Researching the impact of english on min

Intergenerational Trajectoriesand Sociopolitical Context: Latina Immigrants in Adult ESL JULIA MENARD-WARWICK University of California Davis, California, United States In this ethnograph

CONTENTSFounded 1966

ARTICLES

Intergenerational Trajectories and Sociopolitical Context:

Latina Immigrants in Adult ESL 165

Host Teachers’ Evaluations of Nonnative-English-Speaking Teacher Trainees—

A Perspective from the Classroom 235

Ekaterina Nemtchinova

Portfolios, Power, and Ethics 263

Brian Lynch and Peter Shaw

FORUM

Researching the Impact of English on Minority and

Indigenous Languages in Non-Western Contexts 299

Gulbahar H Beckett and Seonaigh MacPherson

The Author Responds 307

David Nunan

BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES

Vietnamese Acquisition of English Word Stress 309

Thu T A Nguyen and John Ingram

RESEARCH ISSUES

Computers and Qualitative Data Analysis:

Paper, Pens, and Highlighters vs Screen, Mouse, and Keyboard 321

Jérémie Séror

VOLUMES MENU

Volume 39, Number 2 䊐 June 2005

REVIEW ARTICLES

English and the African Diaspora 329

English in Africa After the Cold War

Alamin M Mazrui

Black Linguistics: Language, Society, and Politics in Africa and the Americas

Sinfree Makoni, Geneva Smitherman, Arnetha F Ball, Arthur K Spears (Eds.) Reviewed by Shelley Jones

Computer Learner Corpora and Their Pedagogical Application 333

Second Language Writers’ Text

Eli Hinkel

Teaching Academic ESL Writing: Practical Techniques in

Vocabulary and Grammar

Reviewed by Jane Hansen

English Language Learning and Technology 342

Carol A Chapelle

Reviewed by Minoru Kataoka

Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices 344

H Douglas Brown

Reviewed by Shelley B Fairbairn

Essential Linguistics: What You Need to Know to Teach Reading,

ESL, Spelling, Phonics, and Grammar 346

David E Freeman and Yvonne S Freeman

Reviewed by Kathleen M Broussard

Global Issues 348

Ricardo Sampedro and Susan Hillyard

Reviewed by Bojana Petric;

Extensive Reading Activities for Teaching Language 351

Julian Bamford and Richard R Day (Eds.)

Reviewed by Fredricka L Stoller

Information for Contributors 355

QUARTERLY Volume 39, Number 2 䊐 June 2005

A Journal for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages

and of Standard English as a Second Dialect Editor

A SURESH CANAGARAJAH, Baruch College, City University of New York

Brief Reports and Summaries Editors

CATHERINE ELDER, Monash University

PAULA GOLOMBEK, Pennsylvania State University

Research Issues Editor

PATRICIA A DUFF, University of British Columbia

Reviews Editor

ADRIAN HOLLIDAY, Canterbury Christ Church University College

Assistant Editor

CRAIG A TRIPLETT, TESOL Central Office

Assistant to the Editor

SARAH M NAKAMARU, New York University

Editorial Advisory Board

Sarah Benesch,

College of Staten Island,

City University of New York

Grace Bunyi,

Kenyatta University

Maria Angeles Clemente,

Universidad Autonóma “Benito Juárez”

Stephanie Vandrick; Yaoying Xu

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Copies of articles that appear in the TESOL Quarterly are available through ISI Document Solution, 3501 Market Street,

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of New York

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University of New Hampshire

is an international professional organization for those concerned with the teaching of English as a second or foreign language and of standard English as a second dialect TESOL’s mission is to ensure excellence in English language teaching to speakers of other languages TESOL encourages professionalism in language education; individual language rights; accessible, high quality education; collaboration in a global community; and interac- tion of research and reflective practice for educational improvement.

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OFFICERS AND BOARD OF DIRECTORS 2005–2006

Brisbane, Queensland Australia

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EFL Consultant Mexico City, Mexico

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Lía D Kamhi-Stein

Founded 1966

In This Issue

learning is not determined solely by conditions within the classroom

Articles in TQ during the late 80s and early 90s encouraged TESOL

professionals to consider how wider social conditions—policy discourses,material resources, and sociopolitical factors—shape language learning Thechallenge now is to understand how the macro and the micro, the globaland the local, and the structural and the personal interact, coalesce, andeven transform each other The authors in this issue take up that challenge

In the lead article, Julia Menard-Warwick addresses the dichotomy sheperceives in ESL family literacy policies Such policies presume that thesocial background of minority communities is deficient, yet they promoteinstructional approaches that are narrowly formalistic To reconcile theseconcerns, Menard-Warwick first complexifies social context Rather thanorienting to context in a purely spatial and static manner, she introduces the

temporal notion of trajectories Through this construct, teachers may orient

themselves to the students’ changing life opportunities and responses Shefurther personalizes context by focusing on the intergenerational influences

on her subjects Showing how Hispanic families value literacy and provideproductive cognitive schemas to successive generations, she corrects thestereotype that minority women are educationally handicapped She alsomodifies the notion that language acquisition happens “in the head” (p.181) by showing that factors outside the head not only provide cognitivescripts crucial for success but may sometimes constrain acquisition Narrat-ing the agency of two Latinas who make inspiring efforts to succeed inliteracy, she shows that why one succeeds and the other does not isattributable to the changing economic and political conditions aroundthem Menard-Warwick points out that teachers cannot account for theirstudents’ varying pedagogical outcomes unless they are attuned to changesoutside the classroom Teachers have to address such extrapedagogicalconcerns in classroom instruction, and even intervene personally at times, tohelp students understand and negotiate these challenges for educationalsuccess

Meg Gebhard also demonstrates how well-intentioned educational cies cannot attain their objectives without creative teachers and enabling

poli-classroom conditions Senate Bill 1274, California’s statewide school reforminitiative, itself a meshing of discourses from diverse social forces, succeedsbecause imaginative teachers devise a collaborative, project-based, multi-ageclassroom that enables third-grade Hmong students to adopt hybrid identi-ties and acquire useful literacies Ironically, Gebhard’s close analysis ofinteractions and texts also critiques policies for failing to provide thenecessary resources for their implementation She finds that the adult rolesimposed on some students, who are called upon to perform teachingfunctions, forms a new kind of inequality that stifles their own furtherdevelopment It is even more disappointing that the delicate balance ofsocial and instructional conditions that leads to this successful pedagogicalsynergy was damaged when anti-immigration, monolingual, and standards-driven discourses became dominant at the end of the 90s Certainly, macro-level conditions are not to be trifled with.

In the third article, David Palfreyman explores how culture (in its macroand micro dimensions) is implicated in the pedagogical relationships ofexpatriate professionals and local teachers and students in Turkey Toconduct the study with sufficient sensitivity to the classroom-external and

-internal factors, he has to redefine culture Although popular usage treats

culture in broad and monolithic ways, teachers define it in fragmentary and

localized terms (as in some orientations to classroom culture) Palfreyman adopts the postmodern notion of discourse to negotiate the macro and micro,

and bring out the ironies in the assumptions expatriates and locals make

about each other These Othering discourses do not remain at the personal

level Palfreyman shows that they have significant effects on pedagogicaldecisions and practices He calls for better interpersonal negotiation andreflexive inquiry to help TESOL professionals learn from the other parties

in the educational setting, develop a critical self- and Other-awareness, andconstruct more complex pedagogies

The advantage of such interpersonal negotiations is seen in challengingone of the most pervasive Othering discourses in the profession—that is, thedenigration of nonnative teachers Ekaterina Nemtchinova demonstratesthe power of the local context to revise unfair stereotypes and reconfigureunequal relationships between native-English-speaking host teachers andmultilingual teacher trainees With the benefit of close classroom interac-tion over a period of time, host teachers overwhelmingly perceive teachertrainees in positive ways Although the macro-level ideological factors thatsustain this Othering discourse and the personal narratives of multilingualteachers affected by it are well published, the field needs more studies thattake this discussion to the local classroom contexts where monolingual andmultilingual professionals and English language learners negotiate identitydifferences

Even assessment—an area traditionally dominated by psychometric proaches—is more meaningful when it can be negotiated by differentstakeholders Brian Lynch and Peter Shaw invoke Foucauldian discourse topresent a framework that integrates a consideration of the role of powerrelations in determining the ethics and validity of assessment inferences.Assessment is often among the most hurtful ways that society, educational

ap-institutions, and instructors exercise power on subjects Lynch and Shawshow that faculty and students can negotiate power relations collectively,among themselves and between each other, to develop a richer professionaland personal awareness in a master’s program in TESOL and TEFL Theprogram’s portfolio seminar allows students to raise issues, possibilities, andquestions, exemplifying the potential for assessment to accommodate mul-tiple participant perspectives and reciprocal power relations The empower-ment of participants to carry out the changes made possible by theassessment procedure is seen in the way the various parties change the waythey relate to each other and to themselves both during and after theassessment process.

Lynch and Shaw, Nemtchinova, and Palfreyman employ traditionalinterview and survey methods imaginatively to explore the complex interac-tions of the micro and the macro However, Menard-Warwick and Gebhardargue for newer methodologies They especially make a case for everydayexperience as knowledge (in the form of narratives, dialogic inquiry, andreflective practice) The narratives of teachers and students can generatefresh insights into literacy and language acquisition Even typically macro-social modes of inquiry such as language planning must now accommodate

an orientation to the local and personal to produce valid findings In theForum section, Gulbahar Beckett and Seonaigh MacPherson provide addi-tional data of this nature to complement David Nunan’s research on theeffects of English in the Asia-Pacific region The authors argue that research-ers must go beyond surveying expatriate consultants and top-tier administra-tors if they want to understand the reception of English by diverse localcommunities It is fair to say that accommodating a perspective on the localand personal has now become imperative even for traditionally impersonalquantitative and controlled research approaches

Editor’s Note

which debuted with the March issue Because the cover features only onehemisphere, readers have asked if it signals a reduced international scopefor the journal The design for covers for all TESOL publications is thepurview of the publications department at the TESOL central office The

department has assured me that the new TQ design was chosen purely for

aesthetic reasons In fact, this is a version of the one used for the journaluntil 1982 However, we will reconsider the cover at the end of this volume,after we receive more feedback from readers

As for the quarterly’s international scope, readers should note the othereditorial initiatives that enhance this mission: We have changed the enu-meration of the issues from seasons as they occur in the Northern hemi-sphere (Spring in March, Summer in June, etc.) to months (March, June,

September, December); the new editorial advisory board formed during thisyear’s convention includes more diverse nationalities (as you will see in thisissue’s masthead); and the new board has approved a mentoring system forsubmissions from nontraditional contexts The editor will refer promisingsubmissions from the first round of review to members of the editorial boardwho have volunteered their time for mentoring, which in no way constitutes

a promise, implied or otherwise, of future publication At the end of thementoring process, the article will go through a fresh round of blind review

To provide a forum for practitioner concerns and to encourage criticaldiscussion on the articles published in the quarterly, we have also reinvigo-rated the web forum You can visit this site at http://communities.tesol.org

publication guidelines and policy information and a list of books received

from publishers for review Adrian Holliday, TQ’s book reviews editor,

especially welcomes review articles on thematically related books

TQ says good bye to Cathie Elder, who has decided to step down from her

position as co-editor of the Brief Reports and Summaries section On behalf

of the association and the editorial advisory board, I thank her for hercontributions to the journal In her place, I welcome John Flowerdew, nostranger to the editorial board, and I welcome Sarah Nakamaru as assistant

to the editor at the quarterly’s New York City office

Suresh Canagarajah

Timothy J Riney, Naoyuki Takagi, & Kumiko Inutsuka,

Phonetic Parameters and Perceptual Judgments of Accent in English

by American and Japanese Listeners

Nicos Sifakis & Areti-Maria Sougari, Pronunciation Issues and EIL Pedagogy

in the Periphery: A Survey of Greek State School Teachers’ Beliefs

IDENTITY

Elizabeth Gatbonton & Michael Magid, Learners’ Ethnic Group Affiliation

and L2 Pronunciation Accuracy: A Sociolinguistic Investigation

Paula Golombek & Stefanie Rhen Jordan, Becoming “Black Lambs”

not “Parrots”: A Poststructuralist Concept of Intelligibility and Identity

THE LINGUA FRANCA CORE

Jennifer Jenkins, Implementing an International Approach to English

Pronunciation: The Role of Teacher Attitudes and Identity

Rebecca M Dauer, The Lingua Franca Core:

A New Model for Pronunciation Instruction?

Robin Walker, Using Student-Produced Recordings With Monolingual Groups

Intergenerational Trajectories

and Sociopolitical Context:

Latina Immigrants in Adult ESL

JULIA MENARD-WARWICK

University of California

Davis, California, United States

In this ethnographic study, I contrast the educational experiences oftwo Central American immigrant women in an English as a secondlanguage (ESL) family literacy program in the San Francisco Bay area in

2002 Based on life-history interviews and classroom observations, Iargue that these learners’ second language and literacy developmentcan only be understood within the larger sociopolitical context overtime To this end, I draw on participants’ life-history narratives to situatetheir experiences of studying English within the larger social history ofimmigration in California and within the intergenerational trajectories

of education in their families Specifically, these narratives illustrateparticipants’ perspectives on how their language learning opportunitieshave been mediated by such factors as their parents’ messages abouteducation, their previous experiences of schooling, U.S immigrationpolicies, the 2001 economic downturn, and the availability of bilingualeducation for their children I conclude by arguing that to meet thediverse needs and goals of learners in their classrooms, ESL educatorsneed to incorporate into the curriculum the specific sociocontextualissues that these learners confront in their daily lives

Nathaly and told her teacher that she was feeling nervous It turned outthat Brenda had decided to start driving without a license because as anundocumented immigrant she was ineligible to apply for one When herteacher commented that if she were Brenda’s mother, she would tell hernot to, Brenda replied that she had already talked on the phone with hermother in Nicaragua, who had advised her to go ahead

ESL family literacy classes, focused on the educational needs of

1 Names of persons and places are pseudonyms.

immigrant parents, have been promoted as one solution to educationalproblems in urban communities (e.g., National Center for Family Lit-

eracy, 2003) They have also been critiqued for operating from a deficit

model, attempting to shift the blame for school failure to overworked

parents (Auerbach, 1995; Valdés, 1996) The vignette just described, takenfrom ethnographic field notes, suggests another way to look at this type ofeducational program: as a resource that immigrants may or may not beable to use, depending on a wide variety of social, political, and economiccircumstances To facilitate language learning in immigrant communities,ESL educators need to understand how learners contend with theconstraints and resources (Wenger, 1998) that mediate their opportuni-ties to acquire the target language In this case, Brenda’s access to Englishclasses depended on balancing her husband’s work schedule, her daughter’sneed for child care, and her mother’s opinions against immigration andmotor vehicle laws Though it was painful for Brenda to drive without alicense, her desire to learn English overrode other considerations.Although she and her daughter could have walked to class on this day

in August, Brenda’s English development was rapidly outpacing theclasses available in her neighborhood When her daughter started firstgrade in the fall, Brenda transferred to more advanced classes at an adultschool in another part of the city, an option facilitated by her drivingwithout a license Her decision to enroll in the higher class was fuelled by

an intergenerational passion for education that she told me in interviewscame from her own mother: “My mom always told me that I should

study (que estudiara), that even if I don’t like it, I should study because in

I began research at the Community English Center (CEC) in spring

2002 with the idea that specific instances of language learning are bestunderstood by exploring the social context that this learning shapes andreflects Defined by Watson-Gegeo (1992), “context refers to the wholeset of relationships in which a phenomenon is situated [including]the long-term history of relationships in the immediate setting and therelevant larger historical and institutional processes” (p 53) In thisdefinition, the temporal dimension is key: relationships and processesunfolding in history To elucidate them, I examined the educationalhistories, life circumstances, and language learning experiences of eightstudents who studied at the CEC in 2002 In this article, I focus on twoparticipants, Central American women with contrasting educationalexperiences

By examining these contrasting experiences, I seek to answer thefollowing questions: What are these learners’ perspectives on the

2 In the interests of space, I present interview data, originally audiotaped in Spanish, in my own English translation while highlighting key Spanish phrases.

intergenerational trajectories of learning in their families, the ways thattheir relationships with parents and children have affected their ownlearning? How have family perspectives on education interacted with thelarger sociopolitical context to shape second language learning opportu-nities for these participants and their children?

FAMILY LITERACY, GENDER, AND

TRAJECTORIES OF LEARNING

In a 2003 press release, the Web site for the National Center for FamilyLiteracy (NCFL) described a new initiative to reach out to “Hispanicfamilies,” whom it described as often “speak[ing] little to no English,possess[ing] low literacy skills in their native language due to limitededucation, and frequently struggl[ing] to assist their children’s English

language development” (NCFL, 2003) The word struggle here conveys a

mixed message of strong effort coupled with great difficulty and can beread in either or both senses, thus supporting either a strengths or adeficit view of family literacy (Auerbach, 1995)

Indeed, ESL family literacy programs operate from a wide variety ofperspectives Although such programs have been sold to the public and

to policy makers as a way to break “the cycle of illiteracy” (NCFL, 1989,cited in NCFL, 2004), many educators have strongly contested thismetaphor (Auerbach, 1989, 1995) Nevertheless, a wide variety ofprograms share the assumption that immigrant children’s literacy devel-opment can be enhanced by offering their parents second languageliteracy instruction Because family literacy programs strive to facilitatethe participation of parents, by providing child care, for example, theyhave become a significant site for women especially to engage inlanguage study However, little research exists on the experiences orperspectives of immigrant women who enroll in such programs Curricu-lum and program development is often based on assumptions aboutpotential students such as those implicit in NCFLs’ description ofHispanic families on its Web site (see www.famlit.org/) Much of thepublished literature on family literacy is pedagogical, advocating ordescribing particular approaches to instruction (e.g., Auerbach, 1989).Actual research on such programs has tended to focus on their effective-ness in promoting school success for immigrant children (e.g., Paratore,Melzi, & Krol-Sinclair, 1999)

However, if ESL family literacy programs want to facilitate the secondlanguage development of immigrant parents, they need to pay attention

to the complexities of language learning in immigrant communities,highlighted by Brenda’s story Because ethnographic methods are de-signed to capture the complexities of particular settings (Bogdan &

Biklen, 1993; Erickson, 1986; Watson-Gegeo, 1988), the ethnographicliterature on immigrant women as language learners is worth examining.These studies have challenged the view held by many second languageacquisition (SLA) scholars that the goal of the field is to understand “achanging mental representation of the L2 or interlanguage grammar”with “social and affective factors relatively minor in their impact” onthis process (Long, 1997, p 319) Rather, they support the contentionthat there “is no context-free language learning, and all communicativecontexts involve social, cultural, and political dimensions affecting whichlinguistic forms are available or taught” (Watson-Gegeo & Nielsen, 2003,

p 157)

In her classic diary study of immigrant women in Canada, Peirce

(1995) introduced the concept of investment, in contrast to the more traditional construct of motivation, to “signal the socially and historically

constructed relationship of the women to the target language” (p 17).For Peirce, learners invest in a second language to “acquire a wider range

of symbolic and material resources [and] in turn increase the value

portrayed themselves committing resources to the English language toaccomplish their goals despite anti-immigrant prejudice and economicexploitation One participant, Martina, the mother of teenagers, hadcome to Canada in search of “a better life for [her] children” (p 21).Uncomfortable using English but committed to her children’s future,Martina’s investments led her to “claim the right to speak” English (p.25) when family finances were at stake In this way, the concept ofinvestment emphasizes learner agency in the face of larger socialstructures However, because Peirce touches only briefly on learners’histories prior to her study, the sources of their investments generallyremain unclear

Other studies of immigrant women and families have emphasized thesociopolitical constraints that work against language and literacy devel-opment Studying Portuguese immigrants at a Toronto factory, Goldstein(1997) found that few women had opportunities to acquire English.Although men often worked in technical positions where they hadextensive contact with English speakers, the women were far more likely

to work on the production lines, where Portuguese was used to maintainfriendships and to ask for help at work Likewise, in Rockhill’s 1993exploration of second language literacy among Latina immigrants in LosAngeles, many women wanted to study English and advance economi-cally but were unable to do so because of family pressures, such asdomestic violence Conversely, Valdés’s 1996 portrait of Mexican immi-

3Cultural capital is the knowledge and skills that individuals use to position themselves in

society (Bourdieu, 1991).

grant families in New Mexico emphasizes the women’s efforts to pass ontraditional values to their children in a hostile environment Althoughthese families valued education, language learning and school achieve-ment took second place to economic and cultural survival.

The studies just mentioned demonstrate that language learning can

be strongly affected by such social factors as the gendered practices ofimmigrant communities and the economic opportunities available tonewcomers at a particular moment in history Valdés’s study in particularelucidates the relationship between the language and literacy develop-ment of parents and that of their children Of these authors, onlyGoldstein explores in detail the temporal dimension of social context:Her chapter on the history of the Portuguese community in Torontohelps to clarify the origins of the work and language practices sheexplores in her study In all of these studies, however, the authors’emphasis on the social forces that constrain immigrants contrasts withPeirce’s focus on individual human agency Recognizing this, Goldstein(1997) points out that to understand how such agency “interacts withpeople’s social roles, relationships, and goals,” it is necessary to examinethe stories of individuals (p 177) Such an approach, in contrast to atraditional ethnographic focus on stable communities, also allows re-searchers to make sense of the movement of human beings acrossmultiple social contexts, as occurs commonly in immigration

Perhaps the best example of this approach is Schecter and Bayley’s(2002) study of language maintenance practices among Mexicano fami-

lies in California and Texas These authors found the word trajectory,

emphasizing both change and continuity over time, to be a useful way to

conceptualize their findings Trajectory describes a path of development,

often through a variety of social contexts, in which each step (or learningevent) builds on the previous ones, though sometimes in unpredictableways In a case study, Schecter and Bayley discuss the bilingual trajectory

of Nilda, a young mother who used only Spanish in the home during theearly years of her marriage When her efforts to educate herself becamethreatening to her husband, she left him She began speaking to her son

in English because she associated Spanish with traditional family courses that she had rejected Later, concerned that she and her sonwere losing their cultural identities, she made an effort to switch back toSpanish Although Schecter and Bayley do not look at Nilda’s childhood

dis-or her relationship with her own parents, this part of their study confirmsthe complex ways that personal histories can affect language learningand education In this case, a life-history interview gives a fuller picture

of Nilda’s linguistic practices and her perspectives on them than a moreobservational study would

However, few studies of any kind have examined the influence of adultESL programs on second language learning in immigrant families

Moreover, aside from autobiographical accounts by immigrant writers(cf Pavlenko, 2001), few authors have explored learners’ perceptions ofhow their personal and family histories of education have affected theirlanguage learning In this article, I contextualize the perspectives of twoadult learners in an ESL family literacy program within the larger socialhistory of immigration in California and within the histories of education

in their families

INTERPRETING EXPERIENCE

My research methodology is rooted in the assumption that “themeaning-perspectives of teacher and learner are intrinsic to the educa-tional process” (Erickson, 1986, p 120) As Erickson explains, thechoices and actions of participants in learning, based on their sense ofwhat is valuable and meaningful, strongly affect what they learn In myanalysis of observations and interviews, I focus on “the way [participants]understand what they are doing” (Watson-Gegeo, 1988, p 576) At thesame time, neither my written accounts of observed events nor partici-pants’ audiotaped comments and narratives can be considered directrepresentations of real experience Rather, they are interpretations ofexperience Therefore, in this section, I give an account of how I came tomake the interpretations that I present later

I served as a participant-observer classroom volunteer in two ESLfamily literacy classes at the CEC from May to December 2002, spendingapproximately 180 hours in classes during that time period I alsoobserved several classes at another adult school to which one of my focalstudents (Brenda) had transferred In all of these classes, the majority ofstudents were Latina immigrants, the mothers of young children Aftereach class session, I wrote ethnographic field notes (Bogdan & Biklen,1998), giving a detailed rendition of what had happened, making everyeffort to take into account my own presence as an Anglo, Spanish-speaking, former teacher

The teachers and students at the CEC knew that I had taught ESL inthe past and that I was now a graduate student at a nearby university.When students asked about my research, I told them I wanted to knowhow what happened outside the classroom affected what happenedinside the classroom After several months of participant-observation, Iselected eight focal students for interviews I based my selection partly onthe rapport I had developed with particular individuals and partly on mydesire to represent the demographic range of students at the CEC Once

I had decided whom I wanted to interview, I asked each individual if Icould observe her in class and interview her in her home Everyone Iasked agreed without hesitation

In this article, I discuss the life trajectories of two participants, BrendaRíos, who immigrated in 2001 from a small city in Nicaragua, andSerafina Tzul, who came to the United States as a political refugee in themid-1990s from a rural area of Guatemala At the time of the interviews(2002), Brenda was 24 years old, married, and the mother of a 6-year-olddaughter She had a high school education in Nicaragua Serafina was 44years old, single, and the mother of a 4-year-old son She had completed

3 years of schooling in Guatemala I invited both women to participatebased on the rapport we had developed through classroom and break-time conversations

My relationship with Brenda remained straightforward, friendly, andbusiness-like through six interviews and four classroom observationsbetween July and November 2002 However, my relationship with Serafinagrew more complicated as I conducted six interviews with her betweenOctober and December 2002 Like many of the CEC students, she attimes asked me for favors, such as help in filling out application forms inEnglish Although I was happy to oblige, she frequently apologized forbothering me At the same time, I was discovering in the interviews thatparts of Serafina’s life were painful for her to discuss Even though I tried

to make it clear that she did not have to answer specific questions, Iended up cutting the interviews short because they seemed to bedepressing for her In addition, I was only able to conduct one formalobservation of her CEC classroom participation before she left to take atemporary factory job I am writing about Serafina here because herstories bring up issues that I think are important for the ESL profession

to come to terms with; however, out of respect for Serafina, I will notdiscuss the most difficult parts of her life

My methodological models for life-history interviewing were primarilyoral historians who had published book-length interviews with immi-grants (Agosin, 1999; Davis, 1990; Hart, 1997; Kim & Yu, 1996) Theseauthors had used question protocols but also allowed conversations todevelop in unexpected directions During interviews, I asked partici-pants about experiences with formal schooling; the educational, literacy,and work experiences of family members; decisions about schooling,work, marriage, children, and immigration; work histories in theirhomelands and the United States; out-of-school literacy practices; experi-ences learning English; and goals for the future

As I finished collecting data, I began thematic data analysis (Bogdan &Biklen, 1998) Based my field notes and transcripts, I created a list of

thematic codes, such as work and gender I then coded all my data Through this process, I began to see social positioning and learning as the

larger themes that would structure the write-up of my study, subsuming anumber of the other codes that I had used Because much of theinterview data took the form of narratives, I created files for narratives

coded for these themes, especially those that encompassed both learningand social positioning.

In analyzing one such narrative, I was struck by how the tellerexplicitly constructed parallels between the educational experiences ofher mother, herself, and her child This narrative alerted me to the

phenomenon of intergenerational trajectories Although other interviewees

were less explicit about parallels between themselves and family bers, I began to see similar intergenerational patterns in the life histories

mem-of most, though not all, mem-of my research participants To trace thesepatterns, I created chronological files for my data on participants’ andfamily members’ educational experiences In most cases, this processclarified connections between experiences at different time periods.Narrative is a traditional means across most human cultures formaking sense of connections between events over time (Bruner, 1990;Ochs & Capps, 1996) In later sections of this article, I present accounts

of the educational trajectories in the families of Brenda and Serafina,constructed from their narratives I am focusing on these two partici-pants because the relationship between their stories and the largersociopolitical context is particularly clear It is important to note that thenarratives I offer should be seen as my own representation of partici-pants’ life histories, based on my understanding of the ways theyrepresented themselves to me in interviews In the next sections, Ipresent accounts of two intergenerational trajectories within the largercontext of Central American immigration to the United States

Brenda: If God Gave Me This Opportunity

Brenda Ríos came from a small Nicaraguan city Her parents divorcedwhen she was a small child Her father (now deceased) emigrated fromNicaragua in the 1980s, lived in several countries around the world, andcorresponded with her sporadically In his letters, he encouraged her tolearn languages, as he had abroad, although she had few opportunities

do so in her hometown Brenda’s mother had worked her own waythrough a business degree at the local university: “My mom’s family were

simple people (un poco humilde), and I think they weren’t much ested in reading She had to put herself through school (mantenerse

inter-sus estudios).”

Brenda’s mother ran her own clothing store and frequently traveled

to neighboring countries to buy supplies for her business She had alwaysbeen, in Brenda’s words, “very independent.” She also strongly encour-aged Brenda’s education and love of learning, reading poetry aloud toher throughout her childhood and bringing books back from her travels:

“At that time it was very difficult to have many books, books are

expensive in Nicaragua, very expensive But I had some storybooks

(cuentos) since my mom traveled a lot to Guatemala and Honduras to

buy, and she would bring me home some little storybook or other, and Iwould read them.”

Although Brenda says she did well in elementary school, she failed herfirst year of secondary school (seventh grade): “I had a lot of littlefriends, we used to go out or hang out in someone’s house We didn’t do

the homework I lost the year (perdí el año).” At this point Brenda’s

mother took charge of the situation, deciding to travel less and to start alittle store in their home: “I had to stay at home taking care of things.Well, it helped me a lot I learned, and I kept studying, of course.That was when I started to like it better.” Her mother also switched herfrom a private to a public school, where Brenda thrived academically: “I

think that it was there I took to heart (tomé conciencia) what my mom was

telling me.”

However, Brenda’s education was again disrupted when one year short

of high school graduation, Brenda got married “due to madness (locuras).”

Although she had intended to continue studying and to go on touniversity, she got pregnant and had to drop out temporarily Herdaughter Nathaly was born in August 1996 Brenda finally finished highschool by taking night classes, with the help of her mother: “My momalways told me that, if you want to keep studying, I will take care of thelittle girl So I had the opportunity.” Giving up on university plans,Brenda emulated her mother by starting her own small retail outlet Sheran this business until she and her husband were invited by his brother tocome to California in 2001: “It was due to the economy Nicaragua is in

a really bad situation now, really, really bad (malísima, malísima, malísima).”

Upon arrival in California, Brenda enrolled her daughter Nathaly in abilingual kindergarten class As she explained, “I want my daughter tohave her language, to maintain it, write it, read it, and speak it well.” Atthe time I interviewed Brenda, Nathaly was starting first grade, andBrenda was satisfied with her progress in learning to read Spanish and dosimple arithmetic However, having heard from her ESL classmates thatthe local schools were poorly regarded, she was making plans to move assoon as she and her husband could afford it

Meanwhile, Brenda had been making rapid progress in her ownEnglish, both through taking ESL classes and through practicing conver-sation with an African immigrant co-worker at the grocery story whereshe worked on the night janitorial crew Starting at a low-beginning level,Brenda studied at the CEC from fall 2001 to summer 2002, then at herteacher’s suggestion, she moved on to a high intermediate-level class atanother adult school At that time, she told me, “Well, I’m thinking ofstudying one more year of English, and then looking for a way to get into

college [English in the original].” However, by November she had heard

that the application form for the local community college required aSocial Security Number She had no legal papers, little prospect ofobtaining them, and felt uncomfortable using a false number (I am notsure why using a false number seemed worse to her than driving without

a license.) Nevertheless, Brenda remained firm in her plans to eventuallyopen her own business in the United States Referring to her brother-in-law who owned a housecleaning business, she said, “I think this country

is the land of opportunity, and there are opportunities, I know that there

are And if God gave me the opportunity to come, why not take

advantage of it (y sino la hubiera aprovechado)?”

Serafina: I Had No Plans to Come Here

Serafina came from a Quiché Maya community in the Guatemalanhighlands, where her parents had a small farm and also made traditionalcrafts for sale in the capital Neither of her parents had ever attendedschool, but her father had learned to read as an adult: “Oh, when he wasalready grown up he was learning with my brothers and sisters because at times they would call him to parent meetings at the school, hesays that he had to sign or had to read some paper, [so he said,] ‘I amgoing to learn.’”

Serafina’s family spoke Quiché at home, although her parents knewsome Spanish through their business endeavors She and her brothersand sisters had learned Spanish at the local school, where some of themdid well One of her brothers graduated from teacher’s college andbecame a school principal: “Maybe he liked to study more, he had a

better head (tenía más cabeza) for studying.” However, Serafina failed first

grade three times: “I didn’t pass because the others seemed to be faster,

or I don’t know, they wrote faster.” She described her first grade teacher

as “angry (enojada),” adding that “if we didn’t pay attention she had

a chain like this and she would hit us like this on our fingernails.” Shethen left school to work at home as a weaver, her parents saying, “Well, ifyou don’t want to study, it’s better that you work.”

When Serafina was in her 20s, she spent 5 years in Guatemala City as

a maid for a well-to-do family While there, she took adult literacy classesand finished third grade When I asked how she’d come to valueeducation as an adult, she replied, “When I had to fill out some paper, or

I had to like write a letter, well, I saw that I really did need it a lot.” Shealso took sewing classes and received a certificate from a vocationalschool She missed her parents, so she eventually returned to thehighlands

In the mid-1990s, local military authorities threatened to confiscateSerafina’s village: “They were going to make a house for the military

people there, so they were going to take away the land from us (nos iban

a quitar el terreno) But we were beginning to protest because they were

going to take it from us, where my parents were born, and where we havealways lived.” The group of neighbors hired a lawyer in the capital andeventually won the case Although her parents were able to continueliving in the family home, for her part in protesting the proposedconfiscation Serafina received death threats and fled the country alone:

“I had no plans to come, but they threatened me with death (me

amenazaron de muerte).” Arrested by immigration authorities in Texas,

Serafina was befriended by a U.S nun, who bailed her out, brought her

to California, and found her a lawyer After several years, Serafina wasgranted refugee status and became a permanent U.S resident Her sonMateo was born in California in 1998; she had no recent contact with hisfather, a Mexican immigrant

Serafina worked in home health care for a number of years, primarilyfor Spanish-speaking clients For three years, she and her son lived withthe elderly Filipina that she cared for Serafina became very fond of thiswoman and also learned some English from her: “When I was going tobuy food, she would make my list in English I only knew Spanish,[but] she would write it for me [in English] so I would learn And if

I didn’t, I had to guess what it was ‘You have to study more and take

a lot of interest (pone mucho interés),’ she told me.” However, Serafina lost

the job when the woman’s family put her in a nursing home in early

2002 Unable to find another position, Serafina went on public assistancewhen her savings ran out Under California’s welfare reform measures,she was placed in Spanish-language job-hunting classes: “They wereclasses on how to present yourself at a job How to dress for aninterview One has to be very elegant.” When she still could not find ajob, her caseworker finally recommended that she study English.Meanwhile, Serafina had put her son Mateo in a subsidized all-daypreschool near her home so she could look for work Because she washaving problems with her son’s behavior, the welfare office found her atherapist for him She appreciated and tried to follow the therapist’sadvice: “Try to get him not to watch so much television, to do construc-

tive things (cosas constructivas para él ), like painting.” She also enrolled in

Spanish-language parenting classes at a local community center “because

at times you don’t know how to bring up children properly (educar a

los hijos).” Based on recommendations from the therapist and the

parenting class, she had gotten some children’s books for Mateo, most ofwhich were in English Although she had difficulty pronouncing thewords, she told me that she read to him regularly

However, a new problem was looming for Serafina’s relationship withher son His day care was English-only, and in a few months, he seemed

to be forgetting Spanish: “That’s what worries me I need to help him,

and if I don’t understand, how am I going to help him? Sometimes hejust says things in English, but I don’t know what he wants.” At the time

I interviewed her, she was trying to transfer him into a bilingualpreschool but also feeling the necessity of studying English herself: “I

really need (necesito mucho) to learn English.”

Serafina enrolled at the CEC in the summer of 2002 and continuedinto October Her caseworker had suggested that she get a part-time jobaround full-time ESL classes, but the job she found through friends inOctober was temporary and full-time in a factory, and she had to dropout of class This was her situation at the time I interviewed her in thelate fall of 2002, worried about her son, unable to study English, andwithout permanent employment When I asked her about the future, shesaid she wanted Mateo to get a good education and quoted her ownfather: “I want my son to study a lot because what I didn’t have, I want for

my son (lo que yo no tuve, quiero que mi hijo lo tiene) To have a career when

he grows up because parents want the best for their children.” Twomonths later, unable to find work or to get him into a bilingualpreschool, she sent him to live with her sister in Guatemala City

INTERGENERATIONAL TRAJECTORIES AND

educa-may benefit from these programs Rather than cycles of repeating mistakes, their family histories may better be seen as trajectories, in which

each generation builds on the experiences of the preceding one.Although other metaphors may be appropriate for other learners, thelearner’s personal and family histories constitute an important part of

the social context of any educational endeavor The investments that

drive language learning (Peirce, 1995) arise from learners’ personalhistories, most often in response to the investments of parents or otherfamily members Moreover, although Rockhill (1993) and Valdés (1996)portray Latina immigrants whose family ties precluded their secondlanguage development, for both Brenda and Serafina familial commit-ment encouraged language study If agency is defined as “the socio-culturally mediated capacity to act” (Ahearn, 2001, p 112), their storiesshow that both women have displayed considerable agency as adults inpursuing educational opportunities for themselves and their childrendespite the numerous societal challenges they experienced Neverthe-

less, while both women valued education, Serafina faced more severechallenges in her life that tended to limit her language learning The factthat Brenda was acquiring English more rapidly and easily must be seenagainst the backdrop of these challenges.

In theorizing the interaction between intergenerational trajectories oflearning and sociopolitical context, it is helpful to think in terms of

resources and constraints for learning (Wenger, 1998), some of which are

external to the learner, and some of which are internal Indeed, learnersoften internalize external resources and constraints and bring them intonew educational contexts One significant, internal resource that bothwomen were able to draw on was the influence of their parents’experiences on their own trajectories of learning According to Brenda,her mother nurtured in her a love of literature and consistentlysupported her schooling, even when it was disrupted by truancy at age 12and pregnancy at age 17 Though her father was mostly absent, heencouraged her through his letters With their examples, including herfather’s emigration and language learning experience, Brenda went asfar as she could with schooling in Nicaragua and began attending ESLclasses when she arrived in the United States Although Serafina’sparents were unschooled themselves, and even though they let her dropout of school at a young age, she told me that they encouraged theirchildren to study as much as they could She quoted her father saying,

“What I didn’t have, I want my children to have.” Her brother became aschool principal Moreover, Serafina was able to draw on her father’sexample of investing (Peirce, 1995) in literacy as an adult As she told meseveral times in interviews, “It’s never too late to learn.” Despite the factthat schooling had never been easy for her, she kept coming back formore, in the same way that her father had In this way, both womenagentively (Ahearn, 2001) continued their parents’ trajectories of learning.Becoming parents themselves also strongly affected both women.Indeed, another thing they had in common was the highly genderedeffect of unexpected pregnancies on their learning trajectories Asmothers they had both faced the contradiction stated by another of myresearch participants: “So when I began to have children, I began to want to learn so I could teach them So then they were little and Icouldn’t.” Beginning to surmount this dilemma as their children reachedschool age, Brenda and Serafina had similar hopes for their children tocontinue their family trajectories of learning Brenda spoke very concretelyabout her plan to get her daughter into a good high school and herdream that the girl might someday be a lawyer Less sure about how tomake it happen, Serafina emulated her own father in wanting her son toget a good education and to have a career

Despite their commonalities, it was clearly easier for Brenda than itwas for Serafina to take advantage of educational opportunities Though

both had parents that valued education, Brenda’s college-educatedmother was better able to translate verbal support into effective support(Delgado-Gaitán & Trueba, 1991) Through the external resources thatBrenda had enjoyed in childhood, she had developed “schemes of

remained with her as internal resources for her educational endeavors.Faced with a challenging literacy activity in the adult ESL classroom, shewas able to draw on strategies that had worked for her in the past After

an argument with a classmate about a reading comprehension exercise,she told me,

In high school we do that a lot—we read, they give us a set of questions, and from what we read we have to find the answers I think the question

is more correct if I read it, and take the question from there, right? If it isfrom the text itself, I think

Like the middle-class students in Hong Kong that Lin (1999) describes,Brenda had “the correct attitudes and interest and the correct linguisticskills and confidence to participate The lessons reproduced andreinforced [her] cultural capital” (p 407) Brenda owed much of hercultural capital to her mother’s educational investments (Peirce, 1995):Having worked her way through college, this small-town entrepreneurmade sure that she passed her drive for educational advancement on toher children The learning trajectory of Brenda’s mother remained as aninternal resource for her daughter

In contrast, although Serafina was a skilled weaver and seamstress whoshowed me intricately decorated fabric that she had produced by hand,this cultural practice passed on to her by her parents did not help hersucceed in the ESL classroom Rather, despite her investment in learningEnglish for the sake of her son (Peirce, 1995), she tended to resemblethe working-class students described by Lin (1999), who had littleintrinsic interest in studying English but recognized it nevertheless “as akey to success in society” (p 408) This attitude was probably similar toher Quiché-speaking parents’ instrumental attitudes toward Spanish.Although in my observations Serafina was able to read and comprehendbeginning ESL materials competently, she tended to defer to moreadvanced classmates whenever she was uncertain At times she madelaughing comments about her classroom performance such as, “One

time and it sticks with me (me queda), another time and it costs me (me

cuesta), it costs me to pronounce it.” In interviews, Serafina often blamed

herself for her past difficulties in learning: “I feel very bad because when

I was little I never took advantage of the opportunity when I was in school

4Bourdieu refers to these schemes collectively as habitus.

and [now] I feel embarrassed (me da pena) to bother people.” Just as her

father had made an investment in literacy when he came to see it asessential to his dignity as a parent, Serafina found it embarrassing todepend on other people’s help for her literacy needs Although thisembarrassment constrained her confidence to some extent, her father’sexample in similar circumstances gave her the drive to continue learningdespite the challenges she faced

In this regard, it is important to reiterate that although tional trajectory is a helpful way to conceptualize the educationalexperiences of Brenda, Serafina, and their families, such trajectoriesnecessarily intersect with the sociopolitical constraints that families andindividuals confront Educational investments (Peirce, 1995) often arisefrom family trajectories of learning, but they must always be lived inconcrete historical circumstances Though sociopolitical constraints onlearning arise from external, historical circumstances, such constraintsoften live on internally even in new educational contexts Serafinacontinued to judge herself for not “taking advantage of the opportunity”even though her difficulties with learning in classroom settings were tosome extent attributable to her experiences as a Quiché Maya-speakingfirst-grader facing an “angry” Spanish-dominant teacher The teacher’sstrictness and Serafina’s “slowness in writing” were partly idiosyncratic tothese two individuals but were also rooted in 500 years of colonialrelationships between Serafina’s community and the teacher’s Serafina’scurrent need to learn English was also historically driven Although shehad never wanted to come to the United States, the Guatemalan militarythreatened her with death when she protested their proposed confisca-tion of land in her village, a confrontation again rooted in 500 years ofhistory Likewise, the difficulties Brenda’s mother had in buying booksfor her are directly related to the U.S.-sponsored trade embargo and civilwar in Nicaragua in the 1980s Her decision to emigrate in 2001 wasdriven by the way the Nicaraguan economy had fared in the process ofglobalization over the preceding decade (Walker, 2003)

intergenera-Indeed, history is an important dimension of the social contexts oflanguage learning (Canagarajah, 1999; Goldstein, 1997; Watson-Gegeo,1992) The agency that Brenda and Serafina exercised must be seenagainst the historical backdrop of Central American immigration to theUnited States Once in California, they found themselves positioned asLatina immigrants near the bottom of the economy, the only employmentavailable to them being low wage and insecure, and offering littleopportunity for second language development (Goldstein, 1997; Spener,1988; Teran, Baker, & Sum, 2002) Moreover, at the time of the study,both women were feeling the effects of the 2001 economic downturn inthe United States Although Brenda had the advantage over Serafina ofhaving a strong extended family network in California, she and her

husband could only find part-time janitorial jobs Because of therecession, Serafina was unable to obtain the home-care jobs that hadsustained her for years, and her temporary employment in a factory didnot allow her to continue learning English Though Brenda’s part-timeposition freed her days for full-time English study, she was rapidlycompleting the highest levels of ESL available to her Without any basis

to apply for legal residency, she saw no way to continue her owneducation and was poised to invest in her daughter’s (Peirce, 1995)

In contrast, although Serafina had resolved her legal difficulties andwas now a permanent resident, she was nonetheless faced with suchhistorical phenomena as welfare reform and English-only preschools,which in combination made learning English both absolutely necessaryand extremely difficult Though her caseworker encouraged Englishstudy, the welfare system provided little support for this endeavor, asidefrom subsidizing the day care where her son was losing his language.Caught in this historical bind, Serafina dropped in and out of the CEC ascircumstances dictated, studying English on her own with books andcassette tapes when her son was sleeping She read out loud to himmostly in English because those were the books she had available, butwhen she grew concerned that he was losing Spanish faster than shecould learn English, she sent him to her sister in Guatemala Although Ihave concluded my study of Serafina’s and Brenda’s language learning,their intergenerational trajectories continue: Clearly, their struggles willaffect the educational experiences of their children

When seen against their historical backdrop, the personal histories ofBrenda Ríos and Serafina Tzul point to the limits in the concept of

investment (Peirce, 1995) Despite all the agency displayed by both

women, despite the internal resources both brought to their educationalendeavors, both faced social constraints beyond their control that tosome extent restricted what they could accomplish At the time of theresearch, Brenda was faring better than Serafina, both economically andeducationally, but her undocumented status remained a significantconstraint on her future prospects Although their intergenerationaltrajectories ensured that both women would continue to invest inlearning, a broad array of sociopolitical factors was already circumscrib-ing the return on those investments Though many learners bringpowerful internal resources with them into new contexts of learning, theconstraints and resources inherent in those contexts necessarily shapethe amount and kind of learning that can take place there

THEORETICAL AND PEDOGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

At the 2003 Second Language Research Forum at the University ofArizona, plenary speaker Susan Gass (2003) concluded by stating thatSLA research needed to focus on “what is in the head of the learner.”Her own recent work is on the role of attention in learners’ acquisition

of grammatical structures It is true that the kind of attention thatlearners like Brenda and Serafina can focus on grammatical structures inEnglish is affected by what is in their heads: good and bad memories ofprevious schooling experiences, literacy strategies that have worked ornot worked in the past, the messages that their parents gave them abouteducation, anxiety about making a living, concern for their children, andambition for a better life

At the same time, these learners’ degree of attention is also affected byexternal factors, such as job and ESL classroom schedules, the friendli-ness and English competence of employers and co-workers, the availabil-ity of child care, and requirements for social security numbers onapplication forms If the field of SLA is going to answer the questionposed by Gass in her 2003 plenary regarding “how language learningdoes and does not take place,” it needs to come to theoretical terms withthe challenges and contradictions faced by so many language learners.Although a study of Serafina’s grammatical development over recentyears would probably find little to report, her complicated trajectoryacross multiple languages, cultures, and literacies is not uncommonamong immigrant learners in the United States, none of whom acquireEnglish in SLA laboratory settings where such complexities can befactored out This article offers a direction for exploration that attends toboth internal and external factors through the notion of individualtrajectories and sociohistorical factors

For the most part, classroom instructors have been left to deal withlanguage learners’ challenges and dilemmas with little help from SLAtheory They watch with pride as a learner like Brenda rises through levelafter level of ESL, urge her to go on to college, and feel disappointedwhen she takes a job instead They see learners like Serafina dig intochallenging ESL activities and literacy materials and then drop out ofclass suddenly for unknown reasons; they welcome these learners whenthey return months later, again for reasons their teachers may neverknow Educators soon realize that many of the circumstances that causesome students to progress and others to drop out are beyond theirindividual power to influence Many of these factors can only beunderstood through a macrolevel analysis of societal forces Neverthe-less, the ESL profession can collectively support programmatic andpolicy solutions that have the potential to make learners’ dilemmas less

acute On the macro level, educators can study immigration, welfare, andeducation reform proposals, and advocate for laws that benefit thepopulations with whom they work On a programmatic level, administra-tors can seek grant funding to pay for child care and for tutoring services

to serve learners with irregular work schedules

In addition, even though teachers cannot provide easy solutions to thecomplex societal problems confronted by many immigrants, they can atleast make their students’ language-learning dilemmas explicit topics forclassroom reading, writing, and discussion activities At the micro level inthe classroom, ESL activities can provide a space for learners to confrontthe macrolevel issues that perennially challenge them For example, inAugust 2002 Brenda was facing the decision about whether to startdriving without a license so that she could expand her educational andemployment options Two other people of the eight I interviewed alsospontaneously brought up the question of driver’s licenses for undocu-mented immigrants; this issue was widely seen as contributing to thedefeat of California’s incumbent governor in the 2003 elections Yet itwas never discussed in classes at the CEC Other issues raised by students

in class discussions that never in my observation became the focus ofofficial activities included family conflict, sexual harassment, racialprofiling, ethnic tensions, and employment discrimination

Educators inspired by the work of Freire (e.g., Auerbach, 1989, 1992)have long advocated a problem-posing approach to instruction, in whichthe issues that learners are confronting in their daily lives becomeincorporated into the curriculum In this approach, the task of theteacher is not to provide learners with solutions to their problems butrather to offer their classes concrete representations of the challengesthat learners themselves perceive For example, after the conversationbetween Brenda and her teacher about driving without a license, theteacher could have looked for a short news article on the topic or written

a brief dialogue between two fictitious immigrants, with each taking adifferent position By posing problems in this way, teachers can provideopportunities for the students in their classes to collectively look forsolutions—while using the target language in a meaningful way Further-more, although many family literacy programs have tended to fall back

on prescriptive parenting curricula, problem-posing activities provide amore empowering way to reinforce the intergenerational dimensions ofsecond language learning Rather than telling learners how to raise theirchildren, teachers can facilitate discussion on immigrant learners’ invest-ments in education and family (Peirce, 1995) Learners should beencouraged to share their stories about the lessons they have taken fromtheir parents’ experiences, the cultural traditions they would like tomaintain or modify, and the hopes they have for their children Combin-

ing the telling of such personal stories with critical analysis of the socialcontext may be a powerful space for language acquisition.

Unfortunately, however, adult immigrant ESL in the United States isnot going in this direction Indeed, a 1996 report for the U.S Depart-ment of Education (Kutner, Webb, & Matheson, 1996) decried thediverse goals of adult learners as complicating accountability efforts Toenforce such accountability, the 1998 Adult Education and Literacy Actmandated the use of standardized competency tests in federally fundedprograms (Van Duzer, 2002) Many ESL teachers and administrators arenow caught between such governmental mandates and the imperativethey feel as committed professionals to meet the diverse needs and goals

of learners in their classrooms Such teachers need the support of theTESOL profession in developing programs, policies, and pedagogiesthat can respond in a humane and critically aware manner to thecomplex lives and histories of immigrant language learners like BrendaRíos and Serafina Tzul

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School Reform, Hybrid Discourses,

and Second Language Literacies

MEG GEBHARD

University of Massachusetts

Amherst, Massachusetts, United States

This article analyzes how school reforms in the United States during the1990s supported transformative literacy practices in the context of aHmong-English third grade classroom Using methods that allow for ananalysis of both macro and micro discourses shaping the literacypractices of English language learners, this 2-year study illustrates howcombined discourses at the state, district, school, and classroom levelscreated a discursive space that allowed for the production of hybridtexts that disrupted, if only temporarily, many of the reproductive forcesassociated with modern schooling Using a critical perspective oflanguage and social change (e.g., Fairclough, 1992), the author pre-sents an analysis of texts produced and interpreted by participants in aclassroom shaped by a statewide school reform initiative known asSenate Bill 1274, California’s school restructuring initiative An analysis

of these texts reveals that they afforded language learners opportunities

to display multilingual and multicultural identities and to appropriateacademic uses of English

convincingly documented how microlevel classroom routines andmacrolevel organizational policies have helped to construct social inequi-ties based on race, class, gender, and linguistic differences (e.g., Gutiérrez,Larson, & Kreuter, 1995; Gutiérrez, Rymes, & Larson, 1995; Harklau,1994; Olsen, 1997) Harklau, for example, analyzed how organizational

structures or tracks in schools influenced the language learning

experi-ences of English language learners attending a California high school.She found that English language learners were assigned to low-trackclasses that were, on the whole, poor language learning environments.Specifically, low-track students had truncated, inauthentic reading mate-rial, little practice in composing extended texts beyond the word orsentence level, and few opportunities to participate in self-directedlearning activities As a result, the texts these students learned to

produce could be described as ungrammatical, awkward, and cally deficient.

academi-Olsen (1997) describes a similar set of institutional structures andpractices but goes one step further to consider the impact of racialidentity on the process of learning English in an urban high school In a2-year ethnographic study, Olsen describes how the process of secondlanguage acquisition was also a process of “Americanization” in whichthe task of learning English was also shaped by the task of “becomingracialized into a highly structured social order, where one’s position isdetermined by skin color” and where, as a result, one has “very unequalaccess to resources, opportunities, and education” (p 11) Olsen sup-ports this claim by recounting the schooling experiences of a recentimmigrant from Brazil named Sandra, who, upon entering high school,expressed anger over the pressure she felt to define herself as eitherWhite, Black, or Latino, when these categories ran counter to herunderstanding of herself as Brazilian However, over the next 2 years,Sandra’s need to fit in led her to resist using more academic varieties ofEnglish, thereby placing herself on the racialized social map that Olsendescribes as structuring nearly all social interactions at Madison HighSchool (for a Canadian example, see Ibrahim, 1999) The peer groupwith which Sandra aligned herself and the communicative practices sheappropriated belonged to a group of Latina girls Sandra described as

“cholas the tough girls” (p 108) Olsen explains this process in the

following way:

Some [students] hold fast to their national identities and simply resistidentifying with or grouping with others in ethnic/racial categories Theychoose marginality as a means of resistance They choose to remain off thesocial map, to remain “foreign” and not give in to racial categories But withintwo years, very few students followed in this research maintained this stance.(p 117)

Adopting a poststructural perspective of literacy, schooling, and social(re)production, Gutiérrez, Larson, et al (1995) and Gutiérrez, Rymes,

et al (1995) illustrate how administrators, teachers, and students ing ethnically diverse schools in Los Angeles participated in the construc-tion of culture-bound “scripts” regarding schooling (Gutiérrez, Larson,

attend-et al., p 414; see also Gutiérrez, Baquedano-Lopez, & Turner, 1997).Using ethnography and critical discourse analysis, their studies show howteacher’s monologic, middle-class scripts constrained students’ use ofphysical space, talk, and print in ways that tended to exacerbate racialtensions between ethnically diverse students and their white teachers(Gutiérrez, Larson, et al., p 414; for a discussion of middle-class literacypractices, see Heath, 1983) In addition, these normative practices

tended to impede the academic literacy learning of diverse students bydenying them access to valuable linguistic and cultural resources sociallydistributed around them These schooling practices included trackingstudents by perceived inabilities, arranging desks in ways that limitedstudents’ interactions, assigning silent, independent seat work, empha-sizing linguistic form over function, and calling for the exclusive use ofstandard English Gutierrez, Larson, et al show how some students, such

as a Latina they call Nora, resisted this monologic script by enactingcounterscripts of their own but also how these counterscripts did notpresent a serious challenge to the ways that schools approached literacyinstruction Rather, these counterscripts helped to position students likeNora as remedial learners with “attitude problems” (p 424) Moreover,the authors maintain that these scripts and counterscripts trivialized thepotential that reading and writing could play in student’s lives andcontributed to Latinos dropping out, or more accurately, being pushedout of high school

In response to what can be described as a failure of U.S schools todeliver on the promise of equity through education, researchers commit-ted to social justice have called for changes in how schools are structuredand how they approach curriculum and instruction (e.g., Goodlad, 1984;Sizer, 1984) These calls for change began to gain momentum when theywere coupled with concerns raised by corporate analysts who argued thatschools, like workplaces, must restructure to remain competitive in arapidly changing social, political, and economic world (Drucker, 1993;Senge, 1991) This approach to organizational change was characterized

by the belief that schools, like workplaces, must develop new structuresand practices to respond to the transition from old to new forms ofcapitalism (e.g., Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999; Gee, Hull, & Lankshear,1996; New London Group, 1996) This shift entails a weakening oflocalized, modern, manufacturing-based economies and the rise of moreglobalized, late-modern, information-based, and technology-driven ones.Influential corporate analysts argued that as part of the transition fromthe old work order to the new work order, organizations needed torestructure so that Fordist specialization and individual piecework couldgive way to cross-training and team-based collaboration These analystsalso argued for a flattening of rigid bureaucracies so that collaborativeteams could draw on diverse resources, share information, solve prob-lems, and respond to new situations in an immediate and more effective

manner (Drucker, 1993; Senge, 1991; for a critique of new or fast

capitalism see Agger, 2004; Gee et al., 1996; as it applies to school reform,

see Gebhard, 2004) In sum, the discourses of workplace restructuringduring this period, and by extension school restructuring, reflected abelief that economic growth, powerful learning, and an equity agendawere possible to achieve in workplaces and schools if organizational

structures were redesigned to equalize power dynamics, support rative action, and capitalize (literally) on diversity.

collabo-Given the potential for such an approach to support a social justiceagenda, a number of researchers in multicultural education and secondlanguage learning explored the power of school restructuring initiatives

to support the academic achievement of culturally and linguisticallydiverse learners (e.g., Cummins & Sayers, 1995; Miramontes, Nadeau, &Commins, 1997; Olsen, 1994) Based on school reports, interviews, andfield notes, these studies describe how schools restructured and howadministrators, teachers, students, and community members experi-enced these reforms in both positive and negative ways However, fewstudies have provided a micro analysis of how reforms have influencedthe ways students learned to produce and interpret academic texts.Moreover, few studies have shown how macro- and microdiscursivepractices associated with school reforms intersect, take shape, and areappropriated by school-level administrators, teachers, and students inways that influence academic literacy learning Such a study is warrantedbecause policy makers, researchers, administrators, teachers, students,and families invest considerable, often very scarce, resources towardimproving the education of (their) children Historically, however, theseefforts often have resulted in ironic, unintended consequences (see, e.g.,Cohen & Mohl, 1979; Tyack, 1974) Also, the contexts in which thesedifferent, yet connected, stakeholders participate are places wherebeliefs about what counts as quality teaching and learning are contested,negotiated, produced, and reproduced primarily through the stakehold-ers’ uses of talk and print As such, critical macro and micro analyses ofthe discourses of school change can make consequential uses of lan-guage in educational policy and practices open to reflection and possiblechange (Sarangi & Candlin, 2003) In an effort to make such acontribution, this study explores how the dynamics among semioticpractices, the formation of school identities, and the development ofacademic literacies intersected for English language learners in a context

of systemic school reform known as Senate Bill 1274 (SB 1274), California’sschool restructuring initiative The central questions guiding this investi-gation are how do students, teachers, and administrators negotiate thediscourses of macro school reform policies, and how do the positionsthey take up through their uses of talk and print influence Englishlanguage learners’ academic literacy development?

To explore these questions, I use a critical perspective of language andsocial change to conceptually and methodologically connect an analysis

of macro discourses shaping educational reforms and micro classroompractices shaping English language learners’ academic literacy develop-ments This perspective maintains that the dialogic processes by whichstudents and teachers jointly produce and interpret oral and written

texts during classroom activities simultaneously reflects, creates, andrecreates historically rooted ways of knowing, social relations, andmaterial conditions (e.g., Canagarajah, 1999; Chouliaraki & Fairclough,1999; Fairclough, 1989, 1992; Gee et al., 1996; New London Group,1996; Pennycook, 2001) Applied to a discussion of school restructuringand classroom literacy practices, this perspective requires that twoconstructs be defined First, based on the work of Gee et al., I define

school reforms such as SB 1274 as an intervention or sociotechnical device

that attempts to design new institutional structures and semiotic tices that will create new communities of practices, new ways of being,and new ways of knowing This definition of reform stands in contrast toother definitions that view educational changes as neutral technologiesseparate from the study of language practices and the role thesepractices play in learning and social change Second, based on the work

prac-of Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999), I argue that these engineered

communities of practice are hybrid in that students, teachers, parents,

and administrators are positioned physically and discursively in new rolesthat they take up and remix with other roles in unpredictable ways thatmay or may not yield more equitable social relations Chouliaraki andFairclough (1999) define these hybridized roles and accompanyingpractices as the movement of discursive practices associated with oneparticular social domain into another social domain (e.g., the movement

of corporate approaches to organization change into the discourse ofschool reform, the use of varieties of English in classroom interactions,the fusion of different genres to influence a particular audience).However, as Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999) make clear, hybridizedlanguage practices are nothing new nor are they by default transforma-tive Rather, they maintain that the movement or fusion of semioticpractices is inherent in all social uses of language and creates variousdegrees of durability and instability within and across social boundaries

As such, they maintain that hybrid texts can simultaneously enactresistance and create possibilities for social change; at the same time,they can play a role in creating new forms of hegemony

METHODOLOGY

In conducting this 2-year study of the microtextual practices ofEnglish language learners and their teachers in the context of systemicschool reform, I used the tools of qualitative inquiry and criticaldiscourse analysis The data sources are of various types: field notes fromobservations of school life as experienced by focal students; transcrip-tions from audiotaped semistructured interviews with students, parents,teachers, teacher’s aides, and administrators; videotaped classroom and

playground activities; and relevant documents The analysis entailed aseries of overlapping phases that involved reviewing field notes, tran-scripts, and institutional records to see how schools had attempted torestructure and how English language learners were positioned by thesereforms Phase 1 involved conducting a broad content analysis (Bogdan

& Biklen, 1992) to profile and code the school’s activities regardingspecific institutional aspects of schooling (e.g., student grouping prac-tices, approaches to curriculum and instruction, opportunities for teacherprofessional development) Phase 2 focused on analyzing the experi-ences of focal students This process entailed reviewing field notes,videotapes, and audiotape transcriptions to code the different types ofactivities in which English language learners participated During thisphase, I paid close attention to how participation within literacy activitieswas structured (Cazden, 1988; Dyson, 1993) and how teachers andstudents appropriated various signs and tools available to them inaccomplishing tasks, especially tasks associated with language arts in-struction (Wells, 2001) In conducting this analysis, I also identified howspeaking position constructed the English language learners’ identities

as members of classroom communities, and how such identities ported or constrained academic learning opportunities (e.g., Peirce,1995) I also interviewed teachers and students concerning their textproduction and interpretation practices using selected texts as promptsfor exploring the data further from their perspectives

sup-Phase 3 involved analyzing the discourses of school restructuring atthe institutional level and the discourses of school restructuring asexperienced by individual focal students in specific classroom contexts.The purpose of this phase was to determine where patterns of macroinstitutional discourses and micro classroom discourses intersected andhow these intersections reinforced historically rooted school identitiesfor English language learners or provided opportunities for transforma-tion (for a history of immigrant education in the United States, seeCohen & Mohl, 1979; Fass, 1989; Olneck, 1995; Tyack, 1974)

OLIVE GROVE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Olive Grove Elementary school is located in northern California in a

population of approximately 12,000, most of whom were employed inthe fruit-picking and -packing industry or in other low-paying servicejobs These jobs were anchored primarily to the local agribusiness and

1 All names used in the data analysis are pseudonyms.

the strip malls, motels, and fast-food restaurants that lined a majorfreeway leading to larger urban centers to the north and south Becausethis economic base was seasonal and low paying, the unemployment ratefor the area was around 17% and the average worker earned about $8.00

an hour (1990 census) Hoover’s economy was not greatly affected by theenormous wealth that the technological boom generated in Californiaduring the 1990s Moreover, during this same period, Hoover experi-enced a rapid demographic shift Namely, Hmong families beganimmigrating to Hoover from refugee camps in Thailand as part of aresettlement project sponsored by a local church and the federalgovernment The strengths of this growth rate as well as the weaknesses

of the local economy are reflected in Olive Grove’s demographic data.For example, in 1990 only 1% of the nearly 550 students attending OliveGrove were designated as Asian Two years later, this number had grown

to almost 30%, a percentage composed almost entirely of Hmong andMien speakers Simultaneously, the percentage of all students who wereeligible for a free or reduced-cost lunch grew to 81%

To respond to these changing demographics, the school principal,together with a team of teachers and representatives from the schooldistrict, applied for additional funds made available by the passage ofSenate Bill 1274 This bill provided 144 schools with $125 million ofadditional funding between 1992 and 1997 As one of these 144 schools,Olive Grove was awarded $463,000 to make bold changes in how itapproached educating the students it served (Little & Dorph, 1998) Thenature of these changes will be discussed in the following section

DATA ANALYSIS

Institutional Context: The Hybrid Discourses of the

New Work Order and School Reform

Analysis of the formation of Senate Bill 1274 and how it was enacted atOlive Grove Elementary School shows the degree to which the discourses

of the new work order hybridized with the discourses of school reform.Senate Bill 1274 was initiated by the California Business Roundtable, anassociation of chief executive officers from 90 of California’s largestcompanies Motivated by the belief that a strong economy is contingent

on a strong public education system, the roundtable asked the tional research firm Berman & Weiler Associates to analyze the condition

educa-of elementary and secondary education in California and recommendreforms By 1990, the California Business Roundtable, together withBerman & Weiler Associates, Senator Gary Hart, the Mexican AmericanLegal Defense Fund, the California Achievement Council, and the then

state superintendent of schools, Bill Honig, had drafted and won supportfor an ambitious school reform package This diverse group, represent-ing different constituencies and beliefs about the purposes of schooling,participated in crafting an invitation to schools across the state to submit

“radical” proposals for “rethinking” the way they “do business for allstudents.” Specifically, the authors of Senate Bill 1274 wrote the following:

SB 1274 invites educators to consider radical changes in the way schools anddistricts operate in order to create a better environment for engaging allstudents in powerful learning experiences and in a rich, meaning-centeredcurriculum [SB 1274] is not meant to add another layer of bureaucracy

to already existing school and district structures, systems and programs.Rather, it is intended to provide an opportunity to re-think the way we dobusiness, remove the constraints that get in the way, keep the focus on studentlearning, empower professionals to use their best judgment in figuring outwhat works, and then hold them accountable for results (California Depart-ment of Education, 1991)

In their analysis of the implications of this call for proposals in ninefunded schools, Little and Dorph (1998) report that “the positive effects

of restructuring were felt unevenly among students, with higher ers and native English speakers more likely to reap the benefits and avoidthe pitfalls” (p 10) In my analyses of three of these schools (Gebhard,

achiev-2000, 2004), I argue that the schools’ inability to address issues of equitycould be attributed, in part, to difference-blind discourses that madeseeing inequities related to race, class, gender, and language difficult tosee and, therefore, to address (e.g., teachers and principals emphasizingthe importance of treating everyone the same; for a discussion of color-blind discourses in schools, see Pollack, 2004) An analysis of thediscursive practices at work at Olive Grove, however, reveals a strikingcomparison Namely, teachers and administrators at Olive Grove explic-itly targeted issues related to language and class as matters they wanted toaddress in applying for SB 1274 funds For example, a longtime teacherand member of the school restructuring team said,

I think it’s important for you to know, for your study to know, the history ofwhere we are We were pretty well traditional, [but we] felt a real, real need tochange Our population was changing rapidly, not only in terms of a hugeinflux of immigrants, largely Asian immigrants with no English background,

we had that But this neighborhood area that we take in is a very loweconomic area Our welfare rate then was high, it’s much higher now .With that shifting of population we needed to make some drastic changes

We were not reaching our children So we applied for the 1274 grant to changethe whole business of education (Chris Darvy, teacher, Grades 1 and 2)

In response to these dramatic changes in the school’s demographicprofile, several teachers, the principal, the school psychologist, and amember of the local school board began investigating alternative ways ofapproaching “the business” of schooling These alternative ways rever-berate with the salient characteristics of the new work order Specifically,the restructuring initiative the team presented to their colleagues and tothe state-funding agency centered on four reforms:

2, and Grades 3–6)

taught by teachers with both elementary and ESL teaching credentials

and learning

respects differences and supports students’ use of their homelanguages

Certainly, these reforms were not necessarily new because they haveroots in the progressive era (e.g., project-based learning) However, inthe context of changes taking place in the organization of work in the1990s, as opposed to the 1920s, these reforms signal different meaningsthan the ones promoted by Dewey and his followers Specifically, thesereforms reflect a belief that teachers and students, like managers andworkers, can accomplish more when they participate in activities marked

by a flattening of hierarchical structures in which authority is decenteredand expertise is distributed through collaborative action (e.g., Gee et al.,1996) Olive Grove’s principal, Martin Fonsworth, voiced this beliefemphatically when he said, “I was never one who believed that all fifth-graders wear size eight shoes,” and “we have to get out of thinking ofstudents as independent contractors Get them to work together Getkids out of rows and into cooperative groups.” In stating his perspective,Fonsworth, similar to his corporate counterparts, rejected the modern,manufacturing-based approach to organizing work and learning charac-terized by standardization, top-down control, specialization, and indi-vidual piecework Rather, he maintained that teachers and learners, likemanagers and workers in the new work order, can accomplish morewhen authority and expertise are shared through interdisciplinarycollaboration

Classroom Context: The Hybrid Roles and

Discourses in Mrs Rathom’s Room

To analyze the implications of Olive Grove’s restructuring initiative forEnglish language learners in a specific local context, I worked closelywith Martha Rathom, a white, middle-class woman certified in elemen-tary education and teaching English as a second language At the time ofthe study, Mrs Rathom (as she was known to her students) had 14 years

of experience in a number of different elementary schools and hadapplied to teach at Olive Grove because she wanted to teach in a multi-age, multilingual context where she would have greater access to usingtechnology in designing an interdisciplinary curriculum In this regard,

it is important to note that the state’s restructuring initiative did notnecessarily change Mrs Rathom’s approach to teaching linguistically andculturally diverse students Rather, SB 1274, as shaped by the principaland other school leaders, provided her with an opportunity to experi-ment with beliefs about teaching and learning that she already heldstrongly

The diversity of the students assigned to Mrs Rathom’s room, ever, does illustrate the boldness of Olive Grove’s restructuring plan Shehad 28 students assigned to her room, with an even distribution of

of boys and girls Five of these students were third-graders, five werefourth graders, nine were fifth graders, and the remaining nine weresixth graders In addition, two students were designated as havinglearning disabilities and another two were enrolled in a program run bythe school psychologist Interestingly, five sibling pairs were enrolled inthe class, further adding to what Mrs Rathom called the family-like, one-room-schoolhouse quality of classrooms at Olive Grove

In line with Mrs Rathom’s reasons for applying for a position at OliveGrove, she arranged the 28 students in her class in heterogeneousgroups with respect to their age, gender, and language backgrounds Sheassigned them projects that they were to complete in collaboration witheach other, with her, with the bilingual aide, and/or with a variety ofvisitors to the classroom In giving students direction, and in supportingthem in completing projects, Mrs Rathom used a variety of discourseoptions ranging from more fixed, teacher-oriented practices such aslecturing, testing, and engaging students in typical classroom routinessuch as the initiate-respond-evaluate (IRE) sequence to more negotiated,informal, group-oriented kinds of interaction (Kramsch, 1985)

2Administrators, teachers, and students used the terms English-only and Hmong to identify

one another.