African Immigrant–Background High School Students' Experiences With Classroom-Based English Language Learning and ESOL in North America

• In Event: AERA Graduate Student Research in Progress Roundtable Session One
  In Roundtable Session: Language Teaching and Learning for Indigenous, Immigrant, and Second-Generation Students (Table 9)

Abstract

Drawing from migration studies, this study employs transnational identity theory to situate African-background immigrant students' experiences as fluid, multiple and shifting, constantly co-constructed and co-negotiated across cultural, linguistics, and geo-political borders (Duff, 2015; Vertovec, 2009). The study adopts a critical case study approach (Yin, 2014; Strunk & Betties, 2019) to examine the English language and ESOL learning experiences of 20 high school students born in Anglophone, Francophone, and Lusophone-speaking parts of Africa. The study uses surveys, documentary evidence, and semi-structured interviews (Roulston, 2021) to gauge participants' descriptions of English language learning experiences in America and Canada; and highlights the nexus between literacy, language learning, and phenotypic racialization. In other words, the study uncovers participants' descriptions of identity shifts, changing literacy practices, and how race and racialization are implicated. Anticipated findings will highlight why educators, policymakers, and researchers should: acknowledge the steady growth of African Immigrant background students population in North American classrooms; account for their experiences in educational and research discourses, and understand their experiences as constantly changing and influenced by "glocal" politics and events.

Author

• Olumide B. Ajayi, University of Georgia
  Presenting Author