Walking into an ESL Classroom: a Narrative Inquiry Through the Eyes of Latino American Immigrants in Southern California

The lives of how individuals assimilate into a culture can be fascinating when explored through personal stories. This narrative study explores the stories of 10 Latino American immigrants attending an ESL class in a Spanish-speaking language support program. The teachers of the Spanish-speaking language support program were involved in a focus group to reveal how speaking the first language of the students affects their teaching and how the students react to its usage while learning English as a second language. The purpose of this narrative study was to understand how or if Latino American immigrants learning English in an ESL classroom in southern California move through the stages of identity, motivation, and connection during their process of assimilation into a dominant culture. The city of Los Angeles has the most Latino American immigrants in the United States, containing nearly 2 million, so understanding how assimilation occurs into the dominant culture via an ESL classroom could be useful. This researcher sought to understand the role of the ESL classroom with L1 utilized, and then examined the role of language as it pertains to the individual story. A narrative research design was utilized to discover each participant’s journey, beginning in an ordinary place not seen as heroic or spectacular. Their stories shed light on a process (learning in a classroom) that is designed to be inconspicuous, these “stories function to alter the ways we view mundane events,” (Riessman, 2008, p. 63). Ten Latino American immigrants sat down and contributed their narrative to the study so their experience of connecting with the dominant culture could be analyzed and measured with the growing community of immigrants which surrounds them. The four teachers of the Spanish-speaking language support program also added their “wisdom awareness” (Scharmer, 2009, p. 167) regarding Latino American immigrant students learning English in their classroom. Keywords: Identity, Motivation, Connection, Confidence, Isolation, Ostracism, Determination, Opportunities, Obstacles, Communication, Sheltering, Trust-Building, Family, Language, and Dreams.Ed.D., Educational Leadership and Management -- Drexel University, 201