By Shivani Rajaram, Class of ‘26 — Correspondent
As part of a research project for Honors English II, Shivani Rajaram created this fictional short story about what it might be like for an educator who specializes in the teaching of English language learners. This research project was inspired by The Refugee Tales, which is an organization in the United Kingdom that shares the stories of asylum seekers and their advocates. The Refugee Tales story collection and annual walk are inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, which is also part of the Honors English II curriculum.
Hand on the doorknob, glancing from the schedule in my hand to the room number hung up on the wall, I took a deep breath recomposing myself. As I turned the knob, opened the door, and stepped in with my chin held high and my shoulders relaxed, I tried my best to contain the shock that rippled through my face. I came to a stop a mere step into the room.
It was one thing to be new after the school year had already begun, but it was a whole other thing to get a whole new set of students on your third day at work. Sitting in the back row of classroom 3406 were six new students talking amongst themselves in languages I didn’t recognize. In front, the students I had just met two days earlier smiled at me, understanding how I felt about getting even more students. In the past English Language Learning (ELL) classes were small because there were few students who weren’t fluent in English. However, in recent years the numbers have skyrocketed with thousands more refugees from all around the world flocking to the U.S every day. And with teachers already in high demand, this issue has been even harder to navigate. I was not prepared to deal with it.
My new class of ELL students had 19 students, which was a lot of students to support considering not all spoke the same language. I already had three Polish-speaking students, one Japanese, one Italian, one Vietnamese, and several French, Spanish, and Portuguese speakers. However, despite the variety of languages, all of my current students had previous schooling, possibly some level of English skills, and they easily adjust to the school environment, so it is easy for me to teach them. But these new students were a little different.
Snapping out of my daze, I walked over to my desk and set down my bag, pulling out my laptop and opening up my emails. I wondered if there was communication I missed because I was so new to the district. I had one new email that was originally sent out to the other staff a week before I had started working here. It detailed a new program in Massachusetts, and the news that our town would be receiving many new families and students from Southern America. All the new students suddenly made sense, and I recognized that some were speaking Haitian Creole from a semester in college that I spent in Haiti studying languages. Shutting my laptop and standing up from my desk, I walked to the front of the class and introduced myself to the new students.
First in English and then translated into Creole, I announced, “Hello everyone, I’m Mrs. Susi! I will be your English teacher this year, and I’m excited to meet you!”
All the new students raised their eyebrows at the translation, muttering between one another. However, some replied with a hello that I had to read off their lips, so I made a mental note to look into better translation tools.
***
With the nearly empty classroom between us, I stared at them and they stared at me to the test on their desks. It was standard practice to test a student’s English abilities as they progressed through the ELL program; however, they looked at me like I had three heads. As they picked up their pencils and started reading, their eyebrows knit together and multiple kids blurted out questions to me.
“Pou kisa sa ye ankò?” [What is this for again?]
“Kisa nou si poze fè?” [What do we do?]
“Kouman pou mwen li sa a? Ki sa ki enstriksyon yo?” [ How do I read this? What are the instructions?]
I was taken aback at their confusion over a test, but nonetheless I tried my best to explain. However, this was to no avail… I knew these students had holes in their education as a result of their immigration to the U.S, but I soon learned that some students were missing up to 3-4 years of formal education meaning they never got past elementary school! Trying my best not to push too much, my new students and I delved into a conversation of their school lives and their future goals and aspirations.
***
My second week started with a parent-teacher conference for all my new students, and in my office were lots of parents plastered with anxious smiles and holding little ones. It looked akin to a family gathering with students conversing excitedly with their parents on how big the school building was or what they had started learning. I began by circulating throughout the room, personally greeting and shaking hands with each parent and doing my best to tell them how glad I was to meet them and to teach their kid.
As we all settled down, the first question I got was from a little toddler: “Is this school open to us?”
Eyebrows crumpling together, I asked, “Why wouldn’t it be?”
A parent quickly answered, waving her hands at me, “No, no he’s just confused because many schools in South America reject refugees from attending their schools.”
Despite my better judgment, I was quick to ask, “Why?”
“Because there is no more room, or we do not have past education records, or for many simply because we are Brazilian or Colombian or Haitian or Venezuelan or something like that. It is also hard to keep up with education when moving from country to country so often. Our kids need to work to help us make do away from home.”
Her words clanged through my mind, ringing a bell on how one year I had discovered that some of my students had never seen a band before or how one didn’t know you couldn’t work under the age of 14. The lack of a formal education and childhood experiences is hard to catch up with in high school where there are so many students all doing different things. It is intimidating for a regular student, and surely scary for anyone new.
Another parent piped up, steering the conversation back on track, “How will you be teaching our kids?”
I responded by showcasing my new translation tools and different fun games I had planned out. We conversed even more smoothly with an app that translates text messages.
… Until we hit a bump in the road again.
A student questioned, “How come we move from class to class all the time? Why not just sit in one room?”
I answered, “So that you can meet new students and to give you more freedom to move around the school.” My students quickly said back to me, nodding with each other, that other students never really talked to them, and that they felt a bit out of place. . . . However, I assured them that things would take time, and that it would surely get better.
Nonetheless to end on a positive note, the parents, students, and I played a game that one of the students had introduced to me until their transportation back to the hotel arrived.
Walking out from the parent-teacher conference, ideas swirling around my brain from all that was spoken, an idea sparked in my mind, a way for kids to learn from kids. So, with a determined spark in my eyes, and a smile lighting up my face, I walked off to get some lunch and discuss the possibilities.
