https://doi.org/10.33600/IRCJ.49.4.2021.71
A Warm wELLcome for Language Learners
Kristin Lems
About This Column
The Winter 2020 issue of the Illinois Reading Council Journal published a special issue focusing on “action for equity,”
with thoughtful articles and abundant family and classroom resources. This issue of the “wELLcome”column,
which is dedicated to topics regarding English language learners (ELLs), continues in that same vein. In this issue,
we place the spotlight on ELLs of African descent, their teachers, and their schools.
Black Lives Matter in
Teaching English as a
Second Language!
Note: In this column, the author chooses lower case
letters to identify a racial category except when it is
capitalized in a direct quotation.
Every aspect of life in the United States has
been shaken by the upsurge of the “Movement
for Black Lives.” As we become more exposed to
obvious injustice, and primary sources become
more widely available, Americans have been
forced to confront the realities of a society built
on European-white supremacy—from the kidnapping and enslavement of millions of African
people brought in chains to work for free, to
the crippling conditions of the Jim Crow era,
to violent policing and an unfair criminal justice system which continue to this day, all creating a legacy of trauma for Americans of African
descent (Wilkerson, 2020).
How does this legacy and climate affect
English language learners (ELLs) of African
descent? I will touch upon three aspects: (1) the
unique experience of ELLs of African descent
in English as a second language (ESL) or bilingual education programs; (2) the low representation of black ESL and bilingual teachers
and weak responses by TESOL professional
organizations to doing something about it; and
(3) the low enrollment of students of African
descent in dual language programs. I will give
a brief overview of the problems and then suggest some ways that English language educators
and teachers in general can make real progress
toward equity for students of African descent.
I apologize in advance for the brief and superficial nature of the column, which touches
only glancingly on so many deep and nuanced
topics. I can only hope this column will open
up some good conversations as the articles and
columns in this journal so often do.
Immigrants of African Descent
The Pew Research Center has studied the main
groups of black immigrants to the United States
(whom I will refer to as immigrants of African
descent for reasons that will be clear later in
the column). They consist of immigrants from
African countries, Central America, South
America and Mexico, often referred to as AfroLatinos, and the Caribbean. Much of the data
in this summary can be found in the 2013 Pew
Research Center report, which was released in
2015 (Anderson, 2015). Immigrants from these
groups vary enormously in demographics, but
they all share common experiences when they
come to the U.S. and are faced with a racially
inequitable society.
Black immigrants from African countries are often already bilingual or trilingual,
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71
and they have a lower poverty rate and higher
educational level than Americans in general
(Anderson, 2015). The greatest number of these
immigrants come from Nigeria. Many other
immigrants from Africa, on the other hand,
come to the U.S. as refugees and have suffered
war, trauma, ethnic cleansing, civil war, interrupted formal education, and dispossession.
African immigrants may come from countries in which English is the language of instruction or the lingua franca, such as Nigeria, Ghana,
Liberia, and Sierra Leone, so many children of
English-speaking African immigrants do not
enroll in ESL or bilingual programs. It should
be noted, however, that even when families
indicate that English is their home language, an
additional language may be spoken routinely in
the home.
The second group of ELLs of African
descent consists of immigrants from South or
Central America or the Caribbean Islands who
are Spanish speakers, including immigrants
from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic,
Bolivia, Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, or
Cuba. In addition, there are an estimated
70,000 black immigrants from Mexico, which
is part of North America. These native Spanish
speakers are enrolled in ESL/bilingual classes.
They may or may not have experienced overt
racial discrimination in their countries of origin.
The third major group consists of immigrants and refugees from islands of the
Caribbean who are not Spanish speaking, the
foremost numbering from Haiti and Jamaica
(Anderson & Lopez, 2018). Both Haiti and
Jamaica have distinct native languages which
evolved through a combination of trade, slavery, colonialism, and intermarriage. In addition to words and structures from colonial languages, these languages have many linguistic
elements traceable to African languages spoken
by Africans kidnapped and taken to these
islands to work as slaves. In Jamaica, English is
woven into Jamaican Patois, but Haitian Creole
has French, not English, words. Although these
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black immigrant groups of African descent
speak a language other than English at home,
most are not enrolled in ESL programs. Another
sizeable group consists of immigrants of African
descent from the island of Belize. They, too,
speak a distinct Patois, but English is the official language of Belize, and students are educated in English (“Languages of Belize,” 2021).
Therefore, Belizean immigrants are not likely
to be identified for ESL or bilingual services.
Many black immigrants from African
countries do not need to learn English as a new
language because it is the language in which
they were educated, even if there is an additional home language. Black immigrants from
Central and South America and Mexico are
Spanish speakers and receive ESL, bilingual,
or dual language services. However, there are
two subsets of black immigrants who are not
as well accounted for. One consists of African
immigrants who are enrolled in ESL but do not
have first language support, such as speakers
of Amharic, Twi, or Kiswahili, to name only a
few African languages. Although some schools
make extraordinary efforts to support these
students, their small numbers and the fact that
they are are often in schools with no students
or staff who speak their native language present
special challenges.
The other group which is of special interest and concern to English language educators
consists of Caribbean islanders who speak a
language indigenous to their island but are not
literate in it because it is not the language of
instruction at their school. Such is the case for
students from Haiti and Jamaica.
As we know, Illinois requires bilingual education for a school with 20 or more speakers of
the same home language, but speakers of less
represented languages do not have this resource.
Even if the number of students hovers around
20, many schools do not set these programs up
for fear they cannot offer a quality program due
to a lack of curriculum, staff, or resources to
pay for it. A heartening exception is Cruz Acero
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School in Rogers Park, Chicago, which offers a
Yoruba bilingual program headed by a licensed
teacher endorsed in Yoruba (personal conversation, April 2021).
Because most students speaking African or
Caribbean languages are not enrolled in bilingual education services, many students end
up without the much-valued home language
component that those in the language teaching
field endorse. Literacy in one’s native language
positively affects literacy in a new language and
increases positive academic outcomes (Farver
et al., 2006; Thomas & Collier, 2002; Wong
Fillmore, 2000).
Students from Haiti offer a dramatic example of students who could and should benefit
from English language education programs but
usually do not. Haitian immigrants make up
about 15% of the U.S. black immigrant population, with 586,000 immigrants reported
in 2015 (Anderson, 2015), second only to
Jamaicans. Haitian Creole (alt. spelling Kreyol)
is a full-fledged language, with more than 12
million native speakers and several regional
dialects (“Haitian Creole,” 2021). Reading
researchers have shown that “systematic classroom use of Kreyòl—at all levels, but especially
in early grades—promotes academic success
in Haiti” (DeGraff, 2016, p. 1). Nevertheless,
French is the language of instruction in Haitian
elementary schools, although only 8% of the
Haitian population speaks French at home
(“Haitian Creole,” 2021; Holenstein, 2020).
In the U.S., Haitian students do not fit well
with bilingual Creole programs since robust
teaching materials have not been developed in
Creole, and the experiences of many Haitians
have led them to believe that becoming literate
in Creole in the U.S. is a waste of precious time.
(This dilemma is not exclusive to Haitians but
applies to Assyrians, Hmong, Kurdish, and
Karen immigrants, to name only a few groups).
In sum, the combination of the low incidence
of African languages and the lack of formal
language instruction in indigenous languages
creates an unfavorable situation for some—but
not all—immigrants of African descent.
Immigrating to a Racialized
Society
What immigrants of African descent share when
they come to America is that they enter a highly
racialized society, with its long history of slavery
and systemic discrimination (Wilkerson, 2020).
Although the educational level of African immigrants is higher than that of Americans in general, with 35% reporting a college degree in the
most recent data (Anderson, 2015), learners from
African countries may still be regarded as “less
than” due to racial prejudice. In one high school,
for example, African refugees were singled out
as the cause of a “yawning achievement gap” in
the school district although they performed just
as well as other English learners (Shapiro, 2014,
p. 389). African ELLs may be stereotyped as
intellectually inferior (p. 392), despite their multilingualism and the educational achievements
they bring to the U.S.
Kemi Seriki (2021), an immigrant Nigerian
parent, unpacks the double burden of being an
immigrant and black while trying to raise children in America: “[In Nigeria,] we all were blacks.
We didn’t identify ourselves by race. . . . [W]e
never lived in a racialized society,” she explains in
a recent podcast. “I started understanding what
it is to be black in this country, what is it like
for children, how do I go about raising children.
As an African, I only have the immigrant experience, not the black experience.”
African immigrants may not be prepared to
assimilate with American black culture, Seriki
(2021) explains, because it adds a burden to the
challenges they already face. However, the preponderance of segregated neighborhoods and
schools, and racial profiling by police create situations African immigrants must come to understand and deal with.
Abiodun Durojaye (2021), a doctoral candidate at Governor’s State University who came
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to the U.S. from Nigeria at age 9, echoes this
discomfort. In another episode of the same
podcast, she discusses why she felt she needed
to shorten her first name to gain acceptance or
feel more confident in the U.S. and shares her
research about other African immigrants who
shorten or Anglicize their African names.
Immigrants of African descent from Central
and South America and Mexico, or AfroLatinos, also face racial discrimination within
the U.S. Colorism, or discrimination against
those with darker skin tone, is also present
in Latino culture, probably due to the legacy
of European colonialism. Many Afro-Latino
teachers have recounted to me the Spanish
phrase mejorar la raza or “to better the race,”
which was told to them as a warning or heard if
they gave birth to children with darker skin or
if they had darker skin than their siblings. The
highly engaging Afrosaya podcast, started several years ago by a Teach for America graduate
and high school Spanish teacher, explores these
and many other facets of being a Latino with
African roots (“The Afrolatino Broadcast,”
2021). The podcast also mentions that 10% of
Hispanics can be considered Afro-Latinos.
Aren’t liberal white folks exempt from colorism because they seek out tanning salons?
Doesn’t that show white folks have overcome
prejudice? The National Academy of Sciences
did a study shortly after the election of Barack
Obama, our first black/biracial president, that
suggests otherwise. College-aged participants
who self-identified as liberal or conservative
were shown pictures of President Obama with
a lightened or darkened skin tone. The conservatives, who presumably opposed the president, identified the darker skin tone as a more
accurate portrayal of Obama, whereas the liberals, who presumably supported the president,
identified the lighter skin tone as more accurate. This suggested that for liberals, the positive feelings they held matched with a lighter
face. The head researcher was asked about the
common practice in political ads in which a
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black or biracial candidate’s face is darkened by
their opponent:
We’ve seen this throughout, you know, a
number of campaigns. People are, you know,
they have this association with dark and, you
know, ominous and the sort of thing that . . .
may be employed to try to create more negative
associations with the candidate. (Eugene
Caruso, interviewed by Ludden, 2009)
Bias against community members of
African descent is confirmed in another study
of interest to language teachers. The language
that police officers in the Oakland (California)
Police Department used when they stopped
drivers was recorded and analyzed through multiple algorithms and showed that black drivers
were consistently addressed with less respect,
even accounting for mitigating factors including the race of the officer (Voigt et al., 2017).
To sum up these points, immigrants of
African heritage are less likely to have home
language support or resources at their schools,
and many do not receive services although
another language is spoken in the home. Also,
regardless of income or education, all will face
racial profiling and bias of some kind when
they come to live in the U.S.
Low Representation of Black
Teachers in the ESL Profession
In 2006, TESOL Quarterly, the premier publication of teachers of English to speakers of
other languages, put out a special edition on
the topics of race, racism, and racialization.
In the introduction, the editors wrote, “[O]ur
field is in dire need of an explicit exploration
of race” (Kubota & Lin, 2006, p. 472). After
that exploration, there is another long gap until
the forming of the Diverse Voices Task Force
in 2019, which issued recommendations in
2021. Language policies and ideologies underlie the way that languages, and new languages,
are taught, and these can have profound effects
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on students’ sense of identity and self-efficacy.
Teachers, mainly white, may consider students’
language to be “incorrect” or “inappropriate”
and stigmatize or even pathologize students’ use
of nonstandard dialects, even when that same
language is lauded when it is sprinkled into
speech by white writers, speakers, and entertainers (see Flores & Rosa, 2015).
Racial bias in English teaching and learning has been confirmed in several studies. In
one, Rubin (1992) found that the exact same
“accents” paired with Caucasian faces were seen
as superior to those of Asian faces, despite the
same audio track. Non-native speaker teachers
of ESL/EFL have long maintained a caucus in
TESOL to discuss the discrimination they face
in hiring; in fact, these teachers note that native
speakers of English without training are selected
over non-native English teachers with training. Although explicit criteria for native speakers are no longer allowed in the TESOL hiring
area, the native speaking ESL/EFL teacher still
reigns supreme, even though an estimated 80%
of English teachers around the world are nonnative (Bernat, 2008).
And then there is the question of black students in teacher education programs. The U.S.
Department of Education (2016) reports, “A
large majority of education majors and, more
specifically, students enrolled in teacher preparation programs, are white” (p. 3). Even among
licensed teachers, very few ESL teachers are
black. The job research site Zippia.com (2021)
reports that only 9.4% of ESL teachers are black
compared to 74.1% who are white. (Note: The
numbers are also low for Hispanics at 11.1%
and Asians at 3.2%, although the data do not
include teachers in bilingual education settings
[Zippia.com, 2021].) Even black teachers who
do enter the teaching profession often feel vulnerable to “internalizing racism” one study finds
(Kohli, 2014, p. 367). “If these students go on
to be teachers,” Kohli (2014) continues, “the
consequences can be particularly detrimental”
(p. 367).
A black English language teacher in
New York uses the term “altruistic shield” to
describe
a psychological mechanism used by educators
that allows us to outright deny or otherwise
defend ourselves from anticipated or in-themoment accusations of racism because of what
we consider to be the altruistic nature of our
work. (Gerald, 2020, p. 22)
He continues,
More specifically, some ELT professionals believe
that choosing this field means that we do not
play a role in systemic racism, despite extensive
evidence of the persistent and pervasive White
supremacy in the ELT field. (p. 23)
In this short article, Gerald (2020) provocatively suggests that English language teaching can have undertones of “white saviorism.”
This might invoke the legacy of Indian boarding schools, whose alleged purpose was to bring
English to the “underprivileged” but whose
actual practices resulted in cultural genocide,
with all the grief the boarding schools caused.
Low Representation of Students of
African Descent in Dual Language
Programs
In Illinois and nationwide, dual language programs have enjoyed robust growth. Finally,
Americans are coming to understand that bilingualism and biliteracy are not only useful but can
be considered a form of giftedness (Lems et al.,
2017). However, gifted African-American children are badly underrepresented in such programs. A survey of dual language participants
between 2011 and 2015, for example, found
that black children were only 6% of students
enrolled in dual language programs (Park et al.,
2017). In Illinois, one of the hallmarks of successful completion of dual language programs
is the State Seal of Biliteracy, which is given at
the end of high school or sometimes at the end
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for some, also learning a new language. It
is important to know that black immigrant
children are “black-presenting” to the world
and that influences their lived experience in
the U.S. If we do not acknowledge or support
children’s lived experiences in school, they
will gradually come to believe that school
is not for them. Also, even for very young
children, skin tone will come up as darkerskinned children will receive some kind of
opprobrium, possibly from their own elders
and often from their classmates. A kindergarten teacher who worked in a school with
all children of African descent recounted to
me that when she asked the children to tell
something they liked about themselves, the
child with the lightest skin announced that
he liked that his skin was light. What does
an anti-racist educator do in that moment to
support all of the students?
In preschool classrooms in which white
children come in contact with black children
for the first time, preschool teachers have told
me that the white children may ask black children if their brown skin color will rub off. As
inconceivable as these comments might sound
in contemporary, diverse America, black and
brown children hear these things and internalize negative messages about themselves. This is
only one reason that young children of color
need teachers who look like them, who affirm
them, and who understand their experiences.
For teachers who are white, having guest speakers and visitors in the classroom and a good
collection of black-affirming books for all ages
can also go a long way toward reassuring children that they are beautiful and precious.
of junior high. The Seal of Biliteracy is a very
important credential on a student transcript that
shows advanced language study. It also bestows
a financial benefit because some colleges and
universities accept this advanced language proficiency for college credit. The Director of the
Office of Language and Cultural Education at
Chicago Public Schools, Luis Narvaez (2021),
states, “Currently less than 1% of recipients of
the State Seal of Biliteracy at CPS are Black, yet
these students make up over 35% of the total
enrollment across our district.”
Taking a Deep Breath: What Can
We Do?
How can we as educators move English language teaching and learning in the direction of
greater racial equity? Just because it is not easy
does not mean it is not urgent. Here are a few
ideas, and I am sure you will think of more:
76
• Even when children are not able to take
advantage of bilingual education, teachers can make sure to have books available
in the home languages of all the children
in the classroom, whether in the classroom
library or the school library. There are now
several excellent publishers of bilingual books
in African and diasporic African languages,
including Alikobooks, Language Lizard, and
Hoopoe Books. When books in their home
language are in the classroom, children feel
that their heritage is represented and that they
have a voice. If possible, a reader, possibly a
family or community member connected to
the child, can come in to read the books out
loud. Hearing a story as an interactive readaloud gives all children the opportunity to
experience a new language and makes the
child who speaks that language feel special.
• Afro-Latino students should be encouraged to
become teachers—especially bilingual teachers for which there is a teaching shortage!
• Recognize that black immigrant children are
dealing with (at least) two different seismic
shifts—adjusting to life as an immigrant
and dealing with racism and colorism—and
• Black American students should be encouraged to become teachers, study abroad, study
world languages, and consider becoming
trained as ESL and/or bilingual teachers.
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• American students of African descent should
be strongly recruited for dual language programs so that they will have the blessings of
biliteracy and the Seal of Biliteracy, with all
that that means.
• Districts offering dual language programs
should take a hard look at the low enrollment
of students of African descent in their programs. What messages are put out to families
by the school administration, teaching staff,
and alumni? How are current students showcased to prospective families? Does recruitment of the native English speakers from
wealthier white families outweigh efforts to
reach families of African heritage? What supports are in place to maintain the students of
African descent in dual language programs if
their families are presented with challenges,
whether from income, healthcare, immigration status, or other factors? Are children
who are already bilingual, such as African
immigrant students, given the opportunity
to become fluent in a third language, which
is normal in Europe? If not, why not?
I had planned to write about using music
in the ESL classroom for this issue, but equity
tugged at my sleeve until I put that other topic
aside and answered the “fierce urgency of now.”
Nobody can do everything, but everyone can
do something. This invocation comes with an
extra, belated, and heartfelt “wELLcome” to
any black teacher who might consider teaching
ESL or bilingual education. You are precious!
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Anderson, M. (2015). A rising share of the U.S. black population is foreign born: 9 percent are immigrants and while
most are from the Caribbean, Africans drive recent growth.
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Anderson, M., & Lopez, G. (2018). Key facts about
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About the Authors
Joyce R. Bojko-Jeewek, EdD, is an associate professor
at Benedictine University and teaches children’s literature and reading & language arts methods and assessment courses for both undergraduate and graduate
Special Education and Elementary Education majors.
She has experience as a classroom teacher for 1st through
8th grades and as a Title I reading instructor, REI teacher,
Special Education Intervention Manager, Principal, and
Curriculum Director. With special interests in differentiated instruction and assessment, Joyce is a frequent presenter at both state and national conferences.
Sara L. Jozwik, EdD, is an assistant professor in the
Department of Special Education at Illinois State
University. Her research interests focus on improving literacy outcomes for culturally and linguistically diverse students with disabilities.
Kristin Lems, EdD, is a professor in the ESL/Bilingual
Education Endorsement program at National Louis
University, where she has directed two five-year grants
from the U.S. Department of Education in ESL teacher
education. A two-time Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Lems consults on literacy and ESL and presents nationally and internationally. Lems’ popular textbook, Building Literacy with
English Language Learners: Insights from Linguistics, was
released in its second edition by Guilford Press in 2017.
By Juliann Caveny
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