As the number of English language learners (ELLs) in schools increases, educators continue to develop pedagogies that will reach these students. But we’ve heard from ELLs we work with, and their families, that providing good social and emotional supports is as crucial as using the right instructional approach. Creating spaces in schools where ELLs, especially immigrant students, feel safe and supported enables them to make meaning of their personal stories and experiences. Making meaning supports overall learning, as we discovered when we launched a project that gave immigrant students a forum to share their stories.
Looking Beyond Statistics
Poudre School District in Fort Collins, Colorado, has faced tremendous growth in the number of ELLs in our student population over the last 10 years. This increase reflects an influx of immigrant families coming to the region to work in agriculture, reunite with family members, or find a safe haven from war and political instability in their countries of origin.
Poudre District has kept records of enrollment trends and academic achievement data on these new students. The trends shifted regularly because of student mobility, but administrators found students from immigrant families were often among the “gap groups” in terms of student achievement. District administrators wanted to go beyond statistics to learn more deeply about the lives and cultures of their language-learning students. María, the equity and diversity coordinator, proposed a culturally responsive action research project that would help district educators hear these students’ stories. Three beliefs guided this inquiry:
- Because of their experiences as immigrants, ELLs have cultural knowledge and strengths teachers might not be aware of. Having students share these experiences and strengths provides insight into each student’s learning and improves educators’ ability to teach these students.
- Although there are similarities in the experiences, background knowledge, and home-language skills of ELLs, it’s essential to acknowledge their unique stories. Culturally responsive approaches help us do so.
- Engaging in active, hands-on activities that transcend language barriers supports ELLs’ academic growth.
In partnership with researchers at the University of Wyoming, a team of Poudre School District educators developed a photovoice project for English language learners throughout the district. Photovoice is a process that lets participants tell their own stories through photography and storytelling, often including exhibitions and public presentations at schools or community settings. This process gives students opportunities to represent their everyday realities through photographs and to state and claim their unique points of view.
Stories at the Center
Our photovoice team, made up of two university professors, a graduate student, and various personnel from the district, built relationships with the identified schools, met with each school principal and participating teachers, recruited student participants, and designed a series of classes conducted over an entire school year. They put the students and their stories at the center of all their conversations.
Elementary, middle, and high school English language learners participated in the project—21 students altogether, with six parent participants. We used the Colorado Department of Education’s definition for immigrant students—youth who had entered or reentered the country within the past three years—to identify 358 immigrant students in the district.
We recruited students from sites with the largest numbers of immigrant kids and provided them all with a digital camera. Participants attended eight two-hour sessions in which they analyzed visual images; discussed and practiced principles of photography and design; took photographs of important images and moments within their own lives; and wrote narrative text about their lives, homelands, and families to accompany these photographs.
During these weekly meetings, project facilitators sought to create a supportive environment that allowed participants to openly share experiences and to identify ways in which their school communities could create a positive environment for learning. Facilitators started by having participants simply show a few family photos and gradually worked up to having students create their own polished photo posters and speak publicly about them.
The project concluded with a month-long exhibition at a local coffee shop. The participants’ posters—which featured artfully arranged photos (showing students’ homes and families, their talents and hobbies, and places or artifacts representing their home countries) and short text describing their lives as immigrant students and their journeys to the United States—were displayed. The texts included messages like “what I’m good at,” “things my family does for fun,” and “ways people can support newcomer students.”
We scheduled a night at which students were invited to give a brief presentation about their posters. The exhibition gave these young people and their families many opportunities to share their stories with school adults, peers, and community members. As they examined the posters, family members and school staff talked and learned from one another. (See http://epresence.psdschools.org/1/watch/1805.aspx for a video featuring posters, presentations, and students’ comments about this project.)
Helping ELLs: What Matters
As this project unfolded, we came to better understand the lives of English language learners within our district. We discovered key things that mattered to many of our ELLs and their families, themes reflecting what immigrant students—even those from very different cultures—needed in terms of feeling welcomed and ready to learn. We share here four themes that seem deeply rooted in the immigrant and second language learner experience.
A Safe Space to Reflect
We learned how important it is to create classroom spaces in which newcomer students feel comfortable enough to reflect on their lives. Students continually commented on how much they appreciated a designated time in the school day, and a dedicated classroom space, where they could think deeply about their lives, share what they learned about themselves with peers, and express themselves creatively through writing and photography. The project gave them a way to analyze their own experiences in school.
Participants explained that their adjustment to the United States and its schools wasn’t easy. They wished their teachers better understood the difficulties they faced—and how they grew as they faced them. Ernesto, who emigrated from Mexico, wrote in his poster:
It’s hard to start from the beginning in schools. We see things differently, we think differently, we eat different food, we speak differently . . . but when you put those things together and then you match [them] with other cultures and languages . . . you are more open to another person’s thinking and you mature more as a person.
A Chance to Talk About Their Situation
Another important theme was the importance of attending closely to the context in which immigrant students came to the United States as we try to welcome and teach them. Many students reported that our sessions were the only times in their school experiences when they’d been asked to talk about their immigration journeys and lives outside of school. For some students, this was the first time they had shared with fellow students about the difficult situations they and their families faced in their home countries.
For example, Leyla and Abdar told similar stories about the violence their families experienced in Iraq and how that hardship had affected them—both in Iraq and as refugees in the United States. Leyla wrote,
A challenge I have faced is when I left my uncle in Iraq. My mom, brother, sister, and I came here to the United States as refugees. My father had been taken by terrorists and my uncle became like a father to me. This was the hardest challenge I have ever faced. I put his photo here in my poster to let people know how much I love him.
Abdar shared his tremendous sense of loss when he thought his father had been killed:
The hardest challenge I have ever faced was during the Iraq War when the terrorists took my dad for many years. . . . When I came to the United States, we got a call from my family in Iraq and I heard my dad saying “I am still alive.” I was so happy when I heard those words!
As students shared these intense personal stories in our photovoice sessions, their peers supported them. In turn, those peers felt comfortable sharing their own stories of struggle both in and out of school. Attending to the contexts of these students’ resettlement opened up new pathways for communication and understanding.
Family Support
Although participants reported many difficulties—such as the struggle to learn English, discrimination in schools and communities, and feelings of loneliness and disconnectedness from others—they repeatedly returned to the strength of their families and how family members helped them become resilient and successful.
Amparo, a student from Mexico, wrote,
What is special about my immigrant family is that we like to stay together. The challenging part for my family and I is that we don’t have family in the U.S. with us. We’re alone in this country. I would describe my home life and culture as powerful, strong, and united.
The importance of family took on another level of importance when we worked with refugee students from Muslim communities, some of whom had faced stereotypes that they or members of their families were “terrorists.” Masud from Sudan shared,
I am proud to be Muslim, because my religion represents peace, love, respect, and many other things. I want people to understand Islam and know that we aren’t terrorists, and that we are good citizens.
Recognizing Every Student’s Story
Every student’s story matters—and every immigrant student possesses great resilience and determination. Throughout our project, we saw how each student had to process his or her own individual difficulties in relocating to this country. Many students’ posters included a request to others in school to support them in facing obstacles. Mateo from Mexico wrote, “People should understand that just because immigrants are born in a different country, it doesn’t make them different; we are just the same as you.”
Posters also revealed how students found ways to overcome problems they encountered—and affirm the positives in their situations. Leyla acknowledged the difficulties of being a refugee from Iraq (“It is a hard thing because we left our home, family, and friends behind”), but also the good side (“It is special to be an immigrant because I am free and get to do what I want to do. I love that we are here in the United States safely”). Mirlande wrote,
It was sad at first to live here, but now I want to stay here because I can go to school and learn. . . . I go to a beautiful school, where I make new friends and have great teachers. Living in Colorado is the best for me because I am safe and I am learning. . . . I can go back to Haiti when I am done with college and help my family, just like they helped me.
Amplifying Their Voices
Sharing their stories with peers, teachers, and the broader community empowered the newcomers in our district. Some people say projects like this “give students a voice.” The reality is that these immigrant students already had strong voices. Photovoice gave us a way to turn the volume up, to highlight the personal stories, challenges, and gifts English language learners can bring to our public schools.
Author’s note: All student names are pseudonyms.
