SOCIAL JUSTICE AND LANGUAGE MINORITY STUDENTS

Social Justice and Minority Language Students in the United States

Ercilia Delancer

University of North Florida

 Abstract

This paper purports to examine the attitudes and policies guiding the teaching of English

to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) to minority language students in the United States and

the impact such policies have on the students’ self-esteem, school performance and graduation

rates. It is my belief that minority language students are being cheated of the opportunity to

receive an education equal to that of their peers once politicians, school administrators and

uninformed teachers operate under the assumption that English can be mastered in a couple of

years and that language minority students should stop communicating in their native language in

favor of immersing themselves in English only to optimize their assimilation into the culture of

the dominant political group. When students get the message that their culture and prior

experiences are irrelevant and that the only culture they need to learn about is the Anglo-Saxon

one, irreparable damage results due to the cognizant dissonance such message creates in the

student’s psyche.

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 Social Justice and Minority Language Students in the United States

As a nation of immigrants, the United States has a long history of teaching immigrants

and their children English as a Second (or additional) Language with a pattern of language

acquisition that has varied little throughout the last couple of centuries: the first wave spoke little

or no English, their children spoke English fluently and in most cases kept their mother tongue

thus becoming bilingual, while their children spoke English only. Those parents in the first wave

who wanted to insure that their children retain their mother tongue went to great lengths to

educate their children through the paying of private classes taught at the local church, school or

synagogue. These teachings consolidated the link to the motherland and, insured that the second

generation could communicate with the first and provided the parents with a bridge to the new

culture through their children’s ability to serve as informal translators and interpreters.

Although it is estimated that there are around 3.5 to 3.7 million language minority students in

public schools, the teaching of English as a Second Language has long been perceived by

policymakers, administrators and even teachers not familiar with the ESOL program, as a

temporary detour for minority language students who are expected to join the mainstream classes

after a short interval there. The impetus for such perception lies in part on the effort carried out

by such organization as English Only which posits that speaking any other language but English

to transact business or teach classes should be outlawed in the United States. The proponents of

this policy contend that earlier waves of immigrants were able to learn English easily and did not

need to have translators or interpreters to carry out their civic obligations. Such assertion denies

the fact that earlier immigrants owned and operate bilingual schools until distrust from

surrounding communities forced them to close.

 As a result of this misguided perception, the followers of English Only propose that students

should be immersed in the English language from day one as the fastest route to achieving

fluency in the target language. One factor in operation here is that the school continue to be

perceived as the training grounds for the future workforce of the United States and as such need

to respond to the needs of the marketplace. Based on this belief, schools should not concerned

themselves with educating an individual so that he or she is capable of relating to the world

around him or her, but just enough as to be able to operate a computer. Furthermore, the No

Child Left Behind law requires that schools demonstrate progress in teaching English to

language minority students regardless of their age of arrival at the school.

We have already seen how progressive school districts in such states as California have

reversed prior decisions to offer bilingual education to its language minority students when

policy-makers responded to xenophobic rhetoric against all forms of diversity (O’Malley and

Pierce, 1996). Citing research studies, statistics and data to support their fears and phobias,

groups such as English First try to convince policy-makers that offering bilingual education to

language minority students only perpetuate the problem of assimilating the newcomers into the

society at large as soon as possible in order to make them productive members of society.

Otherwise, they feel that the new immigrants:

...never become productive members of American society. They remain stuck in a

linguistic and economic ghetto, many living off welfare and costing working Americans millions

of tax dollar every year (English First a).

Since the parents of the newly arrived minority language students might not have education

themselves, might not speak the language or understand the school system, their children are

assigned to whatever school program is provided with little or no explanation to the parents. This
arrangement follows the power structure currently in place where the group where the dominant

group decides what is best for those that are powerless to protest, especially when such

protestation could be labeled as unpatriotic and the immigrants be encouraged to return to their

countries of origin if they don’t like it here.

Once in the classroom, the minority language students encounter a hostile atmosphere as they

are expected to perform just as the native speakers do without having the requisite background

knowledge to do so. As a teacher who has provided ESOL instruction on a pull-out basis, on an

inclusive basis (in conjunction with the regular teacher), or in a self-contained classroom, I can

attest to the fact that minority language students are not uniform in their needs and thus do not

benefit from a homogenous approach to their learning needs. Aggravating the situation is the fact

that these influential groups demand and expect that the minority language students, even those

who have just arrived speaking not a word of English, be enrolled in content subject classes

while acquiring the English require to communicate. Such gargantuan task is assigned to each

student regardless of his or her educational background thus ignoring that the ability of each

student to acquire English fluently enough to understand and participate in content area classes is

going to be determined by what level and quality of schooling they have brought with them from

their native country (Freeman & Freeman 200)

Despite the 1974 ruling in Lau Versus Nichols, a decision which required school districts

to provide services to minority language students, government and school districts have sought to

minimize the expenses such program entails by requiring that language minority students

enrolled in ESOL, bilingual or sheltered classes make the transition into mainstream classes

within three years of their enrollment (Chamness Miller & Endo 2004).
 This policy runs counter to the view of experts in the field of second language acquisition

who assert that the average student needs five to seven years of exposure to the second language

to acquire the fluency needed to carry out the complex language and mathematical functions

necessary to achieve high school graduation grades at the same level as the native speakers

counterparts (Cummins,). Students placed in this sink or swim position end up frustrated and

many drop out of school entirely as the student come to realize that teachers around them seem

to ignore their struggle not only to understand the language being spoken around them, but the

societal norms that apply to this new place, norms that can be diametrically opposed to their own

(Lehman, 2004).

According to Olsen and Jaramillo (1999), ESOL students can be classified according to the

length of stay in the United States and the level of schooling achieved in their native country.

Based on this classification, students should be assigned to classes that would accommodate their

learning needs and would provide an environment where they will be able to acquire the English

needed to subsequently fully participate in the content classes needed to graduate from high

school. Such accommodation would require massive funding for schools with large minority

language students. Despite the rhetoric indicating the public’s willingness to educate every child

in the United States, the reality is quite different for while we welcome the chance to exploit the

labor of their parents, we are reluctant to spend the large sums of money required to bridge the

gap between recently arrived minority language students and their native English speakers

counterparts.

Based on the theory of social justice that stipulates that every child is entitled to an education

equal to that of any of their peers, this paper endeavor to show that the basic human rights of

minority language students are being violated when they are mainstreamed into classes for which
they lack sufficient knowledge of English to insure comprehension, retention of material and full

participation in class activities. It will also argue that the only way to promote learning and

insure that these students will be able to read, write, compute and think critically is by providing

an education in their native language until they have achieved such fluency in English as that of

their peers.

Let us take a look at some of the language minority students I have encountered during my nine

years teaching English for Speaker of Other Languages (ESOL) and how their educational needs

are not being met:

Santiago is a ten-year-old boy, with obvious indigenous looks, who has just arrived from Mexico

a week ago. This is his first day at the nearby elementary school and he has spent four hours in

his classroom silently staring at his desk while his classmates go about performing their tasks in

their content area classes. By the time he arrives at his ESOL class, he has been buffeted by the

numerous instructions in English offered by his teachers and embarrassed at his clumsy attempts

to follow them, not to mention the fact that school routines here are completely different to ones

he remembers observing in Mexico. When I greet him in Spanish, his eyes light up and a stream

of speech is released, the anxiety leaves his face as he eases into a chair, relieved to finally be in

a place where something is familiar.

Maritza is twelve years old, also from Mexico, but light-skinned and well-dressed. She sits at her

desk as I come in for the inclusion portion of my teaching and does not look up when I call on

her to follow me to the end of the classroom for one-on-one tutoring. Although Maritza has been

at school for about six months, she refuses to communicate in English, does not participate in

any task assigned to her, and spends most of her time arranging and re-arranging the content of

her desk while playing dumb when called upon to answer a question. Maritza is resentful at
 being single out for ESOL instruction and lets me know that by only grudgingly answering my

questions and then only by providing monosyllabic responses.

Edgar is sixteen-years old and has come from the Philippines recently. A short, stocky boy

looking much younger than his age, he wants to blend into the wall and sits at the farther edge of

the classroom. I ask Roberto, another student from the Philippines, to help Edgar with his

introduction to the class only to find out that Edgar speaks one of many dialects and Roberto

speaks only Tagalog. Since I have received no personal information on Edgar, I have nothing to

fall upon and fumble a few phrases of welcome, unsure he is getting any of it.

Cristina is a blond, blue eye beauty from Costa Rica entering the ninth grade of the local high

school. Bright, extrovert and well-read, Cristina is eager to participate in class discussions, write

in her journal and offer her views on life in the United States. Unfortunately, all of her

contributions take place in Spanish and require that another student translates it word for word.

Jean is a fourteen year old from Haiti who reluctantly sits at the front of the row, but avoids eye

contact with me and never answers any of my questions. He does not take notes, even when

instructed to so, and only leans over his closed backpack staring at the floor as our activities

move from lecture to hands-on tasks. When I ask him if he understand what is to do next, he

shakes his head and returns his gaze to the floor. Not having another French/Creole student in the

classroom, I am stumped as how to reach this student.

If the school districts were doing a proper job of interviewing the student, with the help of a

interpreter if need be, and the parents to find out exactly what the educational background of the

student was and had then proceeded to test the student in their native language to determine what

their strengths and weaknesses were, the teacher could then place the student according to the

following table, thus assuring that the student would receive the kind of instruction needed for
his or her specific case instead of lumping the student as just another student in need of ESOL

instruction.

Type of Learner Characteristics

Newly Arrived with Adequate Schooling Recent arrival (less than five years in the U.S.)

Adequate schooling in native country

Soon catches up academically

May still score low on standardized tests given

in English

Newly Arrived with Limited Formal Recent arrival (less than five years in the U.S.)

Schooling Interrupted or limited schooling in native

country

Limited native language literacy

Below grade level in math

Poor academic achievement

Long term English Learner Seven or more years in the U.S.

Below grade level in reading and writing

False perception of academic achievement

Adequate grades, but low test scores

ESL or bilingual instruction, but no consistent

 program

Adapted from Olsen and Jaramillo, 1999.

As can be seen in the above referenced chart, minority language students who come from

a middle class background and who have attended school on a regular basis, face less challenge

in transferring the knowledge they have acquired in their native language into English while

those that have had little schooling or had their education interrupted by wars, frequent moving

or family demands face an uphill battle. These students are not equipped to be placed in an

immersion class with ESOL classes as an additional support since they have not acquired the

necessary skills to transfer into the new language. It is here where a bilingual or sheltered content

approach must be employed to help these students bridge the differences between their culture

and the new one.

According to Gollnick and Chinn,

when a minority language student’s language development is interrupted or replaced

because of instruction of a second language in school prior to the development of his her first

language proficiency skills, the following may result: (1) loss of first language (Lambert and

Freed, 1982); (2) a mixing or combining of first and second language, resulting in the child’s

own, unique communication system (Ortiz and Maldonado Colon, 1986); (3) limited proficiency

in both and second languages (Skutnabb-Kangas and Toukomaa, 1976); and (4) an inability to

develop English language proficiency in their school years (Cummins, 1984).

Compounding the problems encountered by the pressure from both parents and teachers for

the student to quickly acquire English is the perceived facility with which most minority

language students can start communicating with their peers. What is lost to the naked eye is the

fact that the language employed by native speakers is embedded in specific social situations for
which plenty of markers (gestures, body language, realia) are available for the language minority

student to elucidate meaning and they take place in a face-to-face context. Cummins (1979)

formalized a distinction between the language used between peers and the one used in

decontextualized academic settings as BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills) and

CALP (Cognitive/Academic Language Proficiency) and warned teachers not to be fooled by

banter engaged in by language minority students in hallways and cafeterias as it did not indicate

students possessed the ability to manipulate language in decontextualized academic situations

(Richard-Amato, 1996).

According to Harkku (), many in the general public in the United States hold a folk belief

that in order for a newly arrived minority language student to learn English, all he needs to do is

be surrounded by native speakers. Researcher who have put that theory to the test have found

that newcomers interact very little with native speakers and when they do, their conversations

revolve around school topics and tend to be very short in length thus preventing the minority

language student from engaging in a negotiation of meaning that can lead to true understanding.

A similar belief has led many a school district to dictate that all teachers who have even a

single minority language student in his or her class must take minimum of 15 college credits on

ESOL methodology convinced that the knowledge accumulated during attendance at these

classes will instantaneously result in the teacher implementing especial strategies for the ESOL

student. In reality, the beleaguered teacher surrounded by over thirty students in a crowded

classroom is more often than not likely to ignore or miss the ESOL especially if he or she tends

to be quiet and respectful, as the majority of them are. During my many instances of participating

in inclusion sessions, I had never observed any of the teachers implement such strategies to reach

ESOL students as exaggerated gesturing, pictures, realia, songs or pantomime, or even the
 classic one, slowing down their speech pattern. In fact, many teachers expressed ire at having

students who spoke not a word of English placed in their classes. As expressed in her article:

“When a student cannot respond to the word “hello”, there is no ESOL strategy that is going to

help him.”

In order to address the many disadvantages that minority language students face when they enter

public schools in the United States might require a more equitable balance of power between the

school administrators and teachers and the parents and their children whereby the student is

treated as an individual who brings something to the negotiating table instead of someone who

needs to erase his or her native language, traditions and past experience to become a true

“American’(Temple & Peyton 1999). In addition, adequate resources need to be allocated so that

bilingual and sheltered instruction approaches can be established in those school districts where

the ESOL population speaks a specific language and can be grouped successfully for that kind of

instruction. These strategies are the only ones that have proven successful in stemming the

dropout rate of ESOL students and insuring their graduation so they can become productive and

well adjusted members of our society

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