Ming’s Profile

Ming was born and raised in a southern province of China and excelled in his Chinese and English, from a young age. After graduating with a BA in English in China, he prepared for the TOEFL and the GRE on his own and achieved nearly perfect scores, with 110 on TOEFL (its scores range from 0 to 120) and 98th percentile on the GRE. He went to the United States and stayed there for 10 years to pursue his MA and Ph.D. degrees in English. Upon graduating from his Ph.D. program, he started teaching and conducting research at a university in China. His L2 learning experience and identities of L1 and L2 might have been impacted because of a change in social contexts from China to the United States in general. More specifically, his social contexts in this study encompass different countries, school settings, communities, the circle of friends and family, etc. Therefore, he was chosen for this case study. A summary of Ming’s profile is presented below.