Uninvited Guests: The Influence of Teachers' Roles and Pedagogies on the Positioning of English Language Learners in the Regular Classroom

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Positioning of English Language Learners in the Regular ClassroomUninvited Guests: The Influence of Teachers' Roles and Pedagogies on the

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Uninvited Guests: The Influenceof Teachers’ Roles and Pedagogies onthe Positioning of English LanguageLearners in the Regular Classroom

Bogum YoonTexas Woman’s University

Grounded in positioning theory, this study examined regular classroomteachers’ views of their roles with regard to English language learners (ELLs)and the relationship between their teaching approaches and the students’reactions and positioning of themselves in the classroom. Findings suggestthat the teachers’ views of their roles varied based on their positioning of them-selves as teachers for all students, as teachers for regular education students,or as teachers for a single subject. The teachers’ different approaches wererelated to the ELLs’ different levels of participation and their positioning ofthemselves as powerful or powerless students. The study breaks importantground in our understanding of the complex interactional classroom dynam-ics that influence the teaching and learning of ELLs.

KKEEYYWWOORRDDSS:: adolescence, bilingual/bicultural, mainstreaming, middle schools,qualitative research, teacher education/development

Research over the last decade suggests that English language learners(ELLs) have not been receiving adequate support in their regular class-

rooms (Fitzgerald, 1995; Fu, 1995; Mohr, 2004). This research shows that ELLsdo not seem to be well supported by classroom teachers because many suchteachers lack understanding of how their roles and teaching approaches canbest support ELLs’ needs. Supportive teaching practices for ELLs have takenon a new urgency: As ELLs increasingly populate U.S. schools, most teach-ers will have the students in their classrooms (Duhon-Ross & Battle, 2001).

BOGUM YOON, PhD, is an assistant professor at the Texas Woman’s University,Department of Reading, P.O. Box 425769, Denton, TX 76204-5769; e-mail:[email protected]. Her research interests include critical literacy, cultural andsocial identity, and teacher education on English language learners.

American Educational Research JournalJune 2008, Vol. 45, No. 2, pp. 495-522

DOI: 10.3102/0002831208316200© 2008 AERA. http://aerj.aera.net

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Researchers (e.g., Ladson-Billings, 1994; Noddings, 1984) remind us thatteaching students goes beyond language issues, and teachers’ roles shouldextend to include their cultural and social needs. Teachers may need to expandtheir pedagogy to include more than language learning strategies when theywork with ELLs. However, much research on classroom teachers’ roles regard-ing ELLs has focused primarily on their roles in meeting the students’ linguisticneeds under the assumption that they need mainly English language instruc-tion (Harper & de Jong, 2004; Rossell, 2004). This linguistic-only focus is limit-ing since it may overlook that ELLs are “learners,” as are all other students, whoneed access to many different learning opportunities. Furthermore, it may pre-vent us from seeing “the fuller, more complicated realities of these students’lives” (Gutiérrez & Orellana, 2006, p. 504) in the classroom where ELLs portrayand position themselves while interacting with teachers and peers.

The central purpose of this article is to present a study of regular class-room teachers’ views of their roles and their approaches to working withELLs. The theoretical framework for the study is positioning theory (Harré &van Langenhove, 1999), which is described in more detail below. In thisstudy I focused on the dynamics of classrooms in which the teachers inter-act with ELLs, with a special focus on how teachers offer or limit opportuni-ties for the students’ participation in classroom activities. The data for thisstudy come from classroom observations of three middle school English lan-guage arts teachers over one semester. The following questions guided thiscollective case study: (a) How do regular classroom teachers describe theirroles with regard to ELLs? and (b) How do the teachers’ pedagogicalapproaches relate to the ELLs’ participatory actions in the classroom?

In this article, I use the term English language learners to describe thestudents observed because it has been widely accepted in the relevant fieldto differentiate this group of students from native English-speaking students(Peregoy & Boyle, 2001), but it needs to be remembered that this article doesnot focus on how the teachers teach the English language and how the stu-dents acquire it from the linguistic perspective.

Research on ELLs

Until the mid-1990s, little research had focused on secondary-level ELLsin regular classrooms in the United States (Faltis, 1999). Due to the expeditedmainstreaming of ELLs from English as a second language (ESL) classes to reg-ular classes, new research is examining their experiences in both classes(Duff, 2001). For many years, researchers studying ELLs have been concernedabout the students’ language development as evident in the focus on oral orwritten proficiency (McKay & Wong, 1996), but little recognition was givento the students’ cultural and social needs. In addition, there is limited researchabout the influence of classroom teachers’ approaches on ELLs’ participationin regular classrooms. In this literature review, I address research regardingteachers’ views toward ELLs, their teaching approaches, and research aboutthe ways ELLs portray and position themselves in regular classes.

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A few studies have explored teachers’ beliefs regarding ELLs and theirteaching practices (e.g., Fu, 1995; Gersten, 1999). For example, in her studyof four Laotian refugee adolescents’ learning experiences in an Americanschool, Fu (1995) raised issues of regular classroom teachers’ roles in teach-ing these students. The classroom teachers considered the students “deficient”and felt that handling them was a frustrating task. The teachers did not wantthe students to be in their classrooms, and they believed that ESL teachers car-ried the responsibility for the students’ progress. The classroom teachers didnot assume full responsibility for teaching ELLs, even though the studentsspent most of their time in the regular classroom. The study suggests that theregular classroom teachers positioned themselves as appropriate only formainstream students by positioning the ESL teacher as appropriate only forELLs. The study also suggests that the regular classroom teachers positionedthe ELLs as a frustration. The teachers’ frustration was largely caused by theirfocus on the students’ linguistic needs only. The issue of the students’ culturaland social needs was not taken into consideration for their learning.

Gersten (1999) supports Fu’s findings in this respect. In a study of fourmonolingual English-speaking teachers teaching Latino ELLs in Grades 4, 5, and6 in regular classrooms, Gersten provides evidence that the teachers were notable to support ELLs’ literacy learning. The teachers were frustrated by teach-ing ELLs. The instruction provided by these frustrated teachers was focusedmostly on vocabulary development, grammar, and spelling out of context. Inother words, the teachers focused mainly on the students’ English languageneeds. The study reveals that the teachers did not expand their roles of teach-ing ELLs beyond language teaching, but viewed their roles in a limited manner.

Although the study by Gersten (1999) provides insights about teachers’views of teaching ELLs, the focus was not on the issue of how ELLs portrayedand positioned themselves while they interacted with their teachers andpeers. The study was drawn from the teachers’ perspectives, and the students’voices were missing. However, several scholars’ works are conspicuous inattempts to include the students’ perspectives as they discussed the issue ofELLs’ learning in regular classroom contexts. For instance, Miller (2000) con-ducted a study of several Asian immigrant students who had recently arrivedin an Australian high school. The study provides evidence of how the stu-dents were positioned by the dominant Anglo-Australian teachers and peers.Some students mentioned that they did not like to speak because of their dif-ferent accents. Because of their accents, they were not recognized andaccepted as legitimate group members by others. The Australian classmatessimply did not talk to the students. Failing to be accepted by the mainstreammembers, these ELLs remained silent without challenging their Australianclassmates. The study suggests that the ELLs were aware of their positioningas outsiders, a position that was established by the dominant group. Withoutchallenging the dominant classmates and repositioning their identity as legit-imate members, the ELLs tended to remain silent and isolated.

Norton’s (2000) findings are congruent with those of Miller. Throughthe experiences of five female participants, Norton discussed the issue of

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students’ language learning in the mainstream context. The participants weresometimes motivated, extroverted, and confident and sometimes unmoti-vated, introverted, and anxious. At times, they remained silent and at othertimes, they spoke. Their different positioning was shown to vary accordingto different contexts such as when they were within the dominant culture orthe subdominant culture. All of the participants had difficulty speaking underconditions of marginalization. If they felt inferior, they were hesitant tospeak. Norton’s findings suggest ways in which individuals act and positionthemselves differently according to different contexts.

The studies by Miller (2000) and Norton (2000) suggest that learningmay change as a function of the interrelationships due to social powerdynamics. Walsh (1991) discussed this issue in her findings and argued thecomplexities of ELLs’ language learning in mainstream settings. She con-ducted a study of Puerto Rican students in the United States and found thatthe students were positioned differently in relation to one another, the sub-ject matter, and the teacher. According to the power dynamics that the stu-dents were aware of, they positioned themselves differently. Walsh arguesthat in an unequal society where power relations are continuously at work,participation and dialogue do not occur as freely among language learners.

The main reason for students’ anxiety, silence, and different positioninghas much to do with being outsiders in the regular classroom context. Thestudents’ “affective filter” (Krashen, 1982) increases when they are positionedas outsiders, which inhibits their participation in learning. As Pappamihiel(2002) argues through her study focusing on Mexican students in the U.S.school system, ELLs’ anxiety levels are higher in regular classrooms than inESL classrooms, where students feel much more comfortable. This finding isconsistent with that of the study by Cha (2006), which focused on Koreanstudents in regular classes and ESL classes. These results indicate that learn-ing in the regular classroom, where the hidden power relation exists, is notan easy task for ELLs from different ethnic groups such as Hispanic or Asian.

To date, little of the research on ELLs has focused on how teachers’views of their roles and pedagogical practices are related to ELLs’ participa-tory behaviors in the classroom. More research on these issues is needed tounderstand these dynamics and increase teachers’ awareness of how theirroles and teaching practices support or constrain ELLs’ learning in the class-room. Positioning theory provides a theoretical perspective for work on stu-dents’ classroom participation.

Theoretical Perspectives

Positioning theory is defined as “the study of local moral orders as ever-shifting patterns of mutual and contestable rights and obligations of speakingand acting” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 1). “Positioning” is a metaphor-ical term originally introduced to analyze interpersonal encounters from a dis-cursive viewpoint (Hollway, 1984). The concept of positioning enablesresearchers to make sense of the dynamics of evolving social interactions: how

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persons position themselves and how they are positioned by others within aspecific context (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999).

Two relevant perspectives on positioning are important here. One modeof positioning is intentional self-positioning: This is what Davies and Harré(1990) call “reflexive positioning in which one positions oneself” (p. 48). Theyclaim that individuals view the world from a certain position: That is, individu-als’ self-positioning guides the way in which they act and think about their roles,assignments, and duties in a given context. From the constructionist point ofview, individuals’ self-positioning is manifested in various discursive practicessuch as taking responsibility for their actions. The discursive practices of posi-tioning make possible a way of expressing one’s stance: “by indexing one’sstatements with the point of view one has on its relevant world” (Harré & vanLangenhove, 1999, p. 62). Teachers’ stated beliefs on their relevant world helpto explain how they position themselves in the classroom. Some teachers, forexample, might position themselves as teachers for all students and othersmight position themselves as content teachers focusing on regular educationstudents. Whatever the positions teachers take, that positioning guides them intheir interactive approaches with students in classroom settings.

The other important mode of positioning is interactive positioning, “inwhich what one person says positions another” (Davies & Harré, 1990,p. 48). Unlike reflexive positioning, which does not offer details as to howand why the same person positions herself differently in different contexts,interactive positioning fills the gap with the idea that the phenomena occurin relation to others. In this view, positioning people in particular ways lim-its or extends what those people can say and do (Adams & Harré, 2001) andinhibits or provides choice of speaking forms, actions, and thoughts (Harré &van Langenhove, 1999). That is, if individuals are “positioned as incompe-tent in a certain field of endeavour they will not be accorded the right to con-tribute to discussions in that field” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 1).Based on these dynamic relationships of positioning, Harré and Moghaddam(2003) further claim that positioning individuals as deficient may deny themthe right to correct their cognitive performance and positioning them as intel-ligent may allow them the possibility to improve performance.

These characteristics of interactive positioning help us understand teachers’positioning of ELLs in the classroom. Teachers can intentionally or unintention-ally position the students in more positive or more negative ways through theirteaching approaches. Teachers might position ELLs without realizing that theymay be limiting the students’ opportunities to develop a positive sense of them-selves as learners. As positioning theorists (e.g., Tan & Moghaddam, 1995;Taylor, Bougie, & Caouette, 2003) believe, any positioning, including interper-sonal and intergroup positioning, involves issues surrounding how individualssee themselves. “Positive action in response to needs” (Howie, 1999, p. 58) isnecessary to encourage individuals to locate themselves positively. Theoretically,it seems evident that teachers’ positioning of ELLs as important and teachers’response to their needs is crucial for the students to be able to view themselvespositively, which might influence their participation in learning.

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Along with positioning theory, this study also builds on some of the workon culturally relevant pedagogy, particularly Ladson-Billing’s (1992, 1994,1995) perspective. Drawn from Winfield’s (1986) concept of teachers’ roles,Ladson-Billings (1994) centered on the roles for students’ engagement in learn-ing: assuming responsibility versus shifting responsibility. She argues that theteachers who function as “conductors” believe that it is their responsibility toassist students to maximize their learning, but the teachers who work as “refer-ral agents” shift their responsibility to other teachers. The teachers who assumeresponsibility for students’ learning aim to accomplish three main goals: tohelp students be academically strong, culturally competent, and sociopoliti-cally critical. These goals help us understand how classroom teachers’ rolesshould be inclusive of ELLs’ diverse needs. Not only must the teachers attendto the language differences of the students, but those who employ culturallyrelevant pedagogy must attend to their cultural and social needs as well. Thus,in this study I observed how teachers attended to students’ cultural and socialneeds, in addition to examining their positioning of different kinds of students.

Method

Data Sources

I collected data over one semester at Flint Middle School (a pseudonym,as are all names), which is located in a suburban area in New York State. Theschool’s ethnic makeup in 2003 was 83% White, 11.5% Black, 4% Asian, and1.5% Hispanic. Approximately 27% of students received free or reducedmeals. The district had 110 ELLs. Flint Middle School served 23 ELLs. Theschool served a wide range of students of Bolivian, Chilean, Indian, Japanese,Korean, Nigerian, Pakistan, Puerto Rican, Russian, and Ukrainian descent.

A “collective case study” (Stake, 1995) method was employed to studythe teaching practices of three regular classroom teachers. Yin (2003) notedthat case study is “the preferred strategy when ‘how’ or ‘why’ questions arebeing posed, when the investigator has little control over events, and whenthe focus is on a contemporary phenomenon within some real-life context”(p. 1). Case study was an appropriate tool to investigate the phenomena ofhow each teacher’s roles and approaches were played out with regard to theELLs’ participation focusing on the contemporary classroom dynamics.

In-depth interviews with the three teachers and six focal students andextensive observations in their classrooms constituted the primary forms ofdata. I conducted at least four 1-hour formal interviews and several informalinterviews with each teacher. In addition, I held two formal interviews andseveral informal interviews with the six focal students. All formal interviewswith the teachers and the students were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim.

For classroom observations, I visited the school almost every day acrossone semester, staying from the first period to the last period, approximately 6.5hours a day or 130 hours a month. I observed two sixth-grade English teach-ers’ classes in the morning and one seventh-grade English teacher’s class in theafternoon, staying about 1.5 to 2 hours in each class. After I observed the ELLs

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in each of these English language arts classes, I observed all of them again inthe ESL class in the afternoon. Because I was attempting to capture the dynam-ics of each classroom focusing on the teachers’ practices and the focal students’behaviors, I took field notes during each teacher’s class. I also audiotaped class-room observations and cross-checked them with the field notes. The audio-taped classroom observations were transcribed, focusing on the interactionsbetween the teachers and the focal students. In this article, I chose the specificexamples and quotes from my extensive data, which highlight the patterns ofeach teacher’s interactions with ELLs and the students’ particular reactions tothe classroom activities, such as withdrawing or participating.

Since positioning can be detected through people’s speech and acts(Harré & Moghaddam, 2003; Harré & van Langenhove, 1991), I closely listenedto the students’ dialogue. I also observed the students’ numerous behaviorsand interactions in each classroom that could be interpreted as expressions oftheir positioning. In order to confirm the trustworthiness of my observation,I asked them several questions using a stimulated recall method in informal orformal interviews. I did not ask them questions such as “What was your posi-tioning?” Rather, I asked about their emotions in specific events, such as “Howdid you feel at that time?” or “Tell me about what happened at that time” toidentify their perceived positioning. Overall, I focused on eliciting dialogues,listening to the students during interviews, and observing their behaviorsacross classroom contexts while they interacted with their teachers and peers.

Researcher’s Role

My role as a researcher was different according to the classroom situa-tions. I functioned as a nonparticipant observer when each teacher was con-ducting his or her lesson. I wrote field notes while sitting in the corner ofeach classroom. However, I played the role of a more participatory observerwhen some students looked at me and raised their hands for help whileteachers were busy assisting other students. I observed my focal studentsfrom a close distance when they did small group work or pair work, sittingto the side of the group or pair. Sometimes I observed them from a remotedistance to learn more about their positioning while they interacted withtheir peers and the teachers. In brief, I tried to balance my research role asa passive participant observer and a moderate participant observer (Spradley,1980) according to situations and the teachers’ and students’ requests.

Participants

I first contacted the school’s ESL teacher to find out who was teachingELLs in their English classes. There were four teachers: two sixth-grade teach-ers, one seventh-grade teacher, and one eighth-grade teacher. Three Englishteachers were willing to be my participants (see Table 1 for the teachers’ pro-files); the eighth-grade teacher did not respond to my e-mails and phone calls.Mrs. Young and Mr. Brown were sixth-grade English teachers, and theyshared the same lesson plans. They taught English language arts/reading/

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social studies in a block schedule, with each block lasting about 2 hours. Mrs.Taylor taught seventh-grade English. The three teachers mentioned that theyhad never taken a course in their graduate programs regarding teaching ELLs.Mrs. Taylor said she received a 1-day training session from the district approx-imately 10 years earlier. Mrs. Young and Mr. Brown had no professionaldevelopment after they were hired 6 years before.

Six students participated in this study. I chose two students from each ofthree classrooms (see Table 2 for the students’ profiles). My original intentwas to choose the students who positioned themselves differently or werepositioned differently than any other ELLs by the teachers. However, I did nothave much choice in selecting sixth-grade ELLs. Mr. Brown had two ELLs(Natasha and Jun) in his A class and one in his B class. Since I needed tochoose at least two students from each teacher, I had to select his Class A.Due to scheduling, choosing Mr. Brown’s Class A led me to select Mrs.Young’s Class B. Her Class B also had two ELLs (Ana and Dae). There wereseven ELLs in Mrs. Taylor’s class. The selection criteria of the focal studentswere guided by positioning theory—reflexive positioning and interactivepositioning. After my close observation of the positioning of each ELL for thefirst 3 weeks in Mrs. Taylor’s class and in the ESL class, I selected Sandra andHa because they positioned themselves very differently in Mrs. Taylor’s classand their ESL class, whereas the other ELLs did not. Sandra and Ha appearedto participate actively in the classroom activities in the ESL class, but they didnot in Mrs. Taylor’s class. In addition, Mrs. Taylor’s positioning of Sandra andHa led me to choose these students: She felt Sandra and Ha were not hard-working students compared to the other ELLs. In order to closely examine thestudents’ self-positioning in different classroom contexts and the teacher’sinteractive positioning of the students, I chose to focus on Sandra and Ha.

Data Analysis

Data analysis included interview transcripts, field notes and audiotapedtranscripts of classroom observations, research logs, interview memos, and

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Table 1Teachers’ Profiles

Teacher Grade/Subject Age Ethnicity Teaching Years Major/MA

Mrs. Young Sixth/ELA Late 40s European 6 ReadingAmerican

Mr. Brown Sixth/ELA Late 20s European 6 ReadingAmerican

Mrs. Taylor Seventh/ELA Mid 50s European 35 EnglishAmerican education

Note. ELA = English language arts.



documents such as student work. Students’ work was useful in identifyingtheir perceived positioning. I relied on Merriam’s (1998) case study analysis,Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) coding strategies, and Spradley’s (1980) taxo-nomic analysis for my analyses. I utilized Merriam’s two stages of analysis:the within-case analysis and the cross-case analysis. For within-case analy-sis, I considered the cases of the teachers individually, focusing on theirviews of their roles and their teaching approaches with ELLs. After eachteacher’s case, I started a cross-case analysis in order to build a general pat-tern of explanation that helped to account for the three teachers’ cases.During that process, I focused on any differences or similarities in their per-ceptions of their roles and their teaching approaches.

To obtain a big picture of my data inductively, I followed Strauss andCorbin’s (1990) open coding system, during which I wrote down anythingthat came to my mind in pencil while I read each teacher’s interview tran-scripts. I did this because it helped to ground the analysis thoroughly in thedata and helped me to bracket any preconceived assumptions, based on myfamiliarity with the school and classroom contexts from extensive observa-tion. Then I used the axial and selective coding process of breaking down,examining, and conceptualizing data. I followed the same process withaudiotaped observation transcripts as I did with the interview transcripts andfound several distinctive categories according to each teacher’s case.

Next, I developed broader categories by analyzing my data usingSpradley’s (1980) taxonomic analysis, which focuses more on inclusive cat-egories. These categories were guided by culturally relevant pedagogy(Ladson-Billings, 1995) that illuminated the teachers’ roles and approachesand their attempts to meet the students’ needs. Since culturally relevant ped-agogy focuses on teachers’ expanding roles to include students’ cultural andsocial needs, I analyzed the teachers’ views of their roles as “broad” if theyconsistently embraced the ELLs’ diverse needs and as “narrow” or “limited”

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Table 2Focal Students’ Profiles

Sex/Grade/ Length of ESLName Age Ethnicity Stay (Years) Placement SES

Natasha F/6/11 Russian 1 Beginner/ Middleintermediate

Jun M/6/11 Korean 2 Advanced MiddleAna F/6/11 Russian 1 Intermediate Low-middleDae M/6/11 Korean 2 Intermediate Low-middleSandra F/7/12 Bolivian 2 Advanced MiddleHa M/7/12 Korean 2 Advanced Middle

(U.S. citizen)

Note. ESL = English as a second language; SES = socioeconomic status.



if they did not include ELLs by positioning themselves as content teachers orteachers only for regular education students. Culturally relevant teachingcontrasted with an assimilationist approach offered a lens for analyzing theteachers’ approaches as tending toward “American monoculturalism” or“multiculturalism.” Through this taxonomic analysis, each teacher’s case wasdivided into more inclusive categories (see Table 3 for each teacher’s cate-gories). In order to check the reliability of these categories, two other coders,who are also qualitative researchers and have experiences in case studymethods, read the transcripts of my data. Both of them consistently codedthe data with the same codes.

Positioning theory provided insights for analyzing data as to how theteachers’ approaches were related to the students’ possibilities for their learn-ing. Positioning theory is not a method or technique (Ritchie, 2002), so I usedit as a conceptual framework to interpret the classroom dynamics in a moregeneral manner. Using positioning theory as a lens, not a method, was par-ticularly useful in this study since my analysis focused on the teachers’ con-tinuous positioning of the ELLs throughout the semester in a more holisticway. To show how the teachers’ positioning of the ELLs works in relation tothe students’ participation in the classroom, I provide here an example of myobservation data: Mrs. Young noticed that Dae was silent, and she encour-aged participation by asking about his experience in Korea. Dae began toparticipate actively with a confident attitude. I analyzed the observation datainformed by positioning theory in this way: The teacher’s intentional posi-tioning of Dae as a member of the community affirmed his right to partici-pate in the activity. The teacher extended the possibilities for his positiveidentity as a participant, which was then demonstrated through his active

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Table 3Major Data Categories for Each Teacher

Teacher Positioning Roles for ELLs Pedagogies

Mrs. Young Teacher for all Broad Multiculturalismstudents ELLs’ diverse Understanding of ELLs’ needs

needs Culturally relevant teachingMr. Brown Teacher for Narrow American monoculturalism

regular ELLs’ linguistic Unaware of ELLs’ cultural andeducation needs social needsstudents Student-centered teaching

Mrs. Taylor Teacher for Narrow English monolingualisma single ELLs’ linguistic Indifference to ELLs’ culturalsubject needs and social needs

Teacher-controlled teaching

Note. ELL = English language learner.



participation and confident manner. The observation data were triangulatedby the interview data. For example, Dae expressed his feelings by saying “Iwas very happy” in an interview referring to the event. That is, the observa-tion data of the students’ perceived positioning were constantly analyzed bycomparing the interview data to investigate their emotions. When the inter-view data supported my observation data, I added them to my categories.

Findings

The findings for each teacher’s case are presented in three sections: theteachers’ stated beliefs, their teaching practices, and the ELLs’ participatorybehaviors. To answer the second research question as to how the teachers’approaches are related to the ELLs’ participatory actions in the classroom, itis necessary to address the students’ perceived positioning by looking at theirinteractions with their teachers and peers. Thus, in the third section of eachteacher’s case, I provide space to illustrate these dynamics.

Mrs. Young’s Case

Mrs. Young’s stated beliefs: “I am a teacher of children.” As a person whofirmly believes that “many of the world’s problems can be solved througheducation,” Mrs. Young’s fundamental premise for teaching ELLs is based onher expanding role as a teacher. She believes that teaching all childrenincluding ELLs is her responsibility:

I am a teacher of children. I don’t care whether they are ESL, specialed., regular ed., gifted, or talented children. I did not sign on to be ateacher only to work with the brightest and the best. I signed on towork with all of them. . . . I am supportive of their [ELLs] learning.They have to know I am approachable. They have to see me as some-one who is willing to help them to move them forward.

Mrs. Young’s perception of her roles is general and inclusive. Her reflex-ive positioning indicates that she does not dichotomize her role merely asteaching regular education students or specify her role as focusing on theELLs’ linguistic needs. Through the statements of her roles with regard toELLs, Mrs. Young positions herself as a supporter for the students’ learning.Since Mrs. Young believes that teaching the ELLs is her responsibility as well,she reported that she attempts multiple ways of supporting the students’diverse needs without solely depending on the ESL teacher. To Mrs. Young,the ESL teacher is a bridge that links her with her ELLs’ families for support-ing the students’ needs.

Culturally relevant teaching: embracing ELLs’ needs. Mrs. Young playedan active role in meeting the students’ cultural, social, and academic needsin her classroom. Her approach was based on building a trusting relation-ship and celebrating ELLs’ differences:

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They need a friendship and support, and they need to know that theycan count on someone. I hope they feel that they count on me. . . .I’m putting value on their lives and their cultures. I think that helpsthem retain their heritage and their pride and their identity becausethat can be lost when you are in another culture. Socially, I think weneed to celebrate differences.

My close observation of her classroom showed that Mrs. Young used manyintentional approaches to include ELLs in classroom activities, to embrace theircultural differences, and to help them sustain their culture. She asked the ELLsquestions such as “How do you celebrate that?” “How do people feel aboutthis?” and “What are your traditions?” For instance, as Thanksgiving Dayapproached, Mrs. Young asked her ELLs whether they celebrated it in theircountries before she shared the story The Thanksgiving Visitor, by Capote(1997). Dae, who is from Korea, said “Yes” in an excited voice and talked abouthow Korean people eat rice cake called “Songpyun.” Mrs. Young respondedwith a smile and added that she wished to have one. She positioned Dae as apart of the community by providing him with opportunities to share his culturaldifferences. This interactive positioning of Dae as an important member of theclass community offered him the right to participate in the activity.

Mrs. Young emphasized that having ELLs feel as though they were a partof the group in a class could not be accomplished by her alone. She believedthat prompting English-speaking peers’ understanding about other cultures wasa way to help ELLs be a part of the community. To accomplish this, Mrs. Youngusually talked about her experiences in another culture. She drew her students’attention to the challenges faced when language differences appeared to be abarrier. For example, after reminding other students how hard it would be ifthey were to go to other countries and study a language that was entirely new,she shared her experience in England, where she could not understand oneman’s heavy accent even though he spoke in English. Mrs. Young also talkedabout her sister’s experience in Japan. Her sister, who could not understandJapanese, was afraid to go outside. Mrs. Young provided these types of storiesin the hope that it might be helpful for native English-speaking students tounderstand other cultures and the ELLs’ situation in a new environment.

Mrs. Young reported that her intention of having her ELLs share theiropinions and positioning them as intellectual was not for the benefit only ofELLs, but also for non-ELLs:

I want non-ESL kids to know that their beliefs and their cultures aredifferent. I want them to understand and to enjoy and appreciatethose things. If we don’t, we are in big trouble. I don’t want Americanchildren to think that Americans are better than Iraq or Iraqi children.Because that is not true. . . . I really enjoy having all the ESL kids onour team. It adds a dimension that we would not have otherwise.

Mrs. Young’s pedagogy allowed for all the students to benefit along with theELLs. To Mrs. Young, teaching ELLs was not a frustration. ELLs’ culturaldifferences were benefits for her class. The ELLs were the main resources that

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added this realm for the sake of all the students in her classroom. In sum,through her practices, Mrs. Young attempted to accommodate the ELLs’ differ-ent cultural references rather than have them assimilate American monoculture.

Powerful ELLs in Mrs. Young’s class. Dae and Ana positioned themselvesas active participants in Mrs. Young’s classroom. As the days went by, theybegan to raise their hands more frequently to express their opinions andasked questions to Mrs. Young and their peers without hesitation. Given thatthe ELLs in her class were very quiet and rarely participated in their learningactivities in the beginning of the semester, their altered self-positioning wasdistinctive. The students’ changed positioning appeared to be related to theirpeers’ interactive positioning of them as learning partners. The mainstreampeers were friendly to the ELLs. The non-ELLs initiated asking the ELLs ques-tions about their culture, praised their efforts, and helped one another.Encouraging and complimenting statements by their American peers such as“It is cool,” “Tell me more about your school,” “Wow, you did a good job,”and “Interesting” were commonly heard in Mrs. Young’s class. For instance,Dae received 83% on a social studies test. He usually got under 70%. HisAmerican partner, who got 98%, encouraged Dae by saying, “Wow, you dida good job.” Dae responded to the boy’s encouragement with “Thank you.”When I asked the boy later to explain his comments, he said, “He is Korean.English is not his language, but he did a wonderful job. It is amazing.” Theboy understood Dae’s difficulties as a non-English speaking person. Hisremarks showed his interactive positioning of Dae: Instead of positioningDae as a poor student since he earned a lower grade, he positioned him as acapable student.

The ELLs were engaged and participated more when Mrs. Young andtheir American peers showed interest and offered encouragement to them.Before reading aloud from the first chapter of the book My name is BrianBrain (Betancourt, 1995), which deals with students’ school experiences, Mrs.Young asked about school differences in Korea and the United States.Responding to Mrs. Young’s request, Dae talked about his school in Korea. Heexplained that school fighting is not taken seriously in Korea. Korean teach-ers do not deal with fighting, and they expect the students involved to solvethe issue by themselves. After hearing that, Mrs. Young said, “That’s interest-ing!” and some students said, “Wow, that’s cool. I want to go to Korea.” Excitedby his peers’ interest, Dae talked exuberantly to the group sitting with him,who wanted to hear more about it. After letting him talk for a while, Mrs.Young moved on to read aloud from the first chapter. Dae mentioned this inci-dent when I asked about his feelings in an interview: “I was very happy theywanted to hear about Korean school. . . . I think my ELA teacher likes othercultures.” Mrs. Young’s encouragement of Dae to share his experience andher other students’ interactive positioning of Dae as an important member ofthe group allowed him opportunities to participate in learning activities. Hisself-positioning as a powerful student was disclosed through his active partici-pation and emotion.

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Ana, who was from Russia, also received friendly gestures from her peers.For instance, Ana’s partner, who was sitting next to her, saw that Ana did notsecurely tape her 20 vocabulary cards on the file folder for her social studieshomework. When Ana’s partner saw this, she brought tape from the teacher’sdesk and helped Ana tape the cards firmly. In addition, one day, one of herAmerican peers approached Ana and asked if she could come to her birthdayparty. Ana responded to her with a smile and told her that she would ask hermother. Ana’s interview responses, which I obtained at the end of the semes-ter, illustrated her comfort level working with her peers in Mrs. Young’s class:“They are friendly and nice. Even though they don’t understand me, they say,it’s ok. They don’t laugh at me.” Her professed perceptions of her peers in Mrs.Young’s class stood in contrast to those of peers in other classes. In an ESLclass, Ana disclosed her anger about one boy in math class who kept callingher “Hey, Russian” on the school bus instead of calling her by name.

Ana’s comfort level was also shown in her participation. Ana, who wasquiet in the beginning of the year, frequently raised her hand to present herideas. Sometimes she almost stood up from the chair, waving her hand, to becalled on by Mrs. Young to share her stories. For example, Ana shared her writ-ing about her mother for a “territory” project in which she could choose herown topic. Ana read her story about how her mother “screamed” at her becauseAna did not want to eat too much so she could keep her “slim” body.Her mother was concerned about Ana, who, she thought, cared only about herappearance without considering her health. During a break while most of herpeers left the classroom, Ana approached Mrs. Young and continued the storyabout her mother. Both Mrs. Young and Ana laughed while they were talking.

These examples indicate that the ELLs positioned themselves as activeparticipants when they were accepted as a part of the community. The ELLswere positioned as cultural resources and learning partners. The Americanpeers seemed to follow Mrs. Young’s model in interacting with her ELLs. InMrs. Young’s classroom where her active approach was played out, the ELLsimproved their interaction with mainstream peers, without losing their iden-tity as important ELLs. According to Cummins (1994a), teachers who wish toextend students’ possibilities for their positive identity view students as cul-tural resources. Mrs. Young’s culturally relevant approaches, which mirroredher interactive positioning of ELLs as resourceful and powerful, expandedthe ELLs’ possibilities for their learning.

Mr. Brown’s Case

Mr. Brown’s stated beliefs: “I have never seen myself as an ESL teacher.”Mr. Brown’s notion of his role and his teaching approaches contrasteddirectly with that of Mrs. Young. Mr. Brown did not view his role to includemeeting the needs of ELLs:

I have never seen myself as an ESL teacher. I don’t do a lot of specialthings for my ESL students. I don’t. I don’t know how bad it is [laughs],

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but also we are not trained at all like how to work with ESL teachersor regular classroom teachers. I work hard with them [ELLs] as muchas they are willing to, but I don’t teach specifically for them. . . .I think the ESL teacher’s job is to make their time beneficial.

Mr. Brown’s reflexive positioning showed that he viewed himself as a teacherfor regular education students because he was trained to teach them. In aninterview, he acknowledged that his focus is on regular education studentsand added this reason: “The other students understand my English, but theydon’t necessarily understand the message, the content that I’m trying toteach. So in that sense, they do need my help.” Mr. Brown’s expressed per-ception of his roles was connected to his view of the ESL teacher’s role. Hebelieved that teaching ELLs was mainly the ESL teacher’s job. By positioningthe ESL teacher as a teacher for ELLs, Mr. Brown relinquished his responsi-bility for teaching ELLs to her.

American monoculturalism: excluding ELLs’ needs. Mr. Brown did notplay an active role in assisting his ELLs in his classroom. In an interview,Mr. Brown mentioned that he wanted his ELLs to view him as “a model of anEnglish speaker.” They were simply “there” in his classroom listening to himspeaking. Mr. Brown rarely approached the ELLs in his classroom unless theyasked for help. He seldom called on them to share their experiences or ideasin a whole group discussion. Mr. Brown led his class in a student-centered,“democratic” way (I define “democratic” here generally, such as following theopinion of the majority, allowing individuals a choice, and respecting theirchoices). Mr. Brown provided students with choice. His students could choosetheir partners to work with and express their opinions when they wanted to.This teacher rarely “forced” his students to answer questions that he posed. Totalk or not to talk was the student’s choice, and Mr. Brown respected it.

The teacher conducted a number of whole group or small group discus-sions throughout the semester. He focused on discussion-based approacheswith an emphasis on American culture. During a whole group discussion, Mr.Brown usually started the week with topics popular in American culture suchas television shows and football games. For example, Mr. Brown mentionedin class on Thursday morning that “Today is Survivor Thursday.” The majorityof the students raised their hands to show him that they were going to watchSurvivor. However, the two ELLs, Jun and Natasha, did not raise their hands.

The next day, after Mr. Brown wrote “Drake vs Morgan” on the board,he brought out a piece of cardboard that had the pictures of each individualon the Survivor teams and crossed off the players who were off the team.Putting the picture on the board in front of the classroom, the teacher and thestudents speculated about which team members were going to survive untilthe end. While most of their mainstream peers were highly interactive andexcited about the issues, Natasha and Jun did not engage in the dialogue andsimply listened to their peers’ talk. Natasha appeared to be bored, touchingher hair and rolling her eyes.

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When Mr. Brown brought up American football games for a wholegroup discussion, Natasha and Jun again did not participate in the discus-sion. Mr. Brown wrote on the board, “What happened to our team?” whenthe local football team lost a game. While many of their classmates began alively discussion about the reasons, such as a quarterback’s mistake, Natashaand Jun kept silent. Both of the students said, in my stimulated recall, thatthey did not watch the football game. Jun said he was not interested inAmerican football games and did not know the rules of the games. Natashamentioned that she did not have time to watch television programs due tohaving too much homework every day.

The unintentional consequence of using American cultural referenceswas that it disengaged the ELLs from the main lesson. As a result, the teacherinadvertently positioned the ELLs as powerless and isolated. Mr. Brown andMrs. Young shared the same lesson plans, but his approach to the studentscontrasted sharply. He accommodated the needs of mainstream students butdid not open possibilities for the ELLs to participate in the classroom activi-ties. Although the ELLs should not be “excluded from full participation inclassrooms and in the learning activities” (Boyd et al., 2006, p. 330), his inad-vertent interactive positioning of the students as invisible throughout thesemester made it more difficult for them to join the learning community.

Powerless ELLs in Mr. Brown’s class. The two students, Jun and Natasha,looked nervous and uneasy throughout the semester. They rarely presented theirideas in whole class discussions. Even when they did, they spoke with very softvoices. While many of their American peers sat on a rug and exchanged theirideas, these two students usually listened at their desks without coming downto the rug. Jun, in particular, showed very different positioning in Mr. Brown’sclass as compared to the ESL class. The English teacher’s and the ESL teacher’scomments about him were entirely different. Mr. Brown commented, “Jun is veryquiet. He seems to be shy. He rarely participates.” The ESL teacher expresseddifferent opinions. She said, “Jun is very active. His participation is great. He isvery funny.” An ESL student teacher also described Jun as an animated studentwho never lost his smile coming into his ESL classroom. Jun’s statements illus-trated his different positioning in Mr. Brown’s class: “I don’t want to talk in thisclass. Why? I don’t know. I just don’t feel like it. In ESL, I talk a lot, as you know.I feel more comfortable there, but not in this class.” Jun emphasized, “Not in thisclass.” Jun did not state clearly the reason behind his silence, but his differentself-positioning provides an explanation for his different comfort levels and par-ticipation levels in Mr. Brown’s class and the ESL class.

The ELLs’ different positioning in the class appeared to be connected toAmerican peers’ resistance as well. The non-ELLs positioned them as unac-cepted members of the classroom community. Both students seemed to feelmuch more comfortable in a small group than in a whole class discussion.However, they were not confident enough to overcome some of their main-stream peers’ resistance. Natasha was sitting with two boys and two girls for

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small group work. After the group read about famous Egyptian leaders, theywere busy writing the important characteristics of the leaders. Natasha couldnot write a sentence, but nobody seemed to care about her difficulties. WhenNatasha showed her frustration by saying, “I could not follow you,” one of theAmerican girls said bluntly, “You didn’t say you didn’t understand,” as if blam-ing Natasha for not being able to follow the conversation. Natasha did not chal-lenge her positioning as an incapable person but remained quiet. She lookedpowerless. People position others (positioning), and others position them back(repositioning) (Tan & Moghaddam, 1995, 1999). Natasha’s repositioning, how-ever, did not occur under the mainstream student’s power. During the break,while most of the students went out to the restrooms and Mr. Brown was inthe hall to monitor them, Natasha approached me in the corner and disclosedher resentment by saying, “I don’t like this group.” She did not reveal her angerto the group but rather suppressed it. This incident shows that she sensed themainstream students’ hidden power. Another example also demonstrates herpeers’ interactive positioning of her as an unwelcome partner. Her partner(academically strong and characteristically nice, according to Mr. Brown), whosat next to her, usually went to work with other friends. Unable to find a part-ner, Natasha usually worked with special education students or the studentswho did not associate with other mainstream peers.

Jun also appeared to have difficulties in working with his classmates.One day in September, Jun was looking for a partner to work with. He wassupposed to find a partner who had the same interest in reading, such as thesame favorite author. After looking at his list, which had all of the students’reading preferences, including favorite authors and genre, he found twopeers whose favorite author was Roald Dahl. Realizing one of the girls wasabsent that day, he slowly approached the other girl, only to find out thatshe already had a partner to work with. Showing disappointment, he strolledto his desk. Finally, after looking around the whole classroom, he went to aboy who was working alone. The boy was often reprimanded by Mr. Brownbecause he did not turn in his homework. Later in the interview, Junexpressed his frustration:

I cannot find a partner. Everybody has a partner. They already havefriends who they work with. Here is a pair, and there is a pair. It ishard for me to cut in. I don’t have a friend to work with. The boy whoI worked with did not have the same interest in reading with me. Helikes R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps, which is a scary story. I don’t like thattype of story. But I had no choice but to work with him. I wanted towork with one of the two students who likes Roald Dahl.

Jun said that he was fascinated by Roald Dahl’s writing style and had read22 of the author’s works. Jun wanted to share his enthusiasm with someonewho had the same interest, but he had to partner with the boy who had adifferent interest. By talking about an author he had outgrown, Jun did nothave opportunities to be involved in a more meaningful learning activity.

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It was hard for Jun to be acknowledged by the mainstream students whodid not wish to position him as a knowledgeable peer. For instance, dur-ing one of the ELA classes, students were revising their writing about theirchosen topics. I was looking around each group to see what they were writ-ing. When I approached Jun’s group, one boy asked me how to spell“deserves.” As soon as Jun heard it, he spelled it clearly and with confidence,“d-e-s-e-r-v-e-s.” The first boy looked at me doubtfully and asked whether itwas right. I said, “Yes, it is correct.” Referring to this incident, Jun later stated,“They don’t trust me. They don’t think I know a lot of words.” Jun attemptedto position himself as knowledgeable, but his positioning was challenged byhis classmate who refused to accept Jun’s positioning. Jun’s agency, withwhich he attempted to position himself as a strong student, was inhibited byhis classmate’s perceptions.

As shown in Natasha’s and Jun’s examples, some of the mainstream stu-dents’ attitudes toward these students were not welcoming. AlthoughMr. Brown’s class appeared to be highly interactive and student centered,the two ELLs were isolated during whole group discussions and small groupwork, even when working with a partner. As Gee (1996) notes, individualsneed to be recognized and accepted as group members in order for them tobecome active participants in learning. By being recognized as unacceptablemembers in their regular classes, the ELLs could not join their learning com-munity in an active manner. The ELLs’ agency—the desire/motivation ofbeing in action (Johnston, 2004)—to participate in activities as legitimatemembers was often inhibited by the mainstream students’ hidden power.

Mrs. Taylor’s Case

Mrs. Taylor’s stated beliefs: “I am their English teacher.” Mrs. Taylor, aseventh-grade English teacher, viewed herself as a content teacher: “I amtheir English teacher. The ESL teacher has to be more of a generalist. She hasto know a little bit of everything, whereas I concentrate on one subject,English.” Mrs. Taylor emphasized her role as a language teacher, focusingon language skills when teaching ELLs:

I am concentrating more on English, writing skills, reading skills, andlanguage skills. I try to immerse them as best as I can. Immerse themin English language. I try to help them whenever they try to under-stand what’s going on.

Mrs. Taylor positioned herself as a subject teacher while she positioned theESL teacher as a generalist. By positioning the ESL teacher as a generalist,Mrs. Taylor expected her to take care of needs other than English that Mrs.Taylor did not consider to be her responsibility. In sum, Mrs. Taylor’sreflexive positioning indicated that her view of her roles focused on ELLs’language skills, and she did not take full responsibility for meeting herELLs’ diverse needs.

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Teacher-controlled teaching: disregarding ELLs’ needs. Mrs. Taylor empha-sized students’ individual work. Most of the time, all of her students sat individ-ually doing their own work by using worksheets, taking quizzes, listening, orfollowing along while she read a textbook to them. She sometimes stoppedreading to check her students’ understanding of the text, asking questions suchas “What situation is he in?” and “How did he survive?” After she responded toher students’ answers with “right” or “good,” she moved on to read the nextline. There was little interaction among the students throughout the semester.All of the students’ desks were arranged in rows with five or six desks in eachrow. The students sat alphabetically by their last name. One of my two focalstudents, a Korean boy named Ha, sat in the last seat of the second row. Theother student, Sandra, a Bolivian girl, sat in the third seat of the first row.

Mrs. Taylor did not view Ha and Sandra as willing to work as hard as theother students throughout the semester. As a person who strongly believedthat ELLs would learn literacy skills naturally and quickly when they wereplaced in a situation where only English was spoken, it was hard for Mrs.Taylor to understand why the students did not progress as much as other ELLsin her classroom. Mrs. Taylor showed her frustration toward Sandra and Ha.She talked seriously about Sandra’s problem first and Ha’s problem next:

Sandra is the biggest problem. Ha tends to be goofy. Most of my ESLstudents work very hard. Min works very hard. Gandi and the othergirls work very, very hard. I think they are making progress. But Ithink Sandra is just not as focused in ELA or really anything. . . . Themain problem is that she still speaks Spanish. And I think some of thestructure in her writing is more in the Spanish way than in the Englishway. She is all over the place. She is not very good at thinking logi-cally: introduction, body, and conclusion.

Mrs. Taylor attributed Sandra’s academic failure to the student’s primary lan-guage. Many researchers (e.g., Cummins, 2000; Freeman, Freeman, & Mercuri,2005) believe that students’ native language facilitates second language learningbecause knowledge of literacy in their first language can transfer readily to theirsecond, but Mrs. Taylor views it as a problem to overcome. She valued a singleview of traditionally structured English essay format and did not accommodateany other forms. Mrs. Taylor acknowledged that Sandra was struggling in herclassroom. However, by positioning content knowledge over learner knowledgeand by viewing the student’s use of Spanish as a problem, the teacher did notattempt to diversify or modify her teaching approaches to meet Sandra’s indi-vidual needs in a more active way. My observation data provided no specificexamples showing that Mrs. Taylor approached Sandra and Ha to support theirneeds. She rarely approached these two students except to collect assignments,distribute worksheets or handouts, and return their graded papers.

Mrs. Taylor kept mentioning in an interview that the other ELLs’ “workethic is excellent.” She seemed to have a positive perception toward the stu-dents who worked well without her particular assistance. Although my data

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did not provide any specific examples of how Mrs. Taylor assisted the otherELLs to meet their needs individually in the classroom, her positive attitudestoward the students were shown through her nonverbal gestures such as smil-ing and nodding when she answered the questions by some of the studentsduring a quiz time. In sum, compared to the other ELLs, teaching Sandra andHa was frustrating to Mrs. Taylor since they did not belong to her category ofthe model ELLs who have a good work ethic and work well on their own.

Invisible ELLs in Mrs. Taylor’s class. Sandra and Ha acted as though theywere invisible in Mrs. Taylor’s class. To Sandra and Ha, who usually sat downand listened whether they were engaged or not, Mrs. Taylor’s class might bethe “best” place for them because nobody seemed to care about them as longas they kept quiet and did their own work. Their self-positioning in this class-room was different from the ESL classroom. In that setting, Ha was often cau-tioned by the ESL teacher since he talked “a lot.” There were only a few timesthat Sandra and Ha raised their hands and answered questions in Mrs.Taylor’s class throughout the semester. Ha commented, “I don’t have achance to talk. I mean I don’t have time to talk in the ELA class.” Sandra men-tioned, “I don’t have anything to say in ELA class. But it’s ok. She [Mrs. Taylor]doesn’t care.” Sandra also added, “I just keep everything to myself. I don’tthink she likes me.” Sandra disclosed her feelings that Mrs. Taylor was notconcerned about her. Over the semester, Sandra and Ha rarely approachedMrs. Taylor except to ask for a pass to the lavatory. Their behavior towardMrs. Taylor was different from that of the other ELLs, who often approachedthe teacher to ask questions such as the information that they missed whilethey were absent or when they were in the ESL class.

Mrs. Taylor paid little attention to what Sandra and Ha did in class. Manytimes in the English class, Sandra bent her head down or scribbled some-thing in her notebook, leaning against the back of her chair. Ha also did notseem to be engaged in the English class. When Mrs. Taylor read aloud froma hard-covered textbook, Reading Literature (Welch & Bennett, 1981), Hasometimes yawned and closed his eyes. Sometimes he read a Korean book,which he borrowed from a Korean boy, while others followed along in thebook that the teacher read. The Korean boy was the only one that Ha some-times approached and talked with during a break.

Both of the focal students expressed their struggles in Mrs. Taylor’s classwhen she focused on English grammar and sentence structure. Sandra said,“It is difficult to write essays. I can write story-type writing, but I don’t knowhow to write essays well. Grammar is too hard.” Ha also mentioned, “In ELAclass, the teacher emphasizes writing. Writing is so hard to me because youhave to be careful about capitalization, paragraphs, and punctuation.” Sandraobtained 70% in ELA in her first grading period and 58.5% in her secondgrading period. Ha earned 81% and 58.6%, respectively, in ELA in his firstand second grading period. Considering that 65% was a failing grade, bothstudents received failing grades for the second grading period.

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Although both of the students expressed their difficulties, their needswere not met under the teacher’s interactive positioning of them as not hard-working students. In Mrs. Taylor’s class, where the teacher focused on struc-tured English pattern and grammar and positioned Sandra and Ha as poorstudents, the students were disengaged, silent, and secluded in their ownworlds. As Escamilla (1993) argues, teachers need to acknowledge ELLs’ dif-ferent language and cultural patterns for their engagement in learning. InMrs. Taylor’s classroom, where the teacher positioned content knowledgeover learner needs, however, the students were not provided with opportu-nities for their active participation in learning.

Discussion

The findings of this study show that the teachers’ pedagogicalapproaches and their interactions with the ELLs were based on their posi-tioning of themselves as teachers for all students, as teachers for regular edu-cation students, or as teachers for a single subject. The teachers’ differentapproaches were connected to the ELLs’ different participatory behaviors inthe classroom contexts that positioned them as powerful, strong students oras powerless, poor students. Even highly interactive classroom contexts withhidden power relations inadvertently positioned the ELLs as isolated.

The study breaks important ground in our understanding of the com-plex interactional classroom dynamics that influence the teaching and learn-ing of ELLs. The results indicate that a close examination of classroomdynamics through observation is essential; a simple discussion of ELLs’ issueswithout it is incomplete. Although this research focused on the teachers ofEnglish language arts, the findings are useful for teachers working in othercontent areas as well since the network of teacher-student interpersonalprocesses operates in all classrooms. The findings of the study confirm,extend, or refine the extant literature regarding ELLs and provide severalsalient suggestions as follows. These suggestions are particularly aimed atteachers and educators in teacher education programs.

First, teachers’ understanding of ELLs’ cultural and social needs and theirresponding to the needs in a more active manner promotes the students’ inter-active processes. Much research (e.g., Harklau, 2000; Kanno & Applebaum,1995) implies that ELLs’ English proficiency is a major determiner of ELLs’ par-ticipation in classroom activities. However, given that the ELLs’ English abil-ity level does not drastically change from class to class, the focal students’(e.g., Jun, Sandra, and Ha) different positioning and participation levelsbetween the classes cannot be explained by their English proficiency only. Itcan be explained with classroom environments where the teachers employedculturally relevant teaching. As in the classroom of Mrs. Young, where ELLswere accepted as cultural social beings, the students’ interaction and partici-pation were promoted. But in Mr. Brown’s and Mrs. Taylor’s classrooms,where the ELLs were regarded as language learners who simply sat in the reg-ular classroom with little encouragement for their participation, the students

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were disengaged and silent. These cultural and social aspects shed light onELLs’ language teaching and learning. As Brown (1994) notes, “culture andlanguage are intricately intertwined” (p. 25); that is, whenever teachers areinvolved in a complex system of cultural values and ways of thinking and act-ing in the classroom, they are in a position of helping ELLs learn a language.In this respect, compared to the teaching of Mrs. Taylor and Mr. Brown, whoappeared to have a lack of cultural inclusivity in their approach, Mrs. Young’spedagogy focusing on broader issues of cultural inclusiveness actually con-tributed to the ELLs’ participation in their language and literacy learning. Thus,in order to facilitate ELLs’ active participation in learning, the findings of thethree teachers’ cases suggest that teachers should pay more scrupulous atten-tion to the students’ acceptance and interactions by viewing the students ascomplex, cultural, social beings, more than simply language learners.

Second, teachers’ positioning of themselves can be a critical factor ininfluencing ELLs’ interactive patterns. Mrs. Young, who positioned herself asa teacher for all children, invited the ELLs’ active participation by assumingfull responsibility for their learning. But Mr. Brown and Mrs. Taylor, who posi-tioned themselves for regular education students or for single subjects, respec-tively, did not play an active role to invite the students’ participation andshifted their responsibilities to the ESL teacher to meet the ELLs’ cultural andsocial needs. Although studies (e.g., Charlesworth et al., 1993; Wilcox-Herzog, 2002) suggest that there is little connection between what teachersbelieve and what they practice in the classroom, this study demonstrates aclear link between belief and practice. As shown in the cases of Mr. Brownand Mrs. Taylor, the teachers with a narrow notion of their roles limited theirteaching approaches for their ELLs. These teachers’ concepts of their rolesfocusing on ELLs’ linguistic needs seem to be related to how they view ELLs’learning in the regular classroom—listen to native English speakers (Mr.Brown’s point) and immerse in English language (Mrs. Taylor’s view). Theirviews are connected with what Díaz-Rico and Weed (2002) caution regard-ing a principal belief of ELLs’ language teaching and learning: Expose the stu-dents to English, and they will learn it. This “automaticity” principle (Brown,1994) is incomplete since it ignores ELLs’ complicated language learningprocess and their individual difference in that process. Furthermore, the prin-ciple may provide a ground for teachers to blame the students when they donot progress in the English-speaking context, as Mrs. Taylor did with Sandraand Ha, who did not make as much progress as the other ELLs. By viewingthe language learning as a simple subconscious process, the automaticityprinciple also fails to recognize the importance of the teacher’s active anddiverse role to support ELLs’ learning. As Davies and Harré (1990) remind us,individuals view the world from a specific position. Since the ways in whichthe teachers describe their roles determine the extent to which they limit orexpand students’ possibilities for participation (Cummins, 1994b), it is crucialto form a new concept of classroom teachers’ roles to include ELLs’ diverseneeds and to take full responsibility for their needs. Teaching ELLs is not aresponsibility of only ESL teachers but also of classroom teachers.

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Third, teachers’ different approaches are related to ELLs’ different levelsof participation and their positioning of themselves in the classroom. Thestudents’ actions such as participating or withdrawing are connected towhether or not the teachers implemented the concept of cultural inclusivityin their approach. When Mrs. Young employed multicultural and globalizedactivities and accommodated the ELLs’ cultural differences, the students feltmore at home, experienced a sense of belonging, and participated in anactive manner. However, it appears that the ELLs felt like uninvited guestsand withdrew in the regular classrooms where the teachers, as Mrs. Taylorand Mr. Brown, focused only on subject matter or American monocultural-ism and did not show any special interest in the students. Feeling powerlessand invisible, the students in these environments socially affiliated witheither other ELLs or students who were perceived by the teacher and stu-dents as problematic or struggling students.

One noteworthy finding of the study is that non-ELLs followed the teach-ers’ model in interacting with ELLs. The mainstream students in class with Mrs.Young, who encouraged her ELLs to participate in classroom activities, activelyinteracted with the ELLs. However, the mainstream students in class with Mr.Brown, who rarely showed any interest in the ELLs, did not encourage the ELLs’participation and resisted working with the ELLs. Clearly, the findings suggestthat the teachers’ active or passive involvement played a role in the mainstreampeers’ interactive positioning of the ELLs as acceptable or unacceptable. As aresult, the ELLs’ interaction with peers increased or withdrew accordingly.

Finally, what plainly matters to ELLs’ engagement in learning is the teach-ers’ approach to the students, but not in terms of the teachers’ specific meth-ods. It is ironic that as in Mr. Brown’s classroom, even very interactive andstudent-centered classroom contexts with hidden power relations unintention-ally positioned the ELLs as isolated and powerless. Student-centered teachingmethods have been advocated in educational fields (Haley, 2004; McCombs &Whisler, 1997), but this study suggests that this method did not promote theELLs’ active participation under a hidden power mechanism. The finding raisesthis question: If methods do not matter, what matters? Culturally relevant ped-agogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995) is a useful lens to answer the question. It offerssupport for the conviction that the teachers are the most important factor inpromoting students’ opportunities to learn. It seems evident that what ELLsneed is not only effective teaching methods but also teachers who care andare sensitive to their cultural differences and needs. Teachers who have knowl-edge of language methods that support ELLs must also possess and utilizeteaching approaches that invite—rather than distance—the students.

The concept of positioning has not been widely applied to classroomsettings, but it is “a starting point for reflecting upon the many differentaspects of social life” (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 9). In order to bet-ter understand the ELLs’ complex social lives in their regular classrooms andto more positively engage them, teachers’ awareness of the power of posi-tioning is essential. As Maloch (2005) noted, “There is a continuous processof heuristic development of identities” (p. 103). If students continue to be

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positioned as intellectual or inferior through social interactions, that position-ing might influence the students to see positive or negative reflections ofthemselves (Howie, 1999). Although a single positioning of ELLs might notseriously affect the students to see themselves as powerful or powerless, acontinuous positioning of ELLs in certain ways might influence them to viewthemselves accordingly.

While the present study provided important data about teachers, ELLs,and classroom peers, some limitations must be acknowledged. Due to mydaily scheduling, I observed the practices of only the three English languagearts teachers as representatives of regular classroom teachers. Since the con-tents of each subject may influence teachers’ positioning of themselves andof ELLs in their classrooms, it is not clear how the other content area teach-ers would approach the ELLs and how the students would react to them.Extending the research realm to the teachers would provide a fuller andmore accurate picture of the pedagogy of current classroom teachers and theparticipatory behaviors of the ELLs. In addition, I observed the focal studentsonly in the English language arts class and in the ESL class. Although thefindings of this study suggest that several focal students positioned them-selves differently in those classes, it is unclear how the students would posi-tion themselves in the other content area classes, such as math or science,with different characteristics of contents from the English language arts. Toview more clearly the focal students’ positioning of themselves in the regu-lar classroom, the observation of the students in the other content areaclasses is necessary to triangulate the data of the ELLs.

The other limitation is that by paying attention to the students who didnot engage in learning in Mrs. Taylor’s class, I did not focus on the other ELLswho positioned themselves in positive ways and seemed to be connected tothe teacher. The close observation of these students’ interactions with theteacher was needed to obtain more balanced data regarding the teacher’steaching practice and the students’ reaction to it. It would have been inter-esting to have interviewed the ELLs in this classroom who did participatemore, to help understand how they positioned themselves in this classroomand why their positioning was different than that of Sandra and Ha.

Further research is needed to analyze the link between what teachersknow and believe about ELLs from their teacher education programs andother professional development opportunities and the stance they taketoward ELLs in their classrooms. Another suggestion for further research isthat researchers examine the issues of how the ELLs’ ethnic, cultural, social,or economic backgrounds can influence their reactions to a particular curricu-lum. For instance, do ELLs from Asian backgrounds have similar or differentexperiences than ELLs from Latino/Latina or Hispanic backgrounds? Additionalresearch is also needed to explore mainstream students’ perceptions regard-ing ELLs in order to understand the possible factors that may explain theirresistance or acceptance toward the students as their learning partners.Although the current study indicated there was a hidden power in the regu-lar classroom, it is not known whether and how the mainstream students’

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power is historically, politically, or socially grounded. Since native English-speaking students play an important role for ELLs to engage or disengage inlearning as shown in this research, the close examination of the students’views of ELLs is important to further substantiate what the findings of thisstudy illustrated. Last, further research in even more diverse contexts includ-ing urban settings is needed. This study was limited to one school in a sub-urban area. When ELLs outnumber native English-speaking students, as inmany urban school classrooms, regular classroom teachers’ practices andELLs’ participatory behaviors may bring about different phenomena since theteachers may adjust their teaching for the ELLs. By comparing the classroomdynamics in the urban settings with those of suburban contexts, the findingsof the current study will be confirmed, expanded, or refined with respect tothe classroom teachers’ beliefs, roles, and pedagogies and the ELLs’ position-ing in the regular classroom.

Note

I am grateful for the detailed and thoughtful suggestions of Allan Wigfield, the edi-tor of the American Educational Research Journal, and the reviewers. I also thank BetsyKaye, Suzanne Miller, Billie Askew, Hoe Kyeung Kim, Suzanne Borowicz, and FeniceBoyd for their helpful comments on initial drafts of this article. Finally, my special thanksgo to Anne Simpson for her tremendous time and support to improve this article.

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Manuscript received February 8, 2007Revision received February 1, 2008

Accepted February 5, 2008

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Documents

Uninvited Guests: The Influence of Teachers' Roles and Pedagogies on the Positioning of English Language Learners in the Regular Classroom