Living in Language: ESL Citizenship Students Reflect on Their Classroom Practices and the Ideologies Therein

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session Thirteen
  In Roundtable Session: Exploring Multilingual Language Practices, Identities, and Ideologies (Table 16)

Abstract

This paper examines the ideological conceptions of language and literacy practices in an adult, English as a Second Language (ESL) citizenship class for naturalization. Naturalization refers to the processes required for U.S. citizenship undergone by lawful permanent residents after meeting extensive federal requirements. I situate neoliberalism within settler-colonial, anti-Black logics, and I define neoliberal citizens through language and economic ideologies. This paper shows how the ESL citizenship classroom, like others, continues to embrace reductive notions of functionality through English-only instruction. I trace how students take up these neoliberal ideologies through performative belonging and performative othering as well as the ways students deviate from these values and the possibilities therein.

Author

• Karen Villegas, University of California - Berkeley
  Presenting Author