Dr. Quanisha Charles and Jonathan Montgomery, Jefferson Community and Technical College, Louisville, Kentucky, US

Introduction

Community colleges are commonly known as easily accessible institutes to the average individual (Szelenyi & Chang, 2002). As a result, community colleges contribute significantly to providing opportunities for English Language Learners (ELLs) to become involved in the American educational system. While there is a limited amount of direct data regarding the numbers of ELLs enrolled in colleges nationally, some insight can be gleaned by examining the increase in individual ethnic groups’ enrollment. For example, Latinx students, who comprise the largest ethnic group of English learners in the U.S, attend community colleges as their undergraduate institutions at a rate of 56% (Ma & Baum, 2016). However, despite increasing numbers of ELLs enrolled in community colleges, ESL programs at community colleges go understudied, and even more so the experiences of students in first-year ESL writing courses.

Within this paper, we explored the academic experiences of twelve ELLs through the use of literacy narratives. Per Trier (2007), literacy narratives can shed light on one’s educational upbringing, identity, how language is acquired, and how we make sense through text. Additionally, literacy narratives evoke self-perceived social injustices. Borrowing from the work of Nieto and Bode (2013), social justice was the framework used to capture these participants’ experience. Social Justice is defined as "a philosophy, an approach, and actions that embody treating all people with fairness, respect, dignity, and generosity" (Nieto & Bode, 2013). Nieto and Bode highlighted four major components that must be presently active and implemented by the teacher in the learning environment in order to maintain social justice:

1. “Creates a learning environment that promotes critical thinking and supports agency for social change.
2. Draws on the talents and strengths that students bring to their education.
3. Provides all students with the resources necessary to learn to their full potential.
4. Challenges, confronts, and disrupts misconceptions, untruths, and stereotypes that lead to structural inequality and discrimination based on race, social class, gender, and other social and human differences.”

To gain further understanding of educational experiences, participants were prompted to write a literacy narrative and through these narratives we witnessed a few major insights: a) tension between language norms and literacy practices, b) navigation strategies, c) efforts for voice, and d) trajectories of development.

Participants & Study Site

There were twelve participants for this study who were all diverse in country, age, language, and culture. Out of the twelve, five were between the ages of 18-20-years old, five were between 21-30-years old, one was between 31-40-years old and the other was over the age of 40. Four participants were males while eight participants were females. Participants’ countries of origin were Nigeria, United States, Cuba, The Gambia, Dominican Republic, India, Congo, Myanmar, and Colombia. The survey for this study was administered in a first-year writing course at a two-year college in Northwestern Kentucky.

Data Collection & Analysis

As aforementioned, data was collected through the use of a survey that asked participants to answer questions about their experience, as it pertains to social justice, within their first-year writing course. Also, data was collected via participants’ literacy narratives. We analyzed data by juxtaposing participants’ survey responses with their literacy narrative recollections. For example, when participants were asked if the teacher had created a learning environment that promoted critical thinking and supported agency for social justice, we also read their literacy narratives to determine how critical thinking and agency for social justice was supported or determined.

Limitations

There were a few limitations of this study. For example, there were no follow-ups with participants on this study to clarify or ensure they understood the concept of social justice. This means that participants had to depend upon the researchers’ provided definition of social justice without further explanation. Additionally, terms like critical thinking were not defined, only social justice, so participants may have all had different ideas of what critical thinking meant. No teachers were interviewed or asked whether they actively incorporate social justice in the writing course. This study site also strongly encourages teaching critical thinking skills but its definition is still ambiguous and per the instructor’s understanding, which may have perplexed participants. Lastly, the survey and literacy narrative assignment were administered by the participants’ instructor so it may have influenced participants’ responses.

Findings

For the most part, the majority of participants’ survey responses matched their literacy narrative essays, with the exception of the fourth component. The fourth component was, perhaps, the most mind-boggling to participants. Participants may have been concerned with whether their responses would implicate their teacher, definitions of terms, and if they would be penalized for honest responses.

Out of the twelve participants, only one believed to have experienced social injustice due to her writing (and spoken) skills and only one student said that he may have experienced social justice but was not certain. Nine participants believed that their teacher drew on their talents and strengths to bring about success in the course, while three participants did not. Moreover, eleven participants felt that the teacher provided students with the resources necessary to achieve their full potential, while only one did not. When it came to the fourth component - challenging, confronting, and disrupting misconceptions, untruths, and stereotypes that led to structural inequalityand discrimination on the basis of race, social class, gender, and other social and human differences - five participants said the teacher did create a learning environment where that was allowed, while four said no, and three said maybe.

To further examine participants’ responses, we reviewed their literacy narratives and discovered that not only did the majority of students ignore or fail to address the fourth component in their literacy narrative, but also there were a few literacy narratives inconsistent with their survey. Due to word-count limitations, we will highlight three excerpts from participants who answered ‘yes’ to the survey’s fourth component but demonstrated different sentiments within their narratives (See Figure 1).

Figure 1: Literacy Narrative Excerpts

Conclusion

Research findings indicate that ELLs, while overall have a positive experience within the community college setting, are not being introduced or prepared through the lens of social justice. Because of this, dismantling structural inequities is nearly impossible because it is not being raised as an issue. Moreover, the notions of challenging structural inequality, with regards to race, gender, social class, and especially language, continue to go unnoticed or overlooked, because either students are not in a learning environment that enables scrutiny of it and/or teachers are ignoring its existence. Furthermore, some students are reluctant to share their educational experience or how they have come to make sense of their spoken English. Some students are also quick to denounce their English language skills as continuously deficient or imperfect. As a result, ELLs are continuing to view themselves and/or their spoken English accent as deficient or abnormal, and the continuum of these students being ostracized, silenced and/or othered in social settings, especially the classroom persists. Nonetheless, the use of literacy narratives, through the lens of social justice, within the ESL writing course is consequential to capture these untold, and many cases, nuanced academic experiences that have lasting impacts on ELLs.

References

Ma, J., & Baum, S. (2016). Trends in community colleges: Enrollment, prices, student debt, and completion (College Board Research Brief). The College Board.

Szelenyi, K., & Chang, J. C. (2002). Eric review: Educating immigrants: The community college role. Community College Review, 30(2), 55+. Retrieved from https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A94328846/AONE?u=kctcsjcc&sid=AONE&xid=55481f98

Trier, J. (2007). The 400 Blows as cinematic literacy narrative. Teacher Education Quarterly, 34(3), 35. Retrieved from https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A173465176/AONE?u=kctcsjcc&sid=AONE&xid=b9b70376

Dr. Quanisha Charles grounds her research in narrative inquiry as a means of capturing important stories and intricate identities that impact how individuals understand themselves within society. Charles has taught the English language in not only the U.S. but also South Korea, China, and Vietnam. Charles is an Assistant Professor and TESOL program coordinator at Jefferson Community & Technical College in Louisville, Kentucky.

Jonathan Montgomery has dedicated the last 8 years to working with English language learners and diverse multilingual student populations. Mr. Montgomery focuses his research on examining support systems for underrepresented minority student populations, especially those who identify as Latinx, at predominately white institutions. Currently, Jonathan is an English Instructor at Jefferson Community and Technical College, where he continues to serve as a support system for underrepresented students.