







































 Li 63 

BC TEAL Journal Volume 3 Number 1 (2018): 63–76 

From Stigma to Strength:  

A Case of ESL Program Transformation in a Greater Vancouver High School 

 

Guofang Li 

University of British Columbia 

 

Abstract 

 

The rapid increase of Asian immigrant students in Canadian classrooms demands more 

systematic and increased language support to ensure all English language learners (ELLs) 

achieve success in school. However, research has found mixed results on the usefulness of 

current English as a Second Language (ESL) support programs and a growing dissatisfaction 

among students and parents about ESL, suggesting further investigation is needed to improve the 

provision of ESL in the schools. This paper details how one school and one ESL teacher 

responded to the needs of newly arrived Asian (i.e., Chinese) ELL students by documenting the 

school’s and teacher’s journey in revamping the pull-out ESL program into a culturally 

responsive English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program with a focus on immersion, 

community engagement, and a pedagogy of cultural reciprocity. The case has important 

implications for redesigning current ESL programs in the context of changing immigration. 

 

The Context: New Immigration Patterns and Old Challenges in Language Learning 

 

Vancouver, the most “Asian city” outside Asia, has the second largest number of Chinese 

immigrants in Canada after Toronto. In fact, the number of Chinese immigrants to Vancouver 

grew by 63.9% from 2001 to 2011. In 2011, 30.7% of the Chinese immigrants in Canada resided 

in British Columbia; 95% of them lived in the Greater Vancouver Area (The Canadian Magazine 

of Immigration, 2016). In addition to a higher educational background, more new immigrants, 

particularly Mainland Chinese, also came with greater financial resources than previous waves of 

Chinese immigrants, with a growing number of entrepreneur, business, and investor-class 

immigrants. It must be noted that a number of these new well-off families are one-parent 

“astronaut families,” with one parent working outside Canada and one parent (often the mother, 

known as a peidu mom "陪读妈妈" or a mother who accompanies her child for studying abroad) 

residing in Canada to take care of their school-age children. Consequently, students from 

Chinese backgrounds continue to arrive at younger ages and in more significant numbers, 

presenting daily challenges to classroom teachers, many of whom have had limited teacher 

education or professional development in teaching English language learners (ELLs) (Webster & 

Valeo, 2011). These students, often classified as ELLs or English as a second language (ESL) 

learners, are now the majority (over 50%) at more than 65 of 550 elementary and secondary 

schools across Metro Vancouver (Skelton, 2014). The rapid increase of ELLs, coupled with 

reduced government funding for ELLs in BC schools, has resulted in a crisis in ELL education 

(Wild, Helmer, Tanaka, & Dean, 2009). 

 

 Historically, Asian students in North America have been treated as homogenous and are 

stereotyped as a “model minority” who have little difficulty achieving academically at high 

levels (Li & Wang, 2008; Ma & Li, 2016). Their success is often attributed to the strict parenting 

enforced by their parents (often mothers) known as “tiger moms” who prefer an authoritarian 



 Li 64 

BC TEAL Journal Volume 3 Number 1 (2018): 63–76 

style of parenting and push for their children’s academic excellence through intensive out of 

school educational enrichment programs and other extracurricular activities (Li & Wang, 2008). 

However, a body of studies on ELLs’ achievement trajectories and social and academic 

integration in Canadian schools has revealed a persistent achievement gap between ELLs and 

their non-ELL counterparts, especially in reading and vocabulary measures (Garnett, 2010; 

Gunderson, 2007; Pavlov, 2015; Roessingh, 2008); and this gap continues to affect ELLs even 

when they enter higher education (Crossman, 2014; Roessingh & Douglas, 2011). Among 

Chinese students, contrary to the “model minority” image, over 60% of Chinese immigrant 

students are found to have failed to acquire competency in either English or their native 

language, thus failing to find cultural affirmation within the classroom, dropping out, or avoiding 

academic subject courses with critical language demands (Gunderson, 2007; Toohey & Derwing, 

2008). 

 

The Issue: ESL as a Stigma 

 

In light of the achievement gaps identified above, researchers and educators have argued for 

more systematic and increased language support to ensure all ELLs achieve success in school. 

ESL support programs, known as ESL pull-out programs, typically take ELLs out from regular 

classroom instruction to receive individual or small group ESL instruction. However, reports are 

mixed about the content and quality of ESL pull-out programs in Canadian schools. While ELLs’ 

academic English has been found to be their major challenge in studying the mandated academic 

subjects, and passing the large-scale high-stakes tests (provincial exams, literacy and numeracy 

assessments) for the graduation requirements, the majority of ESL pull-out programs focus on 

basic interpersonal and conversational skills (BICS) that are irrelevant to subject area courses 

(Cummins, 1981). As a result, as one student in Han and Cheng’s (2011) study indicated, “ESL 

[classes] just focus on English …[but] you [still] can’t understand other courses” (p. 90). Many 

ESL teachers also reported feeling overwhelmed by the linguistic diversity in the classroom and 

did not know how to address different proficiency levels (Cooke, 2017). 

 

 These curricular and teacher factors have contributed to ELL students’ and their parents’ 

dissatisfaction with the ESL programs. In his study of immigrant students’ achievement in 

British Columbian schools, Gunderson (2007) found that immigrant students in secondary 

schools were in ESL classes on average for 3.60 years. He also found that the ELL students’ (as 

well as parents’) perceptions of the usefulness of ESL support were split, with a large number of 

them having negative attitudes toward ESL pull-out programs, considering them as “roadblocks” 

to their gaining admission to university (Gunderson, 2007, p. 268). Other studies also reported 

widespread dissatisfaction with and resistance to pull-out ESL programs among Chinese parents, 

believing that the curricula are not effective in helping ELLs gain the cultural, linguistic, and 

academic competence needed to integrate into the school community (Deschambault, 2015; Guo 

& Maitra, 2017; Hittel, 2007), thus perpetuating ELLs’ marginality in schools and hindering 

their English acquisition (Kanno & Applebaum, 1995). Consequently, many parents of ELLs 

expressed concerns about the negative connotations or stigma associated with the ELL/ESL label 

(e.g., not being smart or being a second class citizen) and wanted their children to exit ESL 

programs (sometimes called by parents as “low-level ghettos”) as soon as possible even though 

they were unable to progress through regular English language classes without language support 

(Gunderson, 2007). Many parents, especially the Chinese parents of high socioeconomic status 



 Li 65 

BC TEAL Journal Volume 3 Number 1 (2018): 63–76 

(SES), relied heavily on academic enrichment programs as a way to get out of the ESL ghettos, 

creating tremendous stress and anxiety both among the children and the parents (Gunderson & 

D’Silva, 2016; Li, 2006). 

 

 It is evident that there exists “significant incongruence between ELLs’ unique linguistic, 

sociocultural needs and the apparent lack of systemic, coordinated ESL-service responses among 

Canadian schools” (Ngo, 2007, p. 4). Current research evidence suggests that there needs to be a 

culturally reciprocal perspective that includes both an understanding of ESL provisions in the 

school and parental expectations and perceptions to serve ELLs better. To date, studies on ESL 

programs and reports of innovative program redesign have been scarce. Only three publications 

can be located. Wyatt-Beynon, Ilieva, Toohey, and Laroque (2001) described a high school 

English co-op program that coupled ESL instruction with work experiences for ELLs who are 

primarily dependent on their first languages. Roessingh (2004, 2008) described the creation of an 

adjunct course that was linked to a high school English literature course in an urban high school 

in Alberta. These two programs, however, were constructed within the budgetary and policy 

constraints of urban schools and without including parental perspectives. Since school SES and 

parental perspective matter, it is essential to see how both school and parents can influence each 

other in shaping ESL provisions in different SES contexts.   

 

 This paper aims to address this gap by documenting a teacher’s (John, a pseudonym) 

journey in negotiating multiple stakeholders including school administration and a group of 

newly-arrived, high SES Chinese parents to revamp a stigmatized pull-out ESL program into a 

curriculum-based English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program with a focus on academic 

language, community engagement, and cultural reciprocity. The work described here was based 

on the author’s consulting work with the teacher and the school during 2016-2018 that entailed 

formal and informal conversations and discussions with the teacher and staff about the ESL 

program, workshops with parents of ELLs, and classroom observations. John had an MEd in 

English Language Arts (ELA) and had been working for nearly 20 years as an ELA teacher in 

the greater Vancouver area. At the time of the program revision, he was studying for his 

Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) diploma at a local university. 

 

The Journey: Redesigning the ESL Program 

 

The Old ESL Pull-out Program and Its Stigma 

 

Schools in the greater Vancouver area have seen an increase in the number of Asian, particularly 

Chinese, students. The abundance of private schools and highly ranked public schools in the area 

add to the appeal to new Chinese immigrants who place a high value on education. As a result, 

the number of ELL students whose first language is not English is on the rise in many local 

schools including the Pacific West School (pseudonym) featured in this paper. Like many other 

schools in the area, in Pacific West School, there has been a growing pool of Asian (i.e., 

Mandarin-speaking) students attending the school, and their academic achievements tended to 

follow a similar pattern: they excelled in the areas of math and science, could pass social studies 

and history courses where assessments were based more on content than on the quality of the 

writing, but had low scores in ELA classes where assessments were based on high proficiency in 

both oral and written academic English.   



 Li 66 

BC TEAL Journal Volume 3 Number 1 (2018): 63–76 

 Recognizing that these students had high academic potential but were experiencing 

academic language challenges, Pacific West School began to work to meet the needs of this 

student demographic in recent years. The school initially followed the same principle as other 

schools by starting a pilot ESL pull-out program designed to support the language needs of those 

students who excelled in math and science but were below grade level in their academic English. 

Each day, ELLs were pulled out of mainstream content area classes (ELA, Social Studies, 

Science, and French) for four periods to receive sheltered instruction in small classes with an 

ELL specialist teacher. The only mainstream classes these students attended with their English 

speaking peers were physical education, electives, and math. Students remained together as an 

ESL cohort and their homeroom was located in the basement of their building, which further 

separated them from the larger school population.  

 

 While this was a step in the right direction, the organization of the program as a pull-out 

ESL program created some challenges, and the academic and cultural gaps that started to appear 

required the school to reassess how it was meeting the needs of this select group of students. 

Because such a significant portion of their classroom time was spent separated from the 

mainstream English speaking population, as a cohort, these students were not using English 

beyond their ESL class. Since they did not integrate well with English speaking students, they 

were reluctant to participate in other school activities. Consequently, the students regularly 

reverted to their mother tongue—something the school soon realized was defeating its intention 

for language learning through English immersion. Interestingly, their isolation gave them a sense 

of power supported by their language and culture: they spoke their mother tongue in all of their 

classes despite teachers asking them to speak English, they sat together in mainstream classes, 

and worked together during group work activities (speaking their mother tongue rather than 

English to negotiate assignments). While such empowerment is what all teachers want students 

to feel, especially as it relates to their mother tongue and culture, this situation was not helpful in 

developing their academic language in English or “Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency” 

(CALP) (Cummins, 1981), something essential to their success during and beyond high school.  

 

 Additionally, their parents were found also to be isolated from other parents, with them 

only interacting with other Chinese parents. Aware that their children were isolated in the school, 

it was not surprising that parents of these students did not want their children to stay in the 

program. Like the other Asian parents reviewed in the other studies in the earlier section of this 

paper, they wanted their children to get out of the ESL program as soon as possible. For their 

children to catch up with mainstream students and make progress in their core academic subjects, 

these parents chose to enroll their children in intensive after-school enrichment programs: known 

in the community as “after-school-school.” While they intended to support their child’s academic 

progress, these enrichment programs often added extra stress to the students because they did not 

focus on the core curriculum and, instead, forced students to follow an alternate curriculum that 

asked them to read literature and learn content far above their ability and grade level. These 

programs were also incredibly expensive, and, more problematically, they falsely guaranteed 

student success in Canadian high schools and beyond. These programs also levied a heavy 

workload on their students, causing children to divert their focus away from their classroom 

studies to complete the readings and homework for their “after-school-school” programs. Pacific 

West teachers were able to quickly identify that these extra classes were causing the Chinese 

students to come to school tired and unable to focus on their school studies. The homework from 



 Li 67 

BC TEAL Journal Volume 3 Number 1 (2018): 63–76 

those programs then led to unnecessary stress and anxiety not only for the students and their 

parents, but also their teachers. Due to the disconnection of these tutoring classes from the core 

curriculum in school, students were busy but were not making satisfactory progress. On the 

contrary, because they were in so many these “after-school-school” enrichment classes, they 

were unable to focus on their school work. Similar to the Chinese parents in Li’s (2006) study, 

these parents were increasingly dissatisfied with the program in the school. In the end, many 

students left the school with only a few staying on until graduation.  

 

 It was clear to John and the school staff that these students, along with their parents, were 

not integrating into the school community. Realizing that the program was not working as they 

had hoped, John and the school administrators took time to re-envision whether or not the 

traditional model of ESL pull-out worked. At the time, the previous ELL specialist teacher left 

and John began the TESL Diploma program at a local university and was learning about 

culturally responsive teaching practices and content-based language teaching models. He saw the 

immediate relevance of his professional learning to the issues the school’s ESL pull-out program 

confronted, and he shared with the school administrators and staff his ideas about how to better 

support these students whose first language was not English within mainstream classes. John 

held a series of formal and informal conversations with the principal and colleagues, and he was 

eventually charged by the school to redesign the program. One of the first steps John took was to 

follow culturally responsive teaching principles by taking time to understand the parents’ and 

students’ needs and to inform them about the distinct academic differences between a pull-out 

ESL and an EAP program. 

 

Listening to Parents: Reshaping the Program 

 

One crucial aspect of culturally responsive teaching is to make both the students and their 

parents feel like they are part of the school community. Au (2007) argued that effective 

instruction that builds on the values and experiences students bring from home is a possible way 

to narrow the literacy achievement gaps. Valuing students’ home experiences means that 

teachers must make instruction consistent with a worldview that resonates with the cultural 

values of many non-mainstream groups, such as that of the Chinese parents in the school, while 

maintaining high academic expectations and standards for learning. Li (2006) suggested that 

successful programs and classrooms for diverse learners must be built upon understanding 

parents’ culturally different values and beliefs in education and educating parents about school 

programs and how they work. With this principle of cultural reciprocity in mind, John began the 

redesign of the pull-out ESL program to ensure that it would meet the specific needs of the Asian 

students attending the school. The first step was to listen to the concerns of the parents by 

reaching out to the parent community. 

 

 In 2013, recognizing that the school needed to better connect with the Asian parent 

community, the principal decided to hire a bilingual English/Mandarin cultural liaison officer 

who could support administration and teachers when they needed to communicate with Mandarin 

speaking parents. Since few members of the staff understand Mandarin, the liaison officer has 

become an invaluable asset to the school and has helped to improve the sense of community for 

the non-English speaking parents. Since 2014, with the help of the liaison officer, John hosted a 

series of meetings with the parents of ELLs. During these meetings, John took the time to 



 Li 68 

BC TEAL Journal Volume 3 Number 1 (2018): 63–76 

address parent concerns about academic progress and address the school’s concerns about 

enrichment classes that could potentially have a contrary mandate to the school. He also 

collected parent questions or concerns and used this learning to guide follow-up meetings. Also, 

John invited the school guidance counsellors to these meetings. The goal was to help the parents 

feel comfortable accessing resources available to them and their children at the school rather than 

looking outside the school for support. With each year, these gatherings have become more and 

more focused. In 2016, John invited me to offer two workshops in Chinese to the parents of 

ELLs in 2017, with the first one focusing on understanding the parents’ challenges in helping 

their children and the second one on understanding their children’s socioemotional, academic, 

and linguistic needs as new students in Canada. Contrary to previous parent-teacher conferences, 

attendances of these gatherings were high, and parents were highly interactive. Feedback forms 

from parents were overwhelmingly positive about the topics discussed and all of them expressed 

the desire to have more such gatherings to help them better support themselves, their 

understanding of the school program, and their interaction with their children. According to the 

parent liaison person, these teatime conversations led to a stronger sense of community among 

the parents of ELLs and the school, and supported parents as they navigated communication with 

teachers and administration.  

 

The Birth of the EAP Program 

 

The Asian parents’ concerns and suggestions for academic English learning had led John to 

explore several scholars such as Gibbons’ (2009, 2015) and Zwiers’ (2014) work on building 

academic language in mainstream classes. Zwiers (2014) noted that “[a]s students leave the 

primary grades, their academic success depends more and more on their abilities to use academic 

language—the language used to describe abstract concepts, complex ideas, and critical thinking” 

(p. ix). Similarly, Gibbons (2015) argued that teachers can support students with diverse cultural 

and linguistic backgrounds in their content classes by adapting their lessons to include materials 

and resources that help the specific linguistic skills needed for success in a given level, oral and 

written. For ELL students, these linguistic skills include the development of students’ high 

frequency and multiple-meaning words that appear in different subject areas (often called Tier 2 

vocabulary) and low frequency, context-specific vocabulary that occur in specific subjects in 

school (Tier 3 vocabulary) (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002), as well as genre knowledge and 

disciplinary language skills needed for success in mainstream English, social studies, and science 

classes (Gibbons, 2015). 

 

 In addition to the need for support in content-based language acquisition, one crucial 

aspect of cultural responsiveness is to build capacity, confidence, and efficacy in students as 

agents of their learning, with the capacity, confidence, and efficacy embedded in the students’ 

cultural backgrounds and local communities (Au, 2007; Gay, 2010). Building on these culturally 

responsive teaching principles, John redesigned the traditional pull-out ESL program to support 

the Chinese students in achieving mastery in academic English. Building on the research finding 

that it takes between five and seven years for students to reach native speaker fluency when 

learning in a full immersion setting (Cummins, 2000; Hakuta, Butler, & Witt, 2000; Thomas, & 

Collier, 2002), the program, renamed as the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) Program, was 

redesigned as a five-year program. It was then offered to a cohort of Asian students entering 

Grade 8 each year through until their graduation at the end of Grade 12. Starting with this group 



 Li 69 

BC TEAL Journal Volume 3 Number 1 (2018): 63–76 

of learners at Grade 8 and continuing on for next five years is critical as research has shown that 

students arriving between ages of 12–14 are most at risk (in comparison with those who arrive 

younger or older) in achieving academic success as they “appear to be stuck between languages, 

with neither [first language] L1 nor [second language] L2 providing what is necessary for them 

to achieve academically before time runs out” in either the first language or second language 

(Roessingh, 2008, p. 102).  

 

 Different from the traditional pull-out program, students attend mainstream classes, 

except for the sheltered ELA class that John also taught. This was achieved through careful 

consideration of “time, timing, and timetabling” (Roessingh & Field, 2000) to directly place 

these academically competent learners in core academic courses, coupled with sheltered ELA 

support. These considerations and support are considered critical elements of ensuring successful 

high school graduation for ELLs (Roessingh & Field, 2000). As John was both an ELA and EAP 

specialist, he could ensure that the core ELA curriculum was taught to the cohort, in addition to 

developing strong foundational skills that support their academic language development. In 

Grade 8, this cohort was also pulled out of French class to support the development of their 

CALP. They were then placed back into French or Spanish in Grade 9. Aside from these two 

specific classes, the Grade 8 EAP students were fully immersed in all of their other classes: 

social studies, math, science, and all electives. They were also dispersed into different homeroom 

classes, with no two cohort students in the same homeroom class. This design had resulted in a 

definite shift towards their ability to use English more in social settings as well as opening up the 

EAP students to more diverse friendships throughout the school. Students also receive extra 

support in Grade 9 as the transition to high school from Grade 9 to 10 is found to be a critical 

period for many ELLs who, without enhanced support, may be “lost in translation” with a 

substantial decline in marks due to low literacy levels, limited academic vocabulary, and anxiety 

about meeting expectations (Miles, 2014). In Grade 9, this group attended one tutorial block with 

John who supported their CALP across the disciplines. In all other cases, the students are fully 

immersed in the larger school population. 

 

 In addition to the high support for academic language learning, another important 

application of culturally relevant teaching was to address students’ sense of isolation and stigma 

as ESL students. With the help of the principal, John moved the program from the lower level of 

the building to a classroom on the upper floor of the building where students could see the school 

activities and interact with other students easily. To support their transition into high school, 

students in the Grade 8 cohort were paired with senior students who acted as mentors and lunch 

buddies.  

 

 Adding to the support for content-based language acquisition, the program also aimed to 

make connections between students’ in-school curriculum and their cultural backgrounds and 

local communities through curriculum-specific excursions such as visits to local historical sites 

such as Chinatown, The Museum of Anthropology, The Museum of Vancouver, and The 

Vancouver Art Gallery. These excursions were used to complement their in-class projects and 

academic language development to provide the students with opportunities to apply academic 

English in real-life situations in culturally relevant contexts outside of the classroom. An 

example of the in-school and out-of-school connection was studying a text in connection with the 

Chinese students’ own cultural heritage and their local communities. One such example was 



 Li 70 

BC TEAL Journal Volume 3 Number 1 (2018): 63–76 

studying texts like, The Jade Peony (Choy, 1995), then taking the students on a historical tour of 

Chinatown led by an urban historian of the city. Visits like this helped students make 

connections between the book they were reading and the real world they were seeing around 

them. Additionally, students were asked to choose their books in their first language related to a 

theme studied in class. They then had to analyse the theme, characters, and literary devices, and 

translate thematic quotes. This would then be presented to the class and would be followed by 

some engaging cultural and academic discussions. This kind of student-centred activities valued 

students’ first language and cultures, their opinions on the reading, as well as their ability to take 

more responsibilities in their reading; thus, these activities helped build students’ confidence as 

learners and increase their self-efficacy as readers and writers.  

 

 In sum, John and the school administrators re-envisioned the program around current 

research trends focusing on high immersion, high support, content-based language acquisition 

practices to support the newly arrived Asian students who tend to possess a high level of oral 

fluency in English, but their academic English fluency is often far below grade level. In addition 

to facilitating ELLs’ social and academic integration and focusing academic language and 

content support, John actively engaged in dialoguing with the parents during the process. These 

programmatic changes and social efforts helped shift the optics of the language support provided 

to this unique group of Asian students and increased parent confidence that their child would 

find success within a North American educational setting. 

 

Reshaping Parents: The Change in Parents’ and Students’ Attitudes 

 

Since the transformation, the school has been seeing a marked improvement in the academic 

achievements of the ELL students, with the EAP cohorts needing less and less academic support 

after Grade 10. According to John, students in the current program expressed the idea that they 

felt confident with their academic skill-set, with several students pursuing Advanced Placement 

(AP) studies in both literature and humanities courses, courses that previous ELL students 

usually tried to avoid. This alone showed a marked increase in ELL students’ confidence using 

academic English. John also noted that ELL students in the EAP cohorts, unlike those in the 

previous pull-out programs, valued the support they received from the EAP program and became 

“cultural navigators” (Habacon, 2009) for their parents. Students expressed the idea with John 

that they shared what they did in the program with their parents and convinced their parents that 

they needed the support provided by the program. One Grade 10 student in the spring of 2017 

asked her mother to fire all of her tutors because she realized that she could do better and study 

better when she only focused on her school work and sought one-to-one support from John and 

her other teachers. John noted that, for this particular student, finding help from her class 

teachers had been a huge stepping stone and was a clear indicator that her confidence in herself 

and the school program was improving. Improvements like these were having a positive ripple 

effect on their parents, who were learning from their children that the support offered in the 

school was not only sufficient, but exceeded that provided by outside-of-school enrichment 

programs. 

 

 In the feedback forms on the two parent workshops I offered, all the parents expressed in 

the feedback forms that they appreciated the opportunities to have discussions with other parents 

on their children’s issues. In particular, the parents of the new cohort of Grade 8 students shared 



 Li 71 

BC TEAL Journal Volume 3 Number 1 (2018): 63–76 

that they really benefited from small group discussions and exchanges with parents of students in 

higher grades. Additionally, parents reported that they learned to have less anxiety over their 

children’s academic studies and to practice letting their children become more independent and 

make their own decisions about their own learning, such as whether to engage in extracurricular 

tutoring.  

 

 According to the parent liaison who regularly checked in with the parents, the new-

coming immigrant parents felt welcomed into the school community and saw the program as 

“very inclusive.” She noted a striking difference among the new-coming and current parents as 

compared to those a few years ago in that the current parents did not feel their children were 

isolated linguistically, culturally, or socially in the school. Consequently, they were more willing 

to be integrated into the school community. More Asian mothers were volunteering at school 

functions than in the past despite language barriers. These differences showed a newfound trust 

in the school among the Asian parents. 

 

Conclusion 

 

This paper describes a language teacher’s journey of transforming a traditional ESL program to 

provide high-quality EAP education for the newly arrived Asian immigrant students in the 

school. It is apparent that the issue of academic language proficiency, critical to the new 

immigrant students’ achievement of high academic standing and future admission to colleges and 

universities, has presented both a tension and an opportunity for both the school and the parents 

to reflect on their own practices and effect changes in their own domains that best serve the 

interests of their children’s academic, socio-emotional, and linguistic needs. 

 

 This cultural reciprocity could not be achieved, however, without the ESL teacher being 

“a change agent” and a “cultural mediator” (Li, 2013) who applied research-based best practices 

to make the school program and curriculum responsive to the parents’ concerns. The agency and 

advocacy John exhibited through his work as a “go-between” between the school and the parents 

suggests the critical role teachers can play in tackling some of the reported cultural chasm, 

school-home language disconnections, and power imbalance between mainstream schools and 

minority parents (Li, 2008; Li, 2018; Roessingh, 2006). In this case, John’s agency was 

mobilized by his beliefs in cultural reciprocity and positive attitudes toward immigrant parents’ 

“funds of knowledge” (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992), his motivation to engage in 

professional learning, and his proactive stance to connect his professional learning with real 

world challenges within the context he taught.  

 

 These mobilizing factors suggest that teachers’ capacity to take actions is central to 

school-based curriculum development. Many teachers may already possess many of these 

agentic qualities and need to make a conscious effort to activate their “professional capital” 

(Fullan, Rincón-Gallardo, & Hargreaves, 2015) by constantly engaging in reflective practices to 

improve conditions that surround the classroom. Fullan & Hargreaves (1991, 2016) suggest that 

teachers can do so by engaging with others in collaborative or interactive professionalism that 

starts with teachers locating, listening to, and articulating their inner voice, developing a risk-

taking mentality, redefining their role to extend beyond the classroom, seeking variety and 

avoiding balkanization, committing to working with colleagues, monitoring the connection 



 Li 72 

BC TEAL Journal Volume 3 Number 1 (2018): 63–76 

between their development and their students’ development, and practising reflection in action, 

on action, and about action. In addition to teachers’ individual responsibility and inquiry, teacher 

education professional development and learning must also pay deliberate attention to addressing 

teachers’ development of agency and make developing such collaborative professionalism “the 

centerpiece” of its training strategy (Fullan & Hargreaves, 2016, p. 22). 

 

 The school administrative support was also a critical ingredient for the example of 

success presented in this paper. The administrator’s noticing the issue, creating a bilingual 

liaison/assistant position to better reach the parent community, involving John in decision 

making about program change, and supporting John’s initiatives on parent engagement activities 

provided “agentic spaces” (Priestley, Biesta, & Robinson, 2015, p. 2) that allowed him to 

exercise his agency and expertise in ELL education to reshape the program to meet the needs of 

the students and the worldview of the parents. Both the teacher and the school’s attitudes toward 

minority parents and their concerns for the traditional ESL pull-out program were drastically 

different from those documented in similar situations in several low-SES inner city schools 

where schools resisted any changes to its ineffective programs (see Duffy, 2003; Hittel, 2007; Li, 

2008b for examples). The case presented here demonstrates that in addition to teacher agentic 

capacity, agentic spaces provided by the school are also critical to evoke change, suggesting the 

need for schools to develop effective structures or ecologies of teaching to encourage and enable 

teacher autonomy and agency in program transformation (Priestley, Biesta, & Robinson, 2015). 

 

 Further, the SES factor must be noted for those who intend to do similar work. This 

mutual reshaping between parents and schools took place in a highly privileged school district 

where parents’ (and the school’s) economic power provides a much-needed safety net for such 

program revision to occur. As previous studies (i.e., Gunderson, 2007; Li, 2002, 2006, 2008; 

Toohey and Derwing, 2008) indicate, ELLs without such financial support (often in the form of 

out of school tutoring) tend to lag behind their high SES peers. Therefore, to level the playing 

field for these learners, schools for these students have more imperative to reshape their 

programs and relationships with parents. However, to what extent such changed relations can 

occur in these schools affected by long-standing inequalities of social, economic, and political 

power must be further explored. Nevertheless, the example in this paper shows the possibility 

and hope, regardless of a school’s SES status, lie in the continued professional development of 

teachers in best practices for educating diverse students and the schools’ positive attitudes and 

dispositions toward minority parents and their cultural and linguistic capital.  

 

 Finally, it must be noted that school reform and program transformation, such as the case 

described in this paper, is always unfinished work. To further refine this program, for example, 

John, as well as the school staff, could collect relevant data on the graduation rates and other 

markers of success for students who were in the EAP program, for example, their reading scores 

or other indicators of increasing English language proficiency such as teacher benchmarking and 

assessments. To show their progress over time, it would also be important to follow these 

students as they graduate high school and begin to enter post-secondary studies. These data 

would then be important for continued, systematic program redesign at both the K-12 school and 

in higher education.  

 



 Li 73 

BC TEAL Journal Volume 3 Number 1 (2018): 63–76 

 As well, one area of future work can focus on how to include/strengthen the teaching of 

students’ first language, alongside the effort to enhance their second language, English or 

French, in K-12 schools after immigration. A body of prior research (i.e., Cummins, 1981; 

Pavlov, 2015; Roessingh, 2008), as well as that indicated in this case study, has shown the 

correlation between ELLs’ first language and culture on their reading performance in English. 

However, this linguistic potential is either discontinued or left to the choices and support of 

parents of ELLs at home or in weekend language schools, which is often ineffective (Li & Wen, 

2015). Therefore, while schools look for ways to better support ELLs, making the improving of 

students’ first language proficiency an integral part of program design might be a more effective 

way to accelerate their academic integration. 

 

References 

 

Au, K. (2007). Culturally responsive instruction: Application to multiethnic classrooms. 

Pedagogies, 2, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/15544800701343562  

Beck, I. L., McKeown, M., & Kucan, L. (2002). Choosing words to teach. In Bringing words to 

life: Robust vocabulary instruction (15-30). New York, NY: Guilford Press. 

Choy, W. (1995). The jade peony. Maderia Park, BC: Douglas and MacIntyre Ltd. 

Cooke, R. (2017, Feb. 20). ESL teachers feel incapable of providing for immigrant, refugee 

students. CBC News. Available at http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-

labrador/inside-the-classroom-esl-teachers-refugees-1.3954861  

Corno, L. (1989). What it means to be literate about classrooms.  In D. Bloome (Ed.), Classroom 

and literacy (pp. 29-52). Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation. 

Crossman, K. (2014). Intensive English for academic purposes: A curriculum designed and 

developed for local English language learners entering university (Unpublished doctoral 

dissertation). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. Retrieved 

from https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/11023/1707  

Cummins, J. (1981). The role of primary language development in promoting educational 

success for language minority students. In California State Department of Education 

(Ed.), Schooling and language minority students: A theoretical framework (pp. 3–49). 

Los Angeles, CA: Evaluation, Dissemination and Assessment Center, California State 

University, Los Angeles. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED249773.pdf  

Cummins, J. (1986). Empowering minority students: A framework for intervention. Harvard 

Educational Review, 56(1), 18-36. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.56.1.b327234461607787  

Cummins, J. (2000). Language, power, and pedagogy: Bilingual children caught in the crossfire. 

Toronto, ON: Multilingual Matters. 

Deschambault, D. (2015). Economizing education: Fee-paying ESL students in a public high 

school. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of British Columbia, BC. 

Duffy, A. (2003). Class struggles: Public education and the new Canadian. The Atkinson 

Fellowship in Public Policy, 1–20. 

Fullan, M., & Hargreaves, A. (1991). What's worth fighting for in your school? Toronto: Ontario 

Public School Teachers' Federation. 

Fullan, M. & Hargreaves, A. (2016). Bringing the profession back in: Call to action. Oxford, 

OH: Learning Forward.  

Fullan, M., Rincón-Gallardo, S., & Hargreaves, A. (2015). Professional capital as accountability. 

Education Policy Analysis Archives, 23(15), 1-18.  

https://doi.org/10.1080/15544800701343562
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/inside-the-classroom-esl-teachers-refugees-1.3954861
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/inside-the-classroom-esl-teachers-refugees-1.3954861
https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/11023/1707
http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED249773.pdf
https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.56.1.b327234461607787


 Li 74 

BC TEAL Journal Volume 3 Number 1 (2018): 63–76 

Garnett, B. (2010). Toward understanding the academic trajectories of ESL youth. Canadian 

Modern Language Review, 66, 677-710. https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr.66.5.677  

Gay, G. (2010). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. New York, NY: 

Teachers College Press. 

Gibbons, P. (2009). English learners academic literacy and thinking: Learning in the challenge 

zone. Portsmouth: Heinemann. 

Gibbons, P. (2015). Scaffolding language, scaffolding learning: Teaching second language 

learners in the mainstream classroom, 2nd Ed. Portsmouth N.H.: Heinemann. 

Gunderson, L. (2007). English-only instruction and immigrant students in secondary schools: A 

critical examination.Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. 

Gunderson, L., & D’Silva, R. A. (2016). Disaggregating secondary-level Chinese immigrants’ 

academic, English, and school success. In W. Ma and G. Li (Eds.), Chinese-heritage 

students in North American schools: Understanding hearts and minds beyond test scores. 

New York: Routledge. 

Guo, Y., & Maitra, S. (2017). Parent and community experience and engagement with EAL 

policies. Available at: https://policywise.com/wp-

content/uploads/resources/2017/04/2017-04APR-19-Scientific-Report-14SM-Guo.pdf  

Habacon, A. E. (2009). Multiculturalism 2.0: More than Ethnic. TEDx Vancouver. Retrieved 

November, 2nd, 2015 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTy22qmK2WE  

Hakuta, K., Butler, Y., Witt, D. (2000). How long does it take English learners to attain 

proficiency? LA: University of California Linguistic Minority Research Institute. 

Han, H., & Cheng, L. (2011). Tracking the success of ESL students within the context of the 

Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test. Canadian and International Education Journal, 

40(1), 76-96.  

Hittel, I. (2007). Issues of integration and ESL education: The Sudanese youth of Calgary. 

Unpublished master’s thesis, Athabasca University, Alberta. 

Hyslop, K. (2011, Mar. 29). English as second language programs swamped: Teachers' group. 

The Tyee. Available at: https://thetyee.ca/News/2011/03/29/ESLTeachersSwamped/  

Kanno, Y., & Applebaum, S. D. (1995). ESL students speak up: The stories of how we are 

doing. TESL Canada Journal, 12(2), 32-49. https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v12i2.651  

Li, G. (2002). “East is East, West is West”? Home literacy, culture, and schooling. New York: 

Peter Lang. 

Li, G. (2006). Culturally contested pedagogy: Battles of literacy and schooling between 

mainstream teachers and Asian immigrant parents. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. 

Li, G. (2008). Culturally contested literacies: America’s “rainbow underclass” and urban 

schools. New York: Routledge. 

Li, G. (2013). Promoting teachers of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students as 

change agents: A cultural approach to professional learning.  Theory Into Practice, 52(2), 

136-143. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2013.770331  

Li, G. (2018). Divergent paths, same destiny: A Bourdieusian perspective on refugee families’ 

transitional experiences with urban schooling. European Journal of Education, 0(0), 1–

12. http://https//doi.org/10.1111/ejed.12300  

Li, G., & Wang, L. (Eds., 2008). Model minority myths revisited: An interdisciplinary approach 

to demystifying Asian American education experiences. Greenwich, CT:  Information 

Age Publishing. 

https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr.66.5.677
https://policywise.com/wp-content/uploads/resources/2017/04/2017-04APR-19-Scientific-Report-14SM-Guo.pdf
https://policywise.com/wp-content/uploads/resources/2017/04/2017-04APR-19-Scientific-Report-14SM-Guo.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTy22qmK2WE
https://thetyee.ca/News/2011/03/29/ESLTeachersSwamped/
https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v12i2.651
https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2013.770331
http://https/doi.org/10.1111/ejed.12300


 Li 75 

BC TEAL Journal Volume 3 Number 1 (2018): 63–76 

Li, G., & Wen, K. (2015). East Asian heritage language education in the United States:  

Practices, potholes, and possibilities. International Multilingual Research Journal, 9(4), 

274-290. https://doi.org/10.1080/19313152.2015.1086623  

Ma, W., & Li, G. (Eds., 2016): Chinese-heritage students in North American schools: 

Understanding the hearts and minds beyond test scores. New York: Routledge 

Miles, J. (2014). Lost in translation? The impact of early inclusion on transitional high school 

experiences and distal academic outcomes of ELLs (Unpublished master’s thesis). 

University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. Retrieved 

from https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/11023/1729  

Moll, L. C., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & Gonzalez, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: 

Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory Into Practice, 

31(2), 132–141. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405849209543534  

Ngo, H. V. (2007). Toward quality ESL education. TESL Canada Journal, 24(2), 1-20. 

https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v24i2.136  

Pavlov, V. (2015). Challenges faced by English language learners on the Alberta English 

Language Arts 30-1 reading diploma examination (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). 

University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. Retrieved 

from https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/11023/2660  

Priestley, M., Biesta, G.J.J. & Robinson, S. (2015). Teacher agency: what is it and why does it 

matter? In R. Kneyber & J. Evers (eds.), Flip the system: Changing education from the 

bottom up. London: Routledge.  

Roessingh, H. (2004). Effective high school ESL programs: A synthesis and meta-analysis. 

Canadian Modern Language Review, 60 (5), 611-636. 

https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr.60.5.611  

Roessingh, H. (2006). The teacher is the key: Building trust in ESL high school programs. 

Canadian Modern Language Review, 62(4), 563-590. 

https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr.62.4.563  

Roessingh, H. (2008). Variability in ESL outcomes: The influence of AOA and LOR on 

achievement in high school. TESL Canada Journal, 26(1), 87-107. 

https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v26i1.392  

Roessingh, H., & Douglas, S. (2011). English language learners’ transitional needs from high 

school to university: An exploratory study. Journal of International Migration and 

Integration, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-011-0202-8  

Roessingh, H., & Field, D. (2000). Time, timing, timetabling: Critical elements of successful 
graduation of high school ESL learners. TESL Canada Journal, 18(1), 17-31. 
https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v18i1.897  

The Canadian Magazine of Immigration. (2016). Chinese immigrants to Canada. Retrieved on 

September 8, 2016, from http://canadaimmigrants.com/chinese-immigrants-to-canada/  

Thomas, W., & Collier, V. (2002). A national study of school effectiveness for language minority 

students’ long term academic achievement. Center for Research on Education, Diversity 

& Excellence. Final Reports. Paper 1_1_final. Retrieved 

from http://repositories.cdlib.org/crede/finalrpts/1_1_final  

Toohey, K., & Derwing, T.M. (2008). Hidden losses: How demographics can encourage 

incorrect assumptions about ESL high school students’ success. Alberta Journal of 

Educational Research, 54, 178-193.  

https://doi.org/10.1080/19313152.2015.1086623
https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/11023/1729
https://doi.org/10.1080/00405849209543534
https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v24i2.136
https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/11023/2660
https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr.60.5.611
https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr.62.4.563
https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v26i1.392
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-011-0202-8
https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v18i1.897
http://canadaimmigrants.com/chinese-immigrants-to-canada/
http://repositories.cdlib.org/crede/finalrpts/1_1_final


 Li 76 

BC TEAL Journal Volume 3 Number 1 (2018): 63–76 

Skelton, C. (2014, July 8). ESL students in the majority at more than 60 schools in Metro 

Vancouver. Vancouver Sun. Retrieved on September 20, 2016, from 

www.vancouversun.com/health/students+majority+more...schools.../story.html  

Watt, D., & Roessingh, H. (2001). The dynamics of ESL drop-out: Plus ça change…. Canadian 

Modern Language Review, 58(2), 203-222. https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr.58.2.203  

Webster, N. L., & Valeo, A. (2011). Teacher preparedness for a changing demographic of 

language learners. TESL Canada Journal, 28(2), 105-128. 

https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v28i2.1075  

Wild, J., Helmer, S., Tanaka P., & Dean, S. (2009). A “crisis in ESL education” in BC schools. 

Retrieved September 20, 2016, from 

http://boards.amssa.org/ancie/members/viewPost/post_id:71  

Wyatt-Beynon, J., Ilieva, R., Toohey, K., & Laroque, L. (2001). A secondary school career 

education program for ESL students. Curriculum Inquiry, 31, 399-420. 

https://doi.org/10.1111/0362-6784.00205  

Zwiers, J. (2014). Building academic language (2nd edition). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 

 

 

 
The BC TEAL Journal is licensed under a 

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. 
Copyright rests with the authors. 

 

http://www.vancouversun.com/health/students+majority+more...schools.../story.html
https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr.58.2.203
https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v28i2.1075
http://boards.amssa.org/ancie/members/viewPost/post_id:71
https://doi.org/10.1111/0362-6784.00205
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

