| This dissertation describes and analyzes the physical and linguistic isolation of eight ESL-2 middle school students who, despite the fact that they are dominant English speakers, are defined as "ESL-Lifers" by their teachers. Although these students were either born in the United States, or immigrated to this country as infants or toddlers, they continue to test and re-test into ESL-2, just one level above the ESL class that is designed for recent immigrants. Despite their non-native status, however, they possess limited proficiency in their home language, and speak English with friends, siblings, and even parents. Unable to claim an affiliation with the English of school, from which they remain isolated due to their ESL classification, they affiliate instead with the language of the inner-city in which they live, speaking a dialect of English that has AAVE markers, yet remains distinct from AAVE as well.; Specifically, this six-month ethnographic study examines the ways in which the institutional pedagogical beliefs of what is needed in order for second language acquisition to take place ultimately create a school experience that makes the acquisition of standard academic English virtually unattainable for these linguistic minority children.; The data reveal that three overlapping phenomena work together to both influence and impede the language acquisition of the students: The school's physical isolation of ESL students, the ways in which teachers' linguistic expectations and assumptions of their ESL students govern their understanding of classroom pedagogy and language acquisition, and how the students' self-classification and linguistic affiliation influence both their access to and model of English.; This study ultimately calls for a reconsideration of such problematic terms as Target Language, Native Speaker, and Individual Learner. Likewise, this study highlights the need to examine language acquisition within the context of institutional ideologies. |
PDF Full Text Request