Resumen de Paradox of placement policy: struggling EFL learners’ negotiation of performance-based identity in China

Haowei Luo, Hua Yu

• Drawing on the concept of performance-based identity, this critical ethnographic study examines the complex interplay between university English placement test policy and the identity negotiation of first-year English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in China. The analysis reveals how placement test policy streams EFL learners into listening and speaking courses based on written-test performance, resulting in destabilization of their performance-based identities. Two distinct identity trajectories emerge: an “in-between identity struggle,” trapped between exemption unreachable and an unwillingness to game for an easier track, and a “self-directed identity adaptation,” marked by acute awareness of oral gaps and proactive recalibration of exam-oriented practices to meet university demands. Yet both trajectories reveal how the misalignment between entry placement and course assessment tends to (re)produce structural disparities by privileging oral competence while relying on written-only placement, systematically undervaluing “written-strong/oral-weak” EFL learners. By introducing the concept of “performance-based identity” into language policy studies, this research enriches understanding of identity work within policy-mediated educational transitions. Future research could focus on transitional periods where new language policies alter performance evaluation standards, as these are critical sites where learner identities are revalued and renegotiated within power dynamics.