Yuri’s SA Narrative in the U.K.

Chapters 7 , 8 , and 9 present three narratives as findings on RQ3. In this chapter, Fukada presents the TL-mediated socializing narrative of Yuri, a Japanese international student who studied in the U.K. for one semester. A key aspect of Yuri’s experience was the dynamically changing social environment. She had to co-construct TL-mediated socializing opportunities with other international students and locals in these evolving classroom and naturalistic contexts. After starting school, Yuri quickly realized that socializing opportunities with local students were not readily available. To navigate this, she engaged in various English-mediated affinity spaces across different social contexts, both on and off campus. These spaces were co-constructed with her Korean housemate, Viola, her host mother, the host mother’s cousins, ESL classmates, elderly locals in a church-related program, and a local undergraduate in a volunteering program. Some interactions occurred regularly, others occasionally, or just once. While Yuri did not feel comfortable in all these spaces, she found comfort with Viola and her host mother’s cousin. Although occasionally overwhelmed when socializing with some European ESL students, who had very different conversational styles, she was able to recognize and appreciate diverse forms of communication and class participation in English on a meta-cognitive level.