Why We Chose ESL Students

We attend UC Berkeley, a diverse campus with students who come from various backgrounds. As a group, we have realized that we have either taken part or know people who have gone through English as a Second Language program, or ESL, which is intended to help students who are learning English.

While the program helps students learn English at a slower pace, it also hinders some other students in the process. For our project, we wanted to focus on the different experiences and give people an insight into how the program actually affects students' lives.

Here are introductions of the team members:

Hello! My name is Shanta and I’m a rising sophomore studying Applied Mathematics at UC Berkeley. I started tutoring in high school and those experiences motivated me to take education classes in college. I was in ESL from when I was 3 to 4 years old. Despite being born in America, I only spoke my mother tongue until I started pre-school. As a former ESL student myself, I felt that it was important to help create a platform where ESL student concerns could be heard. Thanks for checking us out!

Back when Daniel lived in Canada, he was the only Korean in the school. Without knowing any English, the only language he could make use of was body language; he eventually went through ESL for a year. Living the ESL experience himself, he also taught English to ESL students in the years to come. ESL was thus something inseparable from Daniel for a long time, and through such an experience, he was able to see more than just its bright side. Here at Cal, he found a group of students in his education class who were similar to him, people who had ESL experience and in fact were passionate to discuss ESL. They decided to work on a project together, one that would publicize the issues resulting from ESL.

My name is Momoka, a rising sophomore planning to major in Business Administration or Economics. I grew up in Southern California and moved up to Berkeley to start my college experience. I was part of the ESL program in elementary school and wanted to reflect on it with other peers through this DAP project. As a former student of the program, I feel that I should make reforms and hear about other student's experiences within the program.

Hi everyone! My name is Gloria Chu, a rising sophomore at UC Berkeley passionate about educational equity. I grew up in the midwest as an Asian-American, so am super excited to interview fellow students who have had similar experiences with ESL and developing their dual identity overall. Thank you for taking the time to look over our project!

My name is Aaron Paek and I recently transferred to Berkeley as a junior last fall to study Economics. As a freshman at my first college, I was an education major and thus decided to minor in Education at Berkeley. I personally didn’t go through ESL myself, but as an Asian-American, I had a lot of friends who went through it, only to hear negative results. As someone who is passionate about Asian American rights, I wanted to see change for the community, and fell in love with the idea of making a difference, starting with the ESL program.