English language learners (ELLs) backgrounds may differ significantly from the average teacher’s. Teachers must learn about their students’ experiences to assist them in the classroom and the school campus. Many ELLs may be Students with Interrupted Formal Education (SIFE), estranged from family, walked hundreds or thousands of miles alone through several countries, or encountered dangerous situations on their journey to the United States. People raised in the U.S. may not comprehend children’s different childhood experiences in poorer countries. Many young ELLs’ backgrounds are difficult for most teachers to grasp.
As an English as a second language (ESL) teacher, I have heard many surprising things from my students. For example, before I had a smartphone with translator applications readily available in my first year of teaching, a student was trying to describe the family house she had left in Mexico. She was having trouble finding the correct words for an accurate description. I kept asking, “Do you mean bricks” or “Is it wood boards,” etc. Finally, I gave up, and we decided to continue our lesson. The next day we were doing an assignment on Native American tribes when she saw a picture of a stick hut with a thatch roof and said, “That is what my house in Mexico is like.” As a new ESL teacher, I was surprised that this wonderful, brilliant student had lived in a hut her entire life. This revelation prompted a discussion about how her family had to fetch water from a nearby stream and had no access to electricity or air conditioning.
Probing students about their personal histories can be invaluable. It can provide insight into students’ perceptions and help their classmates and teachers learn about them and curriculum content. Not only did the discussion with my student help me learn about her background, but it elicited valuable information about life without electricity or running water, similar to the Native Americans we were studying. In this section, I will share a few of the stories I have received from students over the years describing their personal history.
Personal Stories
ELLs’ personal stories can be fascinating, insightful, and essential to understanding their struggles. To truly understand ELLs, you must listen to them describe their past lives in their former countries and their experiences since they arrived in the United States. I will describe the background of three of my former students using pseudonyms to protect their identities. These are old stories from former students who are adults now and permitted me to repeat their accounts.
Kevin from Honduras
Since his older sister, whom he had never met, lived in the New Orleans area, Kevin’s mother decided to send him to live with her. His only means of travel was walking. He was 13 years old. She didn’t have anyone to send with him, so he walked alone through the jungles of Central America into Mexico. His mother arranged for him to stop at strangers’ houses to rest and get more food as he continued the journey. He crossed wide rivers, steaming hot jungles, and dry deserts along this adventure. Once he reached the Rio Grande River at the United States border, he had to swim across the river while avoiding dangerous criminals trying to rob or exploit him and U.S. border patrol agents. After he made it into the U.S., there were many more miles of desert to cross before he could get to a phone to call his sister to come to get him. Finally, he lived with his sister and her husband for years without seeing his mother, father, grandparents, or other siblings for years.
Carlos from El Salvador
Carlos was a happy 13-year-old living in El Salvador with his mother, father, and three siblings. One day on his way home from school, two gang members stopped him and told him he would join the deadly criminal gang or they would kill him. The same criminals had already killed his uncle for refusing to pay them money to operate his store. He told his father what they had told him. His family had no option but to send him away before they killed him or forced him into a life of crime and violence. He headed for the United States alone and on foot. Like Kevin, Carlos traveled the long, treacherous journey to our school district through Central America. A year after he was in my classroom, he received word from his parents that his little sister had been murdered on her way home from school.
Mohammed from Yemen
Mohammed lived in a small village in Yemen with his large extended family. It seemed that he was related to almost everyone he knew. He was happy living with his mother, father, grandparents, and siblings. They didn’t have running water or electricity, but they had plenty to eat, and his family was content. He would walk a donkey with water containers to the river daily to gather water for his mother and prepare food for the family. Then, one day, a civil war began between factions within Yemen and Saudi Arabia seeking to take control of the region. Mohammed’s life changed in an instant. Soldiers attached his village, and his entire family had to move to a refugee camp. After many months in the camp, the United States granted them refugee status and relocated them to our school district. In my classroom, he would often show us pictures of his beloved village and extended family, now scattered across the world.
