 8-11 French in school Learning a little Italian from father who lives in Rome Fadhiya Bangla English UK Sign Language with uncle who is deaf and Arabic in religious practices Arabic lessons at mosque three times a week Bangla lessons at mosque once a week French in school Sign Language in extracurricular lessons Used to learn Italian in school Mark English UK French in school Latin in extracurricular club Used to learn Italian in school Zax English (father’s first language) Polish (mother’s first language) Born in UK but lived in Poland until aged 9 then moved to UK Hebrew in religious practices Hebrew lessons in preparation for bar mitzvah Private lessons in German French in school The names given are pseudonyms chosen by the children from the same language as their real names. The primary schools were also selected for linguistic diversity of the pupils: in each school 35-40% of the pupils spoke languages in addition “Siempre ha estado atrapado en mi interior pero ahora ha salido”: exploraciones de las identidades lingüísticas de los niños a través de actividades creativas. 98 Revista Fuentes, 15, Junio, 2014, pp. 93-112 I.S.S.N.: 1575-7072 e-I.S.S.N.: 2172-7775 D.O.I.: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/revistafuentes.2014.i15.05 to English, and at least 10 languages were spoken by pupils in each of the four classes in the sample. Both schools taught a foreign language from Year 3 (when the pupils are seven years old). A 'mosaic approach' (Clark and Moss, 2001) was taken to gathering data for the wider doctoral study. Several data collection tools were used to build up a rounded picture of the ways the children identified themselves as users of languages explicitly and implicitly: reflective and creative activities with the children; interviews with their teachers; observations of the children in foreign language lessons; and recordings of the children in intervention lessons. This paper focuses on the series of reflective and imaginative activities which supported the children to explore and articulate their language identities. These activities were developed to elicit from the children explicit representations of themselves as users of languages. 3. DATA COLLECTION Eliciting explicit representations of their language identities from the children presented a number of challenges. The children participating in the research were ten and eleven year-olds and may well never have given any thought to their language identities prior to the study. Questioning them directly was unlikely to yield rich and detailed data. Furthermore, in this grounded study it was important that the activities should be non-directive, engaging the children's selfunderstandings and not introducing pre-existing concepts from the literature. The children's explicit self-representations were elicited through a range of activities which encouraged the children to explore and articulate what being a speaker of different languages meant to them. At first the activities were straightforward and relatively concrete so that the children could talk about their languages with confidence; more abstract and open-ended activities were used towards the end of the year. The activities are described below with quotations from the children as they were engaged in the activities illustrating how the activities enabled the children to explore and voice their identities as users of languages. MONOGRÁFICO Levine, R. Revista Fuentes, 15, Junio, 2014, pp. 93-112 99 I.S.S.N.: 1575-7072 e-I.S.S.N.: 2172-7775 D.O.I.: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/revistafuentes.2014.i15.05 Activity 1. Languages mind-maps. The first activity was a mind-map of the children's languages. The children indicated the languages they used, where they used them and with whom, and also noted if they knew a few words of other languages in a box in a corner of the page. The children then explained their mind-maps to the researcher. In doing so, they spoke about their language biographies, the languages spoken in the home, the faith contexts in which certain languages were used, and where and when the children had started learning their different languages. The example below presents Anuradha's mind-map of her languages and her explanation: Picture 1. Example languages mind-map Activity 2. Languages flags In the second activity, the children drew flags to represent their languages and then to explain their flags to the researcher. They were prompted with questions, for example about the size of the blocks representing their different languages and the positions of the languages on the flag. The example below presents Harunobu's flag and his explanation: 'My first language that was Urdu. I used to be very good at Urdu but […]. now that I've been living here for a long time I know less Urdu. […] I speak Urdu when I'm at home [in Pakistan] talking with my family cos all my family keeps on nagging at me to speak even more.' 'I've been living in England for about three years and I mostly speak English because a lot of people speak English here.' 'Hindi is another version of Urdu so basically a lot of words in Urdu are similar to Hindi so basically I can speak Hindi.' '[I speak French] in school and with my dad as well. Since my dad had his Masters degree in French, he taught me a bit.’ ‘I only learnt [Sign Language] like last week. I just don't know that much. I can only do from A to Z and I can say a few words.' XXXXXXXXX “Siempre ha estado atrapado en mi interior pero ahora ha salido”: exploraciones de las identidades lingüísticas de los niños a través de actividades creativas. 100 Revista Fuentes, 15, Junio, 2014, pp. 93-112 I.S.S.N.: 1575-7072 e-I.S.S.N.: 2172-7775 D.O.I.: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/revistafuentes.2014.i15.05 Picture 2: Example languages flag ‘I'm really proud about my Japanese. […] My parents and stuff are Japanese and so this is most of [the flag], but I have been in England for most of my life so that was the second largest and French I've done just a bit so it's quite small. [...] I'm Japanese and I live in England and I speak England most of the time and French I just learn it. So it goes in that way.' Activity 3. 'Jelly baby tree'. The children were given pictures of a 'jelly baby tree' (see below) and asked to identify figures to represent themselves as users of each of their languages and to explain their choices. The children were encouraged to look at the different figures on the tree and to note their positions and moods and that some were on their own while others with in pairs or groups, before being asked to identify themselves as users of languages with particular figures. Picture 3 indicates the figures Fadhiya selected to represent herself as a user of her different languages. It should be noted that she stopped learning Italian two years before taking part in this activity. Picture 3. Example 'jelly baby tree'. 'I speak [French] sometimes with my friends, with my partners in French.' 'Kids that are Muslim here have to learn at the mosque like we have to come to school. [...] I don't really speak it with anyone cos Arabic's not a language I speak with family cos it's like, I learn […] to read it.' 'I think maybe the one at the top. […] I don't really speak [Italian] with anyone.' 'I speak [Bangla] with my family. […] I feel good when I speak it and this one looks happy.' '[I'm one of] the ones that are playing cos I speak [English] with my friends and I play with them and when I play I speak English and stuff.' ‘I think maybe the one at the top. […] I don’t really speak [Italian] with anyone.’ [I’m one of] the ones that are playing cos I speak English with my friends and I play with them and when I play I speak English and stuff.’ MONOGRÁFICO Levine, R. Revista Fuentes, 15, Junio, 2014, pp. 93-112 101 I.S.S.N.: 1575-7072 e-I.S.S.N.: 2172-7775 D.O.I.: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/revistafuentes.2014.i15.05 Activity 4: Drawing trees This next activity provided a means of asking probing questions about their perceptions of themselves as users of different languages whilst still taking care not to introduce pre-understandings. It was adapted from a technique Oaklander (1978) developed in a therapeutic context. Oaklander encouraged children with social and behavioural problems to draw themselves as rose-bushes and to explain their pictures aloud. Adapting this, the children were invited to imagine that they were a different tree when they spoke each of their languages and were asked the following questions: 'What sort of tree are you? How old are you? What are your leaves like? How old is the tree? How deep do your roots go? Do you get all the water and sunlight you need? Where are you? Is there a fence around you or an open place? What's the weather like? Are there other trees around? What's going to happen to this tree in the future?' The children then drew the imagined trees in turn. They explained their pictures either while they were sketching or afterwards. The use of metaphor in this way enabled searching questions to be posed whilst always working with children's self-understandings as the children interpreted the metaphors in ways they considered meaningful. 'It's got pretty deep roots because, well, I feel I've had lots of opportunities to get better at English. […] It's a pretty big tree because I feel like I've done pretty well at learning English. […] And there's lots of branches because I've branched out to think of new things. […] But I don't think it's fully grown yet because I've still got a lot of life to learn about new things.' 'It's a healthy tree because I do French lessons every week and that helps. It's not the biggest tree, but as we've only been doing French for two years, it's grown quickly to the size it is now. Its branches are spreading but they haven't spread everywhere yet because I haven't learnt everything. There's still a lot more to go. I like being this tree because I'm like satisfied with what I've done. It's in a park because in the class everyone else is learning French as well, so there are lots of people, lots of trees there.' xxxxxxx xxxxxx “Siempre ha estado atrapado en mi interior pero ahora ha salido”: exploraciones de las identidades lingüísticas de los niños a través de actividades creativas. 108 Revista Fuentes, 15, Junio, 2014, pp. 93-112 I.S.S.N.: 1575-7072 e-I.S.S.N.: 2172-7775 D.O.I.: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/revistafuentes.2014.i15.05 between the children and the researcher. Also, shifts in the children's self-representations sometimes reflected a deeper engagement with particular dimensions of themselves through the activities. This will be discussed in the final part of this paper. 7. DISCUSSION: THE VALUE OF THESE ACTIVITIES IN THE CLASSROOM Imaginative and reflective activities such as those used for data collection in this study can provide a 'navigational space' (Moje et al., 2004) in which children explore their use of languages within their different communities and so learn to negotiate their multiple and shifting language identities with greater understanding and confidence. This is the focus of this final section of the paper, which reflects on the children's comments about their experiences of taking part in the activities used for data collection in this study, and on the shifts in the children's representations of their language identities in the course of these activities. Through the activities detailed in this paper, children who may never have given any thought to their language identities were supported to explore and articulate what being a user of different languages meant to them. It should be emphasised that the activities were designed as a data collection tool to elicit the children's explicit self-representations, not to help the children. Whilst care had been taken to conduct the data collection in a sensitive and ethical way, it was a pleasant surprise when, during the debrief at the end of the year, each of the children independently commented that the activities had helped them to understand themselves and their languages in new ways. The children all commented that they rarely talked about their languages with other people and that they found it helpful to do so through the activities. Katya described her experience of the activities in terms of ‘opening up’ a dimension of her life which she usually kept unexpressed: ‘You can tell someone about it and you can actually just think about it yourself for a while cos it's always been stuck inside me but now it's kind come out and I have a chance to think about it. […]Just kind of having a task like [the poem] to do about feelings for my languages [helped me] because […] it opened up feelings.’ Pedro and Anuradha commented that they came to a better understanding of themselves and their languages better because the MONOGRÁFICO Levine, R. Revista Fuentes, 15, Junio, 2014, pp. 93-112 109 I.S.S.N.: 1575-7072 e-I.S.S.N.: 2172-7775 D.O.I.: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/revistafuentes.2014.i15.05 activities required them to think about their languages and put this into words. Pedro explained that the activities had helped him understand himself better 'because in each meeting [he needed] to think about what to say and how [he could] express [his] feelings about the languages.' Anuradha expressed her new confidence in talking about her language identities: 'Everything we've done actually helped me learn about my own languages cos before I met you I didn't really know about myself and my languages. […] Now I feel a bit more confident when we talk about languages. Before I didn't really know what to say but now that we've talked about it a lot I know what to say.' The children valued the opportunity to think and talk about themselves and their languages, and came to understand themselves through the activities. Some children identified specific ways in which the activities had helped them with their language identities, commenting on new understandings relating to their confidence in different languages, and of the social affiliations associated with their languages. Pedro commented that drawing trees to represent himself as a user of different languages helped him to make sense of how his proficiency in different languages had changed over time. Katya noted that certain activities had helped her to take a future perspective on their languages. She remarked that writing a poem using colours to stimulate thought about her languages encouraged her to consider 'what [she needed] to do to make them better'. Anuradha and Katya spoke at some length about how the activities had helped them understand the relationship between their languages and social affiliations. Anuradha explained that she had come to understand how her different languages enabled her to feel at home in a number of different countries: 'I realised how important it is that I have so many languages so if I travel to a part of the world I won't feel like an outsider.' Katya described feeling more at ease having thought about the significance of being speaking Russian and English and participating in the two cultures she associated with these languages: 'It makes me feel more comfortable knowing how the languages change my life cos Russian changes my life quite a lot. […] Just talking English all the time outside my home but Russian inside my home makes quite a difference to me. […] It's a different language, a different life, really. It's just so different. Different food, different reactions sometimes.' “Siempre ha estado atrapado en mi interior pero ahora ha salido”: exploraciones de las identidades lingüísticas de los niños a través de actividades creativas. 110 Revista Fuentes, 15, Junio, 2014, pp. 93-112 I.S.S.N.: 1575-7072 e-I.S.S.N.: 2172-7775 D.O.I.: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/revistafuentes.2014.i15.05 Shifts in the children's self-representations over the year of data collection also indicate the potential benefits of such activities. The activities supported Pedro to articulate the tensions he experienced in relation to his home languages, and through doing so, he was able to reflect on these and come to new understandings: he realised that he would have opportunities to improve his German at secondary school, and glimpsed the importance of German to him in terms of both family history and future social opportunities. Pedro moved from only expressing frustration with his slow progress with German to envisaging spending time in Germany and interacting meaningfully in the language. In a very different way, the activities encouraged other children to consider how foreign languages might feature in their lives. Over the course of the year, Katya began to articulate a nascent vision of themselves as a user of French, the foreign language she was learning in school. She described being motivated to learn French so she could travel in Canada and voiced a developing aspiration to speak Spanish: 'I'd like to go to Spain for a while and try to make some friends out there [...] [Go to] university or something'. Anuradha, facing an imminent move to Rome, voiced increasing confidence in her ability to learn Italian over the year. At the beginning, Anuradha described a sense of failure in relation to her attempts to learn Italian: 'I feel really bad at it. [...] I just can never remember it.' By the summer, Anuradha recognised that living in Rome would give her opportunities to learn Italian, and expressed confidence she would learn it successfully as her father had done: '[My dad learnt Italian] in Italy. […] If my dad can do it, why can't I?' While the study does not provide 'hard evidence', it seems likely that the children's participation in the activities played a role in their developing self-understandings. The children's comments about their participation in the activities and the shifts in the self-representations of some of the children through the activities indicate that that imaginative and reflective activities such as those used for data collection in this study provide a 'navigational space' (Moje et al., 2004) in which children can make sense of their proficiency in and use of different languages within the diverse social contexts of their lives. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the children and teachers who participated in the doctoral study behind this paper and Linda Fisher and Michael Evans (Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge) for their insights and guidance as PhD supervisor and adviser. MONOGRÁFICO Levine, R. Revista Fuentes, 15, Junio, 2014, pp. 93-112 111 I.S.S.N.: 1575-7072 e-I.S.S.N.: 2172-7775 D.O.I.: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/revistafuentes.2014.i15.05 REFERENCES Block, D. (2006) Multilingual Identities in a Global City: London Stories. 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(2009) Some Issues on the Uptake of Modern Foreign Languages at GCSE: Statistics Report Series No. 10. Cambridge: Cambridge Assessment. Weedon, C. (1987) Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. “Siempre ha estado atrapado en mi interior pero ahora ha salido”: exploraciones de las identidades lingüísticas de los niños a través de actividades creativas. 112 Revista Fuentes, 15, Junio, 2014, pp. 93-112 I.S.S.N.: 1575-7072 e-I.S.S.N.: 2172-7775 D.O.I.: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/revistafuentes.2014.i15.05 Sobre la autora: Ruth Levine [email protected] Having recently completed PhD research into children’s identities as users of different languages at the University of Cambridge, Ruth has a keen interest in children with community and heritage languages. She is also committed to the broader field of language education. After teaching languages in schools in Cambridge, Conwy and Villach (Austria), she moved into research and teacher education. Following MEd study, she worked as a researcher on a government-funded study looking at language learning at Key Stage 3. Alongside PhD study, Ruth developed a one month intercultural programme for language teachers and trainees in China and has delivered this in the UK and in China. She is currently working in teacher education at Liverpool Hope University where she contributes to primary and secondary programmes Para citar este artículo: Levine, R. (2014). “Siempre ha estado atrapado en mi interior pero ahora ha salido”: exploraciones de los niños de sus identidades lingüísticas a través de actividades creativas. Revista Fuentes, 15, Junio, pp. 93-112. [Fecha de consulta: dd/mm/aaaa]. http://www.revistafuentes.es/ D.O.I.: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/revistafuentes.2014.i15.05