Not Another Paper About Problems We Can’t Solve: Agency in EL Practitioners

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: EL Practioners: Identity, Agency, and Development (Table 9)

Abstract

This paper showcases the perspectives of one English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher, one ESL instructional coach and one university professor regarding agency enacted by ESL practitioners in their daily practice. Informed by spatial theories, the authors collected data from their reflexive journal entries to examine their spatial practices in the school setting and the daily impossibles of teaching English to learners of disparate conditions. The findings were presented not as a cry for help, but as a dialogic discussion of what ESL teachers and specialists can contribute to the enhancement of their students’ social, cultural and linguistic presence and visibility.

Authors

• Chloe B. Le, University of Louisiana at Lafayette

• Kim Skinner, Louisiana State University

• Anita M. Dubroc, Ascension Public Schools