Revisiting Canargarajah TESOL at Forty

In the beginning of the semester being a monolingual English speaker participating with many bilingual ESOL students and many who have taught English in other countries other than the United States of America, I truly did not know many of the issues that ESOL students and teachers faced during their everyday lives in the classroom. The only issue that I was faced with was the racism of Americans judging L2 on how they should already know English if they are going to live and have citizenship here etc. It was great to read about the importance of empowerment as many students and teachers can feel disempowered due to the lack of support needed by many branches of the ESL field. Empowerment, to all students, not just ESL can motivate students to become critical thinkers and problem solvers while learning the strategies behind them to better help them participate in the learning communities and society. It is important that all ESOL educators and professionals seek to raise awareness of empowerment for the students of ESOL so they may feel not only better with themselves as language learners but also feel comfortable with first language speakers of English. Educators also need to put a valiant effort into learner’s motivational experiences in coexistence with self empowerment. These two qualities can and will change the flow of the classroom towards a progressive educational experience while promoting the fact to the world that second language learners are not deficient and they are as equal to any learner. After all of the articles this semester and while revisiting this one in particular, I feel more comfortable as an educator knowing the issues that are still being contested with that I may be able to make life changing decisions for my ESOL students so they may feel an equal part of the academic community while living in a foreign country or in a country that speaks primarily English.