Cultural difference and teaching ESL students: A school-based action research project

This study explores the inequities that exist within the policies and practices of a culturally diverse school environment and their possible effects on ESL student learning. Understanding the underlying causes of inequities creates opportunities to develop new policies and practices that allow all students to be treated fairly. Action research provided a space to examine and reflect on the existing relationships in the school in an attempt to understand how they influence student learning. This action research project included an outside facilitator which adds another dimension to the relationships. Reflections on this aspect highlight the ways in which our personal theoretical understandings affect actions within the group. We all infuse our knowledge into the group through an interplay of power relations which we can begin to understand based on shared meanings of how power operates and how it may circulate in this context. Analysis of the study was done using concepts of Multicultural and Anti-Racism Education coupled with current culture and identity theoretical perspectives. Added to this is the relevance of the hermeneutic notion of experience to the research findings. This project highlights the importance, to student learning, of getting to know students and parents particularly in a culturally diverse, ESL school environment.