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From Self-Doubt to Self-Acceptance: 
An ESL Learner’s Journey 

By Jing Li 
jli51@tamu.edu   

College of Education and Human Development 
Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 

 
This article is a narrative inquiry into how an ESL learner transits from self-doubt 
to self-acceptance after having come to the United States and becomes more 
open to communications with others. Three aspects are found to be critical for 
the learner to reach self-acceptance: sharing language experiences through 
storytelling; finding one’s own expertise in collaborative learning; awakening to 
one’s own membership in diverse settings. The last section provides teachers 
with practical ideas regarding how to foster ESL students’ self-acceptance and 
empower them to be actively engaged in conversations with others in English.   
 
Keywords:  Self-acceptance; ESL learners; Storytelling; Expertise; Collaborative 
learning; Diversity 

 

Three years ago, a Chinese girl flew to the United States to pursue a graduate 

degree. She sat in the back of the university classroom, writing heavy notes on 

materials but not speaking much. She ordered the food in restaurants by simply 

pointing to the dish name on the menu and saying “this” or “that”.  She did not 

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mailto:jli51@tamu.edu


quite get what the bus driver said about where she should get off for her 

destination, but dared not to ask for clarification in front of the passengers.   

The girl, who had been learning English for 13 years in China, felt helpless 

and difficult to navigate her studies and daily life after she landed on the United 

States. She kept asking herself: what was the point of having invested efforts in 

learning English for so many years – only to find that she had so little expertise in 

the language now? What she had learned in China was not what was frequently 

used in the United States. Whenever she started communicating with others in a 

variety of English that they were unfamiliar with, she was harassed by the 

awareness of how incapable she was as a speaker of English. This girl was me, the 

“me” at the beginning of an ESL learner’s journey in the United States.  

Sharing Language Experiences through Storytelling 

Having become so afraid of being judged as an incompetent speaker of 

English, I put on a mask of understanding with ease what others had said.  When 

the whole class laughed about the professor’s joke, I also wore a smile, even 

though I did not quite get it. After the bank representative explained the 

procedures of applying for a debit card, I directly said, “Okay, thanks a lot,” 

though I was still not exactly sure about how to do certain steps. Although my 

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self-image was presented as a capable English speaker at those moments, I knew 

from the inner side that I was struggling with using this language.  

At the very beginning, I only talked with Chinese friends who were also 

international students about my “mask of understanding” and how 

uncomfortable I felt about it. Surprisingly, my friends resonated with me and 

shared similar experiences. This led me to realize that my struggle with English 

was not an indicator of me personally being an incapable language learner, but 

was a result shaped by what I had previously learned regarding English and the 

way how I had learned it in my mother country.  

             This realization granted me the strength to present my stories in front of 

my peers who spoke English as their first language, most of them having been 

teachers of different subjects in U.S. public schools. To my surprise, my peers not 

only showed their understanding with caring attitudes, but also established 

connections between their own lives and my stories. Some of them talked about 

how my experiences guided them to see their own ESL students differently. 

Others expressed how the stories brought them back to their previous lives in 

foreign countries.  

The storytelling exposed my language experiences and struggles to others 

around me. The non-judgmental and thoughtful feedback from my audience 

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empowered me to accept what I was as a second language user. It was because of 

the self-acceptance that I started living in harmony with my previous English 

learning experiences. Instead of questioning whether my English learning in the 

past had been a big waste of time or not, I gradually became more focused on 

how to better live in the present moment.  

Finding My Expertise in Collaborative Learning 

At the very beginning, I stepped into my graduate classroom in the U.S.as a 

“tourist” (Freiberg, 1996, p. 32). The main focus was on learning from my 

professors and peers. I became a knowledge receiver who was occupied with 

taking in what had been told, without realizing what I could contribute to others’ 

knowing with my own knowledge and skills. 

It was not until I reached out to a peer who was teaching English in a local 

high school to be my partner for a research project that I gradually moved out of 

the “tourist” mode. Without any hesitation, my peer agreed to work with me. I 

was at first very nervous since I was afraid that my language inefficiency would 

become a barrier between us. However, at the first meeting, my partner 

emphasized that she valued my expertise in research methodology and was 

looking forward to what would develop from our collaboration, which laid a solid 

foundation for me to bravely speak my mind.  

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My peer’s belief that I could contribute to our collaborative work greatly 

relieved my self-doubt and helped me become a “citizen” (Freiberg, 1996, p. 36) 

who could take the responsibility and make his or her own contribution to the 

learning community. In this way, I was able to find myself as an equal 

collaborative learner with my own expertise, instead of a passive learner simply 

taking in information. In the collaboration, my peer and I did run into 

misunderstandings or misinterpretations sometimes. Nevertheless, I started 

seeing them as natural happenings in the process of communication and actively 

looking for ways of clarification. I became more focused on how to achieve a 

better understanding between us. The research project we have been working on 

will now turn into a book chapter publication next year. 

Awakening to My Membership in the Diversity 

Before I came to the United States, I was mainly exposed to two types of 

English: American English represented by the Voice of America and British English 

by the British Broadcasting Corporation. Although I learned later from a linguistics 

class that there exists a wide variety of Englishes, I assumed that those different 

types of English were mainly created and used by people from different regions 

within the countries where English was one of their official languages.  

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I kept comparing my own English with the two types of “Standard English” 

to which I had been exposed for a long time and which led me to miss the forest 

of diversity around me. In my social studies class, the professor guided students 

to discuss the diversity of English from a global perspective. It was not until then 

that I came to realize not only did people within the United States develop their 

own regional English, but people from other countries were also using English in 

their own ways. When I saw people from countries where English was not one of 

their official languages confidently communicate with others by using their own 

versions of English, I was awakened to the fact that I have also been part of this 

language diversity. 

This awareness not only dragged me out of the continuous negative self-

evaluation, but also shifted my attention from grammar and accent to the 

meaning that I truly wanted to express. The self-acceptance was enhanced when I 

realized that my English has been an enrichment of the diversity. 

 Three years later, I asked professors questions that occurred to me in class. 

I collaborated with my peers on research projects. I negotiated with the dealer for 

a lower price to get a second-hand car. I am not saying that I no longer have any 

language problems. Grammatical mistakes are still sometimes embedded in my 

sentences. The fluency of my English does regress if I do not speak English for 

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three days. Body language is still a good alternative for me to express myself 

when I do not know how to say what I want to say. I still consider myself an 

English language learner and I will always be. However, this consideration will no 

longer mute me because my self-acceptance has encouraged me to be focused on 

expressing what I am, instead of questioning what I am, which in turn makes me 

more open to communication with others and thus brings more language learning 

opportunities. 

Significance for ESL Teachers 

When English language learners start doubting themselves as capable 

beings because of their second language use, it might be helpful if teachers could 

guide them to reach self-acceptance. The self-acceptance here does not mean 

that students are satisfied with their current language level and stop investing 

efforts in learning English. It means that students are equipped with different 

lenses to see themselves, which might empower them to be truly open to 

communications with others in English, instead of isolating themselves. 

The three turning points in my journey have guided me to be in harmony 

with myself and move forward. How could they apply to your students who are 

English language learners? How could you set up the turning points in their 

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journeys? You might want to consider these three ways to address such questions 

with your students.  

Invite students to share their language experiences so that they might 

gradually become comfortable with their identities as second language learners. It 

could start within the community of English language learners so that they might 

find more resonance and a sense of belonging. Learners’ language experiences 

should always be responded to with a caring attitude, which could help them tell 

their stories without feeling vulnerable and being judged. In this way, students 

could potentially see “other alternatives that may be more appropriate or 

fulfilling” (Carson & Langer, 2006, p.31) regarding themselves.  

Employ collaborative projects to help language learners find their own 

voice. Students within a group could be given a few minutes to talk about their 

team members’ expertise at first and how they think that expertise could 

contribute to the projects. Learners are thus guided to see themselves as the ones 

being able to make the projects better. This collaborative process might not only 

increase one’s self-worth, but also lead to language learning through negotiation 

of meaning, comprehensible input and opportunities for learners to produce 

language (Martin-Beltrán, Chen, Guzman, & Merills, 2016). 

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Expose students to the diversity of English from a global perspective. 

Teachers not only show students how English varies across regions within the 

United States, but also introduce them different versions of English from 

countries where English was not used as an official language. If possible, teachers 

could invite people of similar background as English learners to tell stories about 

what their lives are like in the U.S. and how they are using English to 

communicate with others. Therefore, the learners might see a positive potential 

for their future, which helps relieve their burden of feeling not proficient in 

English (Llurda, 2009). As a result, they might become more comfortable with 

their own versions of English. 

  

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References 

Carson, S. H., & Langer, E. J. (2006). Mindfulness and self-acceptance. Journal of 

Rational- Emotive and Cognitive-behavior Therapy, 24(1), 29-43. 

Freiberg, H. J. (1996). From tourists to citizens in the classroom. Educational 

Leadership, 54, 32-37. 

Llurda, E. (2009). Attitudes towards English as an international language: the 

pervasiveness of native models among L2 users and teachers. In F. Sharifian 

(Ed.), English as an international language: Perspectives and pedagogical 

issues (pp. 119-134). Bristol, UK:  Multilingual Matters. 

Martin-Beltrán, M., Chen, P., Guzman, N., & Merills, K. A. (2016). How adolescents 

use social  discourse to open space for language learning during peer 

interactions. In M. Sato & S. Ballinger (Eds.), Peer interaction and second 

language learning: pedagogical potential and research agenda (pp. 319-

348). Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins. 

 

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