Educational research in English-as-a-second-language (ESL) or English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL)contexts has seen increasing adoption of narrative inquiry. Based on the literature retrieved from Web of Science core collection, the study presented an overview of this field in terms of its theoretical perspectives, research topics, as well as methods for data collection and data analysis. It is found that this field has frequently explored such topics as identity and motivation from a variety of theories, positioning theory and community of practice, in particular. Besides, multiple-channel sources, longitudinal data, narratives-in-action, narrative frames and multimodality narratives are mainly used for data collection while thematic analysis, content analysis, discourse analysis and narrative analysis are typically employed for data analysis. Finally, suggestions are outlined for future research.