Me no Speekie Englee

Schools are for learning, and every student learns differently. Students also require different levels of assistance when learning a subject. However, there are often times when students are being held back because some teacher, at some point, thought that it was a good idea. I am talking about a little something known as the ESL program. For those of you who do not know what ESL stands for it is an acronym that means “English as a Second Language.” This is a program that is reserved for the “visually obvious,” immigrant (whatever that means) or child of an immigrant, in other words minority students. When you look at these programs they are filled with brown kids as well as oriental Asians. Are people with a little pigment in their skin the only ones who speak other languages? What about French? Swedish? German? Italian? Polish? … just to name a few. Aren’t these languages originating in Europe spoken by “white” people? Why are we not questioning those kid’s ability to speak English?

My siblings and I were shoved in ESL when we were in school. MY sister had to endure 2 long years of it. I, on the other hand was lucky, I only spent 2 weeks in ESL. To someone who may not be familiar with the material we were being taught, ESL may sound like an amazing thing to help non-native speakers to get acclimated to the English language. I agree, the concept of it is amazing, however, the execution is not up to the ideal. How do you know which child can benefit from the program? What do you teach? How do you determine that they are “fluent” enough to join the rest of the students? Will they fall even further behind if they are busy playing catch up?

When I made it to the 4th grade, my teacher made the decision that I needed ESL. I made it through grades 1-3 just fine without being put into a “special” class to help me with a language I already knew. I remember one day I, along with 2 other students, were pulled out of silent reading with the rest of class. We were sitting at our own table at the entrance of the classroom and we would read books written to amuse a small child. I was utterly confused and felt like I was being punished for something I didn’t know I did. Sitting in front of all of my classmates while they did their grade level work, I felt like I was being singled out, and was being put under some sort of spotlight while I did my “colored” kid work. The other two kids were Chinese and Punjabi like me. Once my parents and older sister got wind of this, they took action and got me out. Nearly 20 years later, I am reflecting on the entire situation and I cannot think of why the teacher thought that I would benefit from ESL. I was not doing well in reading, but it wasn't my lack of knowledge of the English language, it was because I absolutely HATED reading out loud. We did popcorn style reading whenever we read aloud in class, I never volunteered to read for the fear of being judged for my performance. If I never read out loud, how in the world did the teacher decide that I needed to be placed in ESL? I was different from my classmates, and my parent’s English was not the best, but in my opinion that is not enough to shove me in ESL!

At the age of 12 my sister was placed in ESL. She started junior high with all regular classes and then when the 7th grade hit, on first day of school, she got the surprise of her life. All seemed alright until she got to English after lunch, or at least she thought it was “English.” She did not realize she was sitting in ESL until the teacher wrote a sentence on the board and told them to correct grammar and punctuation. “What?!?” She wondered, “how the heck did I get here? I thought this was something I did back in the early years of grade school!” The funny thing is that when she began high school the ESL classes miraculously went away. I remember my sister mentioning that she had a lot of anxiety around the first day of high school for the fear she might have to endure more ESL! My sister told me, “I did not feel like I was equipped with the tools to be in a regular class, because I spent 2 freakin’ years correcting sentences (which I already learned years ago) instead of preparing for my academics in high school!” She played a lot of catch up in 9th grade. She went onto accelerated and AP English. Doesn’t that make you wonder whether she really needed ESL in 7th and 8th?

So why do teachers shove their students in ESL? FUNDING!!!!!! In my high school years I was talking to a mentor about my experience with ESL, and he told me that for every student that gets put in ESL, the school gets extra funding. It all makes sense now. The teachers felt that they had enough cause to shove us in ESL by looking at our names, and the color of our skin. Not much has changed over the years. As you may know, I work as a Private Tutor, and one of my students mentioned how he is now “fluent” in English. I have been tutoring this student for nearly 3 years now, and I could have told him that he was “fluent.” I then asked him about how they go about determining how “fluent” a student is. He then told me that at every year they take a test, and once they are “fluent” they do not have to take this test any more. Is that what they are calling ESL nowadays? A “Fluency Test?” He was also telling me that the kids that have to take this test are all colored, not a single white kid had to take this test. As I was talking to my student, I became angry and I felt helpless. It is my job to help my student with his academics and I did not think ESL was still something I had to be worried about. I now know that it is still an issue and will make it a point to find out this information, so that I am better equipped to help other students.

As my sister reflected on her school experience with English as a Second Language, and learning Punjabi before English as a child, she also fears for her children encountering the same problem. She is teaching her children Punjabi first so they can be bilingual. There has already been a situation mentioned in our last blog about a teacher’s treatment of my 3.5 year old nephew. As she is taking on the tedious task of finding the right Pre-K school for him, she is finding that she has to be loaded for bear. Schools are putting my nephew in a box because he has long hair and wears a head covering. His father also wears a turban, so when they go to check out schools together they get a very stiff response. As American born, if we decide to teach our children any language other than English, why should that be held against us? I hope that my little nephew and niece do not have to endure even a minute of what we had to by being placed in ESL. When a child knows more than one language, I feel that should be celebrated not punished. We should look at our school system and think about who this type of program is really benefiting. From my siblings and I, it is the school who got to pocket all the money!

Language may not have been our parent’s strong suit, but they helped us with whatever they understood. We, as children, knew what they could help us with and what we needed to pay even more attention to in school because Mom and Dad would not be able to help us in those areas. They came here with no English and had to take classes to learn to communicate with others in this strange and foreign country. As every parent does, they wanted to prepare us as much as they possibly could. I recall one summer, my dad had me copy a page from a book every day so that I could improve my handwriting and reading skills, (if I did not do a good job, I had to redo the entire page.) I would also HAVE to show my dad my math homework everyday, because math is the universal language. I never understood why he made me show him my work, but looking back it was my dad’s way of making sure I was not left behind. As parents and educators we need to make sure that our students are doing the best they can. We help them the best we can, and “help” doesn’t always mean ESL.