Looking Back and Moving Forward

Abstract

In this concluding chapter, I recapitulate key points of interest raised in the preceding chapters. In particular, I reiterate how unequal power relations ultimately affected language learning possibilities among marginalized individuals and emphasize the need to reconceptualize language learning through an ideology and identity lens. Such an understanding, I point out, focuses on how learners engage in acts of discursive positioning in relation to language ideologies and circulating ideologies around them. Following this overview of the book, I discuss implications of this study for second language acquisition (SLA) scholarship and emphasize how the findings are relevant to educators, researchers, and policy makers. Directions for future SLA research are also discussed in order to expand our understanding of the dynamics of language learning.