L.N. / Elementary School

When and where did you first start learning English?

• I began learning English when I was ten years old. I was the youngest of 3 children and came with my mother to America as Vietnamese refugees. When the war broke out, my family and I lived on a boat near China for around 5 years. I didn’t go to school during that time and didn’t learn how to read and write until I came to America. I learned some English from other students, but I was often discriminated against because I was Vietnamese and those times were less tolerant to immigrants like me. I learned a lot of English from TV shows, actually, especially since they didn’t have subtitles.

Could you tell us a little about your ESL experience?

• The ESL program had just been created when I was enrolled. Since I didn’t know any English then and also could not read or write, I was put in the most intense program with other students like me. It was humiliating to be the oldest child there being taught the alphabet or phonics. I remember I wanted nothing more than to escape from that classroom where I was the most underdeveloped student, so I resolved to learn to read and write on my own. Eventually, after about a year in that class, I was deemed fluent enough to leave. However, my writing and reading skills were still not up to par, so I was put in a new ESL class with kids my own age this time. I did have many negative experiences with ESL, but once I was moved to the new class I viewed ESL as an escape from the white children that would bully me in my regular classroom.

Do you think the ESL program helped you in any way (or how did your time in ESL impact your development)? If so, how? If not, why?

• Overall, the ESL program did not help me in any positive way. Only the humiliation from being the 11 year-old that could not read or write motivated me to be the literate individual that I am today. Being with students I could not learn from hindered my own growth, and I had trouble assimilating with my white peers. Once I was moved to the ESL class with kids my own age, there was nothing ESL could do for me anymore. The curriculum was limited to very basic concepts that most ESL students could learn naturally from their peers after a couple months. Then again, since the ESL program was just getting formed then, the standards were not as high. The sad thing is that I believe the ESL program is not much better today than it was 40+ years ago.

Do you think you would have been better off with/without the program?

• This sounds a bit twisted, but even though the ESL program gave me many negative experiences, the fact that I was in the program motivated me to learn English on my own time. I feel that had I not been in the ESL program I would never have been this literate, despite the program itself not teaching me anything. Though the ESL program actually didn’t teach me any English, the humiliation it gave me motivated me to improve enough to escape it.

Do you think ESL had an integrative effect (i.e. do you feel included/excluded from your classmates who are not in the ESL program)?

• The ESL program, in my opinion, hindered integration with the rest of my peers. Since my level of English was exceptionally poor (I was illiterate until 11 years old), I was very rarely with the rest of my classmates. It made sense, because I couldn’t even read or write, but not having more time with my classmates only made me more susceptible to bullying and I had a hard time making friends since I was always with the kindergarteners I was learning the alphabet with.

Would you recommend your ESL program to others? Why or why not?

• This is a hard question because in a way, the ESL program did help me grow -- just not in the way intended. I would not recommend the ESL program that I was in back then, however now I think it’s a different story. Bay Area schools are much more racially diverse now and people are more accepting of people that are different from themselves. It really depends on the school too, as some schools have a much more comprehensive and robust ESL programs than others. The general trend seems to be that the more racially diverse and wealthy a school is, the better the ESL program. It’s a case-by-case situation so I cannot give a general recommendation.