Awakening Identity: Using Exploratory, Student-Led Tasks to Build Motivation and Engagement in Postsecondary EAL Learning

This session presents a practical and adaptable approach to open education that places students’ identities, experiences, and cultural knowledge at the centre of learning. Building on classroom cases from both K–12 and postsecondary contexts in China and Canada, the session explores how identity-based, exploratory tasks can support motivation, engagement, and adaptation among multilingual learners in higher education.
The central idea is simple: when learners are invited to activate their past experiences, professional backgrounds, and cultural stories through open, exploratory activities, they begin to act as partners and leaders in their own learning process. This form of identity activation creates a bridge between who they were before entering the classroom and who they are becoming within a new academic and linguistic environment.