Lost in institution: Learning to write in Midwestern urban mainstream classrooms

Journal of Southeast Asian Journal of Southeast Asian

American Education and American Education and

Advancement Advancement

Volume 4 Issue 1 Article 2

2009

Lost in institution: Learning to write in Midwestern urban Lost in institution: Learning to write in Midwestern urban

mainstream classrooms mainstream classrooms

Yanan Fan

San Francisco State University

, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Recommended Citation

Fan, Yanan (2009) "Lost in institution: Learning to write in Midwestern urban mainstream classrooms,"

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

: Vol. 4 : Iss. 1, Article 2.

DOI: 10.7771/2153-8999.1093

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Journal of Southeast Asian American Education & Advancement, Vol. 4(2009)

Lost in Institution: A Vietnamese Immigrant Student

Learning to Write in Midwestern Urban Mainstream Classrooms

Yanan Fan

San Francisco State University

Abstract

How do recent immigrant students learn to write in mainstream content area

classrooms? This article considers this question in the under-investigated

American Midwest contexts where schooling is being reframed by rapid

changing demographics. Data for this paper come from an ethnographic case

study of second language learning of a Vietnamese 9

grader in an urban

school setting. Grounded in a sociocultural view of learning, the author

examines (1) how the student negotiated the nature and purpose of writing

among inconsistent expectations, objectives and responsibilities in

mainstream, and (2) how she was lost in a lack of vision in literacy and the

larger institutional environment which encouraged teachers to reward

formalism over substance. The author concludes with recommendations for

educators in secondary schools to explicitly link pedagogical objectives to

language learners‟ literacy needs and to embedded social values of schooling.

As a fast growing number of English language learners (ELLs) enter into America‟s urban

classrooms, their experiences in schools have provoked heated debates regarding ways to

address the needs of the ethnically and racially diverse student population, especially in

secondary schools (Crawford, 2004; Cummins, 2001; Lucas, 1997; Walqui, 2000). Research

has recognized that, compared with younger ELLs, teenage students may find it easier to

utilize their first language (L1) to learn English as a second language (L2), for example,

while acquiring morphology and syntax (Valdés, 2001). However, the challenge facing ELL

teenage students is how to obtain native-like English-speaking levels and how to master

academic subject areas simultaneously (Duff, 2005) within a tight timeline of four (high

school) to six (middle school and high school) years while they may need as long as five to

nine years to accomplish the task (Collier, 1995). This challenge in learning the English

language is inseparable from other social challenges such as making a transition to young

adulthood, balancing the values treasured in home cultures and in the new cultures (Lucas &

Katz, 1996), and developing a sense of self and others within school (McKay & Wong, 1996;

Harklau, 2000) and with peers (Phelan, Davidson, & Yu, 1998; Gunderson, 2000).

Unfortunately, research on ELLs in mainstream contexts, overall, is much less (Duff, 2005;

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Faltis & Wolfe, 1999) when compared with research focusing on various language programs

for ELLs (Valdés, 2001).

The American postindustrial Midwest is among the regions “traditionally less

populated either by new immigrants or by bilingual native-born Americans” (Duff, 2005, p.

46). Existing studies of ELL literacy took place primarily in the coastal states in the United

States and in immigrant-concentrated metropolises in Canada (Duff, 2001; Faltis & Wolfe,

1999; Harklau, 1994; Moll, 1992; Valdés, 2001) where the researchers have situated their

work in the long cultural history of experiences of close-knit immigrant communities in these

regions. Yet the Midwest has seen its school age ELLs triple since 1993 with a fast increase

of Spanish speakers and Asian and Pacific Island-language speakers (U.S. Census Bureau,

2003). The area where the reported study took place ranks among the top medium-sized

metropolitan areas in the United States for refugee resettlement (Singer & Wilson, 2006). Its

major school district alone houses more than 600 refugee youth representing 62 countries of

origin and speaking 42 different languages (Local School District, 2007). Although

schooling, institutions, and teaching practices are being reframed by its changing

demographics, the Midwest contexts are less familiar and under-investigated. Scholarly work

that examines English language and literacy development among ELL school children in this

region is rare.

The present article aims to extend our collective understanding of literacy education

of ELL adolescents. Drawing on a year-long ethnographic case study of schooling of a

Vietnamese immigrant student in a Midwestern urban high school, I explore the complexities

of learning and teaching in the mainstream classroom, namely, (a) the student‟s negotiation

of writing expectations across subject matter classes, (b) the nature of mainstream teachers‟

instructional strategies and concerns, and (c) the interplay between (a) and (b) in the larger

context of institutional expectation towards educating ELLs.

Theoretical Framework:

Learning as Participating in Contextualized Practices

A sociocultural perspective guides me in the investigation of second language learning and

literacy. I view second language learning as cultural practices participated in by members of

a social group, such as a class or a school. Participation involves not only people using past

experience to anticipate recurring actions—through the interactional situations and events—

but also involves their simultaneous negotiation of their social role vis-à-vis other people,

their understanding of how the world works, and of how language itself works (Dyson, 1997;

Hymes, 1974; Miller & Goodnow, 1995; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rogoff, 1990; Vygotsky,

1978). Therefore, a language learner is an active consumer of resources while participating in

the social practices in the classroom. In addition, the sociocultural view of the situatedness of

second language learning also requires critical lenses to examine the power relations that

exist in the broader institutional and sociopolitical contexts where embedded ideologies,

beliefs, and values are reproduced in local social practices (Auerbach, 1995; Barton,

Hamilton, & Ivanic, 2000; New London Group, 1996; Street, 2000). Examining language

learning entails inquiries into “how institutional and societal pressures are played out in

moment-to-moment classroom interaction, and how to gain a more holistic perspective on

teacher-student interactions to aid teacher training and improve practice” (Watson-Gegeo,

1988, p. 575). Similarly, I view literacy, usually in plural forms (Hornberger, 2000), as a

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particular tool that is taught through and learned within particular kinds of practices in and

out of school. It is also a set of practices that “are inextricably linked to cultural and power

structures in the society” (Wiley, 1996, p. 32).

In North America, researchers have been examining various social, cultural, and

political contexts in English learning among immigrant and ELL students (Haneda, 2008;

Hancock, 2001; Kramsch, 1995; Liang, 2006; Saville-Troike, 1989; Spolsky, 1990). These

contexts range from broad educational movements and policies to particular situations in the

classroom, community, or home (Gándara & Rumberger, 2009; Moll & Whitmore, 1993;

Taylor & Dorsey-Gaines, 1988; Valdés, 2001). Indeed, as the literature shows, all layers of

contexts interact and intertwine with each other. In an ethnographic study of the lives and

experiences of four Mexican middle school students, Valdés (2001) examines both the policy

and the instructional dilemmas in English language education of immigrant children in

California. Setting up her study against the context of California‟s ban of bilingual education

in the 1990s, Valdés analyzed students‟ use of oral and written languages and the nature of

their participation in various programs, classrooms, and communities. She documented how

access to English and to academic content was denied by the same institutional structures that

were designed to help immigrant students, and how students become frustrated and choose to

not learn in such contexts.

Mainstream classroom contexts are particularly addressed by scholars such as Linda

Harklau and Patricia Duff. In her three-and-a-half-year ethnographic case study of second

language learning in high school, Harklau (1994, 1999, 2000) investigated the effects of

tracking on four Chinese ESL students at a large suburban, racially and linguistically diverse

northern California high school. She asserted that tracking left many ELL students in low-

track mainstream programs, which placed the students in less favorable positions in terms of

their learning of both the language and the content. Duff‟s (2001, 2002) qualitative studies of

immigrant students in Canada link their mainstream experience to their family and

community expectations. Despite the students‟ and their families‟ strong will to succeed,

Duff asserts that mainstream classrooms fail to consider the social, cultural, and linguistic

needs of the students.

Through the experiences of real students and teachers in a mainstream classroom in a

Midwestern high school, this article joins the line of research on the ELLs‟ sociocultural

experiences and the social implications of secondary immigrant adolescents learning English

in schools. The article answers the call for more ethnographic case study research on English

language learners from minority ethnolinguistic groups (Genesee, Kindholm-Leary, Saunders

& Christian, 2006), such as Vietnamese, in order to better understand the complexity of

second language literacy. In particular, I aim to investigate how literacy practices of the

student and her teachers figure into schooling and institutional expectations.

Methodology

I met my focal student Thao

while visiting Mrs. Mai, a Vietnamese interpreter and a

community liaison working part time at Linton High in the mid-sized Midwestern post-

industrial city of Maple Creek. The city has a diverse population of 120,000. During recent

decades, Maple Creek has offered refugee resettlement in order to replace the city‟s

continuous population flight due to economic recession and industry decline. Southeast Asian

refugees, the largest Asian group, were among the first groups that came to the area. By

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2005, Maple Creek was home to more than 13,000 refugees from 32 countries. More than 60

percent of students in Thao‟s school are students of color. The school faces challenges as

most urban schools do in terms of students‟ academic performance.

Mrs. Mai recommended that Thao join my project, as Thao needed intensive help

with English and with subject matter. When eleven-year-old Thao arrived in the United

States in 2001, she did not know much English. She came from central Vietnam to reunite

with her parents who had fled to the United States earlier as political refugees. Thao was

comfortable and talkative when we had our first informal interview. She shared her ambition

and dreams as a high school freshman:

I love to be a model, and help my mom cooking at home and taking [care of] my

little sister and my little brother. And when I‟m old I want to go college first and get

a job, and go to Vietnam and visit my family, get my grandma over here in the

United States, live with me, and then, and … get married with someone and have

children and have a happy life, and have an end of happy life. (Thao interview

transcripts)

Examining the case of one student can be beneficial in that it entails knowing the

entire school to some extent. Thao had a history shared with members of her community

(e.g., Vietnamese peers, teachers, and Mrs. Mai) who had their own interpretations of

schooling and learning English. These people varied in age group and in relations with Thao.

For example, in school, Thao went to seven different mainstream English speaking teachers.

She interacted with Mrs. Mai in both Vietnamese and English. With that said, potential

stories of many other people involved in this case helped angle my vision and offered a rich

repertoire of perspectives. Several teachers participated in the project. Four of them taught

Thao 9th grade English, Algebra, Biology, and Science Fiction, respectively. They provided

a spectrum of comments on Thao‟s learning and on various social and political layers in their

classroom practices (e.g. the teachers‟ relationship with the student, their assumptions of how

Thao was learning English, and their ways of teaching under the influence of the district,

etc.).

Data Collection and Analysis

Meeting and knowing Thao and her teachers is part of purposefully drawing together

information about “the configuration of time and space, of people, and of activity in their

physical sites” (Dyson & Genishi, 2005, p.19). In addition to document collection (e.g.,

newspaper clippings, census information, student handbooks and yearbooks, class syllabi), I

used field notes, interviews, and participant observation in my fieldwork. From the beginning

of Fall 2004, I visited Thao at Linton two to three times a week until the end of Spring 2005.

Each visit lasted three to four hours, as I followed her to different classes and stayed the

whole class time. While observing Thao in classrooms, I jotted down notes on the physical

environment, the mood of communications, and the channels the classes used for interaction

(Hymes, 1994). These notes were constructed into fieldnotes that documented routine

activities and general interactional structures that depicted who said what to whom, in what

situation, and for what purposes in recurrent communication events (Hymes, 1994). As I sat

very close to Thao in 9th Grade English and Science Fiction classes, I audio-taped her

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interaction with teachers and classmates by using a lapel microphone attached to the shoulder

strap of my handbag. The audio data supplemented my fieldnotes in that it recorded Thao‟s

speech and the paralinguistic features of volume, stress, pitch, intonation, and even pauses,

also key elements in describing her learning.

I followed Thao through several instructional units in most of her classes—Algebra,

Biology, World Geography, 9th Grade English, and Science Fiction, though I spent more

time with Thao in the last two classes due to the scheduling convenience and focuses of the

courses. My observer role varied from classroom to classroom. I had a more active role as a

participant observer (Erickson, 1986) in the 9th Grade English and Science Fiction classes

because the teachers were more flexible and willing to have me interact and help with Thao‟s

work in one way or another. In other classes, I was just an observer, sitting in a remote spot

away from everyone, due to the seating arrangement and comfort levels of the teachers.

I conducted five informal one-on-one interviews with Thao. Each interview lasted

about an hour. We also spoke briefly after each observation session when Thao explained her

reactions to the activities. In both situations, I usually started with a general question like

“What do you think of today‟s class (or activity, lecture, writing assignment, etc.)?” The

purpose was to give Thao enough space to share what she thought was important. I then

followed with the „why‟ questions and probed for personal information about her learning

experiences and family background (e.g., “Tell me more about your middle school in

Vietnam,” or “Wow, you had a Japanese-speaking neighbor helping you with English? How

did that go?”), her opinions on issues concerning learning English in various situations and

subject matters (e.g., “In which class do you think you can get most help with English and

why?”, “Which subject do you enjoy the most?”, and “Why is [a class] difficult or easy?),

and her explanations of her work, participation, and strategies in learning English (e.g., “How

did you manage to get all these good grades?”, “Do you like group work in this class?”, and

“Why or why not?”). During these conversations, I used simple spoken English to leave Thao

enough time and space to share her stories. I also interviewed Thao‟s teachers, language aide,

and counselor two to three times over the course of the school year. Topics in these

interviews covered the teachers‟ perspectives on, and experience in working with Thao and

ELLs in general. The teachers also commented on policy issues in the School District.

Overall, my questions were open-ended, inviting all my interviewees to describe their

experiences, explain their perspectives, and comment on some particular events that had

occurred during the study.

With the research question in mind, I read the fieldnotes line by line multiple times

and named preliminary coding categories (e.g., Thao‟s appearance, grades, book reports,

reading opportunities, writing opportunities, participation structures, group work). Data was

then arranged chronologically and by the setting (or physical situations of classrooms). Based

on Hymes (1974) and inspired by Dyson & Genishi (2005), I selected events (to be exact,

language events) as my units of analysis. These events are activities organized by way of

using language with diverse kinds of participants, with whom Thao constructs her schooling

experience. In this inductive process, I noticed some events contained typical interactional

patterns and routines for each setting, especially in mainstream classrooms. After I located

these events, I looked across time, settings, and events in order to develop thematic data

analysis categories that later replaced or merged the preliminary coding categories, or made

them sub-categories. For instance, “reading opportunities” and “writing opportunities”

became sub-categories of both “pedagogical practices” and “identity and socialization.”

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Finally, I selected key events for close study. These episodes were either

representative of the routine practices, or theoretically rich in unraveling the dynamics of the

case. They provided a space in which I could use data from multiple sources, including those

that were not directly related to these classroom episodes (e.g., comments from interview

transcripts that informed the events and practices examined). A multitude of data and of

perspectives on the data provided me with contrasting yet complementary views of the nature

of Thao‟s participation in social practices of learning English in school.

The Findings: Lost in Institution

In this section, I use classroom vignettes to describe how Thao negotiated various writing

expectations in mainstream classroom routine activities. I briefly describe perspectives of

Thao's teachers towards working with ELLs in the context of Linton. I argue that while

negotiating different reading and writing expectations in mainstream classrooms, Thao was

lost. Lack of support for Thao‟s participation in the classroom coupled with the institutional

constraints on her teachers‟ practice negatively impacted her learning.

“Write Down What I Say!” Forced Participation in Controlled Dictation

On a day like many others in World Geography, Mr. Irving read to the class about Confucius

from a textbook and then called the students‟ attention to the routine worksheet activity.

“Now, on the sheet, write down what I say. And if you want a grade, better find your pencil!”

He was ready to read out all of the answers.

Thao flipped through the pages—note-taking, explaining concepts, matching, filling

the bulleted blanks with Confucius‟s ways of teaching, and summarizing Confucius‟s main

ideas. Mr. Irving continued to dictate answers and wait for the students to take notes. As he

reminded everyone from time to time, if they worked hard and wrote down everything he

said, they would get good grades. Thao switched to a colored pencil as all her pencils quickly

wore out. She tried to follow the teacher. Given his fast speech, Thao gradually lost words

and sentences and her handwriting grew sketchier and more unrecognizable as the exercise

reached its end. She received an A for her efforts to follow her teacher‟s directions and for

turning in her work on time.

The objective of this worksheet dictation in World Geography was to cover the

required content through mechanical writing without composing. The teacher assumed a role

as the authority of content area, disseminating knowledge without discussion or negotiation

with the students. Expectations towards students as a whole were to follow the teacher‟s

directions and to transcribe the information the teacher dictated. In such a participation

structure (Philips, 1972), in which the teacher dominated most of the interactions, students

were a generic group responding mostly through physically “doing” the steps. Thao and her

peers became passive participants having no opportunity to socialize and interact with one

another or with the teacher over the course of the writing activity.

“Just Write Something…” Fake Participation in Writing for Tokens

In Science Fiction, Mr. Richards coupled free-writes with viewing movie clips. Before

Halloween, he gave a brainstorm assignment. “If you were about to die, what would go

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through your mind? In honor of Halloween, the annual celebration of death, I just want to

know and I want you to write about it, and I have a short movie. I want you to write half a

page. Right now!” Students sat individually in rows and columns in two matrixes facing each

other, leaving an aisle in the middle of the room. Thao was playing with her lip-gloss at her

desk in a corner when she suddenly heard Mr. Richard saying that he would check their

writing. She quickly took out a blank sheet from her folder, “What the question?” she asked

me who was sitting close to her. A few minutes later, Thao showed me her writing.

10/29/04 Thao

I will think that I will never see my family and mine mind is my dad and my mom

and two little brother, little sister, and another mine mind is my family in my country

I will never see them again.

Some of Thao‟s classmates were talking about neighbors who died in Iraq just two

days before. Others were listening or sleeping. Mr. Richards had to raise his voice when

announcing he was going to check the writings when he patrolled around the room. “You

guys didn‟t take your notes, uh? It‟s called „I-don‟t-care-about-my-grades‟, uh?” Before he

reached Thao, no one on Thao‟s side of the room wrote anything. Mr. Richards changed his

tone upon seeing Thao‟s page. “Thank God we have someone pushing you to do the right

thing!” Mr. Richards quickly stamped a little violin on the paper right away without even

reading what Thao wrote. After watching Mr. Richards roaming away to check the rest of the

students, Thao turned to me with a big proud smile. She showed me the stamp, as well as 7

other stamps she had received. “I get A if I have more!” Thao was hopeful.

During a free-write that required more expository writing, Thao‟s challenge in

language and expression became all the more evident. She wrote the following passage to

respond to a given statement from Mr. Richards—“By agreeing or disagreeing with this

statement: E.T. (E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial) is about love, the one power in the universe that

can not be controlled.”

I think is a scare movied because ET is a human come to

Earth down in the city and Elliot a little boy found

ET and be friend with him one day Elliot was lot and

his mom was so worry and call the police and

Elliot was come back home with his eye is all red,

his mom ask him what happen he be quite

it run to his room a next day

ET was is in the water and die

Elliot brother was take the bike and find

ET and take ET to his house and tell his mom

what in the room, his mom was hold the and

walk to the room and she drop her coffe down

and her kids to get out because she scare of that

monster, Elliot was cry and say live me I want ET

if ET die and Elliot is die and the flower growing

up and ET is not die because is a magic ET

Alive in the End that movies, Elliot was so happy

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and they family was let ET go back to Earch.

Instead of stating a position, Thao wrote a sketchy summary to describe what happens

in the movie. Her writing caught many detailed episodes such as the dramatic reaction of the

little boy‟s mother upon seeing the sick E.T. Thao also incorporated dialogues to depict how

anxious the little boy was when E.T. appeared to be dying. However, Thao needed help with

vocabulary, syntax, grammar, and organization. Above all, she needed support to go through

the whole process of reading, understanding the question, and writing the response that was

relevant.

The goal of the two free-write routine activities, as Mr. Richards stated in the

syllabus, was to create opportunities for students to reflect the meaning of life and to enjoy

some personal and imaginative writings. Students were expected to write something without

having to comply with particular genres and styles. There was no scaffolding to support

students‟ writing process. Students, who managed to write, worked alone. As long as they put

some words on paper, they would get a token, an exchange for a better final grade. Mr.

Richards‟ feedback was nothing but a stamp—no other comment or suggestion. For Thao,

the stamps were symbols of good work and teacher recognition. Due to lack of teacher‟s

support and a community of peers working together, Thao developed coping strategies of

never missing any writing assignments and always using summaries to respond to writing

exercises. She took it as a successful strategy because her stamps were accumulating quickly.

Guided Participation? Drafting and Revising

In the English Language Arts class, Thao experienced new ways of participation different

from those in World Geography and Science Fiction. She pointed out many times in our

conversations her disadvantage of not knowing what the teacher was asking and how to say

or respond to many things. Though eager to adopt her “successful” experiences (e.g., to

cooperate by always turning in work on time and always copying teachers‟ notes) in getting

full grades in the other two classes, Thao was helpless and left wondering why it was so

difficult to do so in English.

One typical writing activity in class was practicing the five-paragraph essays, which

was geared towards the approaching exam season, according to Mrs. Turner. One day the

teacher used a sample outline to present how to organize ideas in a five-paragraph essay. She

then asked class to come up with three supporting ideas for their own outlines. Thao turned

to me, a gesture of invitation to join her brainstorming.

Thao: I say I like go the mall.

Me: Um. Why?

Thao: Because I … (bites her thumb) Clothes pretty and fun!

Me: Because it‟s fun?

Thao: Say again?

Me: You said it‟s fun. I guess you can say three fun things about that.

Thao: (immediately follows me) It‟s fun to go to mall. Uh, a lot stuff pretty.

A lot clothes pretty! And I buy clothes.

Me: What else?

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Thao: I like the food. The food is delicious. (she quickly writes it down) The

problem is noisy and sound.

Thao realized that Mary, a classmate sitting nearby, had completed her outline. She

signaled her to pass the worksheet. After browsing Mary‟s outline, Thao was bursting with

excitement. She noticed Mary used many fancy words such as “furthermore” and “however”

in her outline, and she remembered having a list of such words and quickly dug it out from

her folder.

Thao: (to Mary, holds the conjunction sheet titled “Common Transitional Words or

Phrases and Their Uses”) Oh, you can use this? You can use this?

Mary: (responds positively.)

Thao: Oooh! Why not you TELL me?

Mary: (said she thought Thao had known already)

Thao: No, I did not! (turns to me) We can do this! I‟ll COPY this! Thao almost

shouted.

Mary: (reminds Thao that she should think about the words, and then add the idea.

She points to her writing to show how she did that briefly.)

Thao: OK.

Thao read the sample sentences on the conjunction words sheet and was looking for

things she could use. She wanted to copy some sentences to her outline as well. She gave me

one example:

Thao: I like go the mall. Somewhat later, I go into the mall. Then, second one is...

Me: What do you mean?

Thao: Look! SHE had it in here! (points to Mary‟s outline)

On the final outline Thao submitted the next day, however, she did not include ideas

she brainstormed previously, such as shopping for clothes and enjoying snacks at the food

court. Instead, she chose to put the phrase “long drive” as her first supporting idea and

“limited parking” the second. Both ideas were offered in teacher‟s sample. Thao did not seem

to understand the connection between the sample outline, the conjunction word list, and her

own assignment. “I don‟t know what I should write,” she said, but she assured me that the

teacher‟s sample had to be the model to follow, literally word for word, though the English

teacher was not as generous as the other two teachers.

Grappling With Good Intentions: Words from the Teachers

While Thao was struggling to get better grades, her teachers admitted that teaching ELLs was

a very challenging task they had to handle, though their practices came from good intentions.

Many teachers juggled between high expectation for ELLs and sympathy towards them. Mrs.

Turner, for example, realized Thao‟s difficulty in writing, but she decided to give Thao a

failing grade to alert her to work harder on vocabulary, syntax, and genre.

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What we‟re trying to do is we grade them in the quality of their work, … so they

don‟t just turn their drafts in, you know, [they need to] do it more intensely. (Mrs.

Turner interview transcripts)

The Science Fiction teacher, Mr. Richards, struggled with appropriate assessment for

ELLs. He was sympathetic towards ELLs due to his experience of having linguistic and

cultural shock when traveling outside the United States. Mr. Richards, therefore, believed in

creating a friendly environment that keeps students like Thao away from the demanding

schoolwork. He did not hesitate to reward Thao‟s involvement, yet his stamps did not address

Thao‟s specific need in language and literacy.

For Mr. Pierre, Thao‟s counselor, Thao represented one card among hundreds of

freshmen reports. As an English learner himself, he was hopeful for Thao and was in favor of

mainstreaming ELLs as a means for students to acquire academic English in a timely

manner:

The kids are pretty young, uh, between 14 and 17 years old. So most of the kids

have the ability to learn English as their second language pretty quick. And after two

or three months, they started being immersed into the culture and then get some

English speaking ability. You know, so therefore, these kids can move off to a good

situation in regular class. (Mr. Pierre interview transcripts)

He was satisfied with Thao‟s overall performance in her first year because Thao‟s

GPA was well above a passing grade of 1.0. “Vietnamese students are always on the top,”

the counselor assured me, when he compared Thao with her Latino and African American

peers.

Mrs. Evans, Thao‟s Biology teacher, revealed a common sense of helplessness among

mainstream teachers, pointing out they lacked institutional and professional support to better

serve ELLs:

Since we get so many students with ESL ... we need those people [language aides]

desperately. I can‟t tell you how many times I have to run down to another Hispanic

teacher. Or sometimes I need help with the students. “We‟re not communicating!

Can you help me out?” (Mrs. Evans interview transcripts)

Still, teachers viewed their teaching as acts of goodwill. Given a lack of institutional

support and thorough understanding of Thao‟s challenges, it became a paradox that teachers

tried to help the EL students by letting them sink or swim.

Discussion

Thao‟s negotiation of writing expectations in the three mainstream classrooms illustrated

how the nature of the instructional and institutional contexts shaped her participation in

classroom activities and her understanding of doing well in school. On one hand, Thao did

not have the same sense as her teachers regarding the goals and problems of various

classroom activities. She received high grades for merely following teacher‟s direction in

Social Studies and Science Fiction, rather than for the quality and content of her work. For

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Thao, the purpose of writing seemed to produce what the teacher wanted and, unfortunately,

this was reinforced by the good grades she received. She then developed her “successful”

toolkit to get good grades (e.g., by imitating/copying writing prompts and samples), hoping

to win the same recognition in other classes. With little help from teachers and peers in class,

Thao depended on her sensibility from more successful classes, classes that awarded her

good grades. On the other hand, her teachers and school personnel offered more sympathy

than specific scaffolding, more meaningless tokens than rigorous academic support. The

give-away grades left Thao with a false sense of achievement. The interplay of teachers‟

kindness and Thao‟s negotiation of rewards and expectations indicated depicted the danger of

good intentions in teaching linguistically and culturally diverse students. With globalization

and fast demographic changes nowadays, it is unfortunate that teachers and educators

continue to witness this generic, enduring problem of formalism in teaching practice

(Labaree, 2007). In Thao‟s case, she was lost in the classroom and institutional environment

that encouraged teachers to reward formalism over substance, that is, to carry out teacher

assigned tasks rather than learning the essence of writing and content. How we conceptualize

literacy among immigrant students, good intentions, and the larger institutional contexts will

not only help us to understand why Thao (indeed, along with her teachers) was helpless in

the downward cycle of merely coping with school, but also to investigate dimensions of

formalism in educating ELLs.

First, a lack of consensus and pedagogical attention on ELL‟s literacy development

and on the nature of participation across all levels of Thao‟s mainstream classrooms may

have limited teachers‟ instructional options in creating a welcoming, sensitive classroom

community that encouraged learning. Traditional instruction still prevailed in Thao‟s

classrooms where teachers transmitted information to students. Class time was divided by

teacher-led lectures, teacher-controlled discussions, and in-class assignments, which either

was continuously controlled by the teacher, as in the dictation exercise in Thao‟s Social

Studies class, or was totally left open for students without careful scaffolding to support their

finishing the assigned task, as evidenced in Thao‟s Science Fiction and English classes.

Although this kind of instructional environment is deemed safe and easy for teachers to

control, cultural, social, and pedagogical variation in the areas of literacy opportunities was

not available to students. Thao would be particularly benefited from opportunities of using

English to communicate in class when learning both the subject matters and the “socially and

culturally appropriate ways” of using English (Valdés, 1998). As Thao tried to explore

different texts, namely informational summary on the fill-in-the-blanks worksheet,

spontaneous free-write on teacher designated topics, and structured expository writing as in

the five-paragraph essay, she may have needed to tend to many areas of the English language

and literacy skills all simultaneously (Valdés, 2001). For example, the specific text

structures, functions of these texts, and the social meaning of learning these texts all require a

more multi-dimensional, contextualized development of communicative repertoires (Dyson,

2000; Hornberger, 2000) across reading, writing, listening, and speaking (Duff, 2001).

In addition, second language literacy development refers to the process and product

of a natural combination of situating oneself and using English to function in real language

contexts in participating in the larger process of social practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). As

“the construct of participation locates learning activities at the intersection of social

interaction and academic accomplishment” (Berry, 2006, p. 494), Thao measured her

relationship to the physical and social world and the functions of English in classrooms using

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her writing as symbolic tools. Sadly, she was not offered multiple and varied ways for active

involvement with others as a legitimate participant. In other words, Thao had inadequate

access to the kinds of social activities and interactions that rendered her understanding of

what writing was and why learning to write is important. Under such circumstances, English

language learners may tend to rely on “survival strategies”—memorization, blackboard

notes, and available samples as when asked to complete original written work (Harklau,

1999, p. 47). Across Thao‟s mainstream classrooms, different expectations for participation

and literate behaviors and different levels of academic expectations sent her mixed message

as to what kind of participation was validated, thus confusing her between doing schoolwork

and learning schoolwork. As a result and similar to students in Harklau‟s study (1999), Thao

turned most of her writing assignments into verbatim copying of samples provided by the

teachers. Surprisingly good grades and lack of constructive feedback on language and quality

of work reinforced writing as a formalized exercise.

Secondly, teachers‟ good intentions created problematic consequences for Thao‟s

learning. Their sympathy and generous grades inevitably validated Thao‟s illusory success

rather than the knowledge and skill she actually required (Labaree, 2000). Thao was given

temporary delusions of academic progress, but then was thrown back into frustration about

the cruelty of learning in the English Language Arts class. Rubinstein-Avila (2003) contends

that teachers‟ empathy and understanding are fundamental to teaching immigrant students,

but such sensitivity does not mean lowering expectations or just feeling sorry for the

students. However, for many of Thao‟s teachers, formalism became an appealing and safe

solution they used to ease their anxieties about managing to take care of ELLs and to cover

content in regular classrooms. Meanwhile, teachers wished that good grades and credits for

attendance would give Thao some confidence and the sense of success she needed to survive

high school. When teachers do not have the tools to help ELL students, they fall easily to the

norms of the country‟s educational system stressing “attendance over performance” and

encouraging students to “pursue the tokens of academic success rather than to demonstrate

mastery of academic content” (Labaree, 2007, p. 119). However, as shown in Thao‟s case,

teachers‟ good intentions did not meet the academic, social, and linguistic needs of the

student, and further misled the student to collect tokens and serve seat times. Valdés (1998)

problematizes good intentions and encourages further investigations into the larger

institutional assumptions of educating ELLs.

Individuals of good will are not aware that they have become instruments of

dominant interests. They are seldom conscious of the fact that power is exercised both

through coercion and through consent and that, in many cases, people “consent” to

preserving the status quo and to maintaining existing power relationships simply by

accepting established practices without question. (Valdés, 1998, p. 15)

Last but not least, the act of any individual teacher is situated in the larger

institutional settings that define the possibilities and constraints she or he provides. In Thao‟s

school, an implicit type of tracking was disguised under the formalistic structure of

mainstreaming ELLs. In her ethnographic study of four Spanish-speaking middle school

students, Valdés (2001) argues against the isolation of immigrant students from native

speakers of English and environments that offer interpersonal and academic language. Unlike

these students, Thao appeared to have adequate access to authentic language and academic

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contexts; nonetheless, the situation was far from what Thao‟s counselor hoped would

guarantee Thao a nurturing learning environment. She was thrown into an implicit tracking

that offered her the maximum number of low-track electives (e.g., Science Fiction, Choir,

Physical Education) with those unavoidable required courses. The Science Fiction teacher

was straightforward when introducing his course in the interview—that it was designed for

ELLs and special education students “out of apprehension that their language proficiency

was not sufficient to compete in high-track courses (Harklau, 1999, p. 52) in mainstream

classrooms. This ability grouping within mainstream classes in Thao‟s high school reflected

a deficit view of students with different linguistic backgrounds and was unfortunately

“formalize[d] and institutionalize[d]” (Harklau, 1999, p. 51). For students like Thao, such

tracking tends to produce an “illusion of inclusion” (Valenzuela, 1999, p. 162).

Conclusion

Immigrant students‟ negotiation of academic English, participation, and literacy expectations

is contingent upon the opportunities brought about by varied instructional and institutional

contexts as well as the language ideologies behind them. As evident in this case study,

unclear vision of second language literacy development, lack of pedagogical attention to their

needs across mainstream classrooms, and inflated grades tended to confuse the student and

push her to focus on grades instead of learning. Implicit tracking through electives and lack

of professional support to classroom teachers further formalizes such institutional practice,

leaving the student little chance to participate in learning.

It is crucial that educators reach an agreement that every teacher is a language teacher

and that teaching any subject area involves knowledge of how languages develop, under what

conditions they develop, and how to create such conditions for student participation and use

of languages in school. This understanding should inevitably be incorporated into everyday

teaching. The key is how to clarify pedagogical objectives and social values across different

learning situations in schools (Leung, 2001). Classroom activities should create opportunities

to interact in various participation structures (Philips, 1972) in order to encourage students to

actively draw on their cultural and personal experiences and to link their language with

context (Johnson, 1994). Teachers can encourage ELL students to use their second language

with English native speakers through setting up compatible pairs (e.g., a native speaker and

an ELL student; or two students of different proficiency levels).

Educating ELL students does not mean lowering the standards; rather it requires

concerted efforts to improve pedagogy that actively responds to students‟ second language

development. Sympathy and easy grades do not help students learn the vocabulary and

discourse that matches the disciplinary subjects. Teachers should learn to distinguish

developmental features in students‟ English and set up clear language teaching objectives,

along with the content objectives for each lesson. Further, these objectives should also be

revealed explicitly to students so that they understand what is expected of them and how they

can actively participate in classroom activities (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 2007).

Finally, teachers cannot make up and carry out this plan alone. Their pedagogy,

teaching materials, assessment tools, and the whole process of conducting teaching should be

informed by research and continuous professional development. They should also have

opportunities to critically examine the political and social implications of their everyday

practice and the role they play in reinforcing or challenging institutional assumptions of

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teaching, learning, and educating students from various sociocultural backgrounds. They

need to realize that change can and should start in their classroom.

Endnotes

All names in this manuscript are pseudonyms

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About the Author

Yanan Fan is Assistant Professor in the Department of Secondary Education at San Francisco

State University. Her teaching and research interests focus on second language and literacy

development among immigrant adolescents. She is a former English teacher in China and

completed her Ph.D. in Curriculum, Teaching, and Educational Policy from Michigan State

University in 2006.

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