Annotated Bibliography

Akresh, I. R., Massey, D. S., Frank, R., (2014). Beyond English Proficiency: Rethinking immigrant

integration. Social Science Research. 45. 200-10

The researchers use data from the New Immigrant Survey (NIS) and interview a

representative sample of 8573 immigrants who were granted legal permanent residency

between May and November of 2003.The purpose of the interviews is to investigate how pre-

immigration exposure to English and other pre-immigration circumstances affect English

ability at the time permanent residence was achieved, as well to study interviewees use of

English in social and cultural settings. The authors argue that English language ability is a

necessary though not sufficient condition for social and cultural adjustment, which may

depend on other factors such as pre-migration characteristics, use of English in social settings

etc. The authors draw five conclusions from this research: (1) language adjustment begins in

the origin country; (2) language adjustment continues over the course of the temporary stay in

the US prior to legal immigration; (3) in addition to the language abilities, other factors are

relevant as well to predict the use of English in social situations; (4) the use if English is

positively predicted by many factors such as the current U.S. job, the consumption of English

media in the origin country; (5) little evidence of an ongoing process of cultural adjustment

was found among new legal immigrants to the U.S., at least in terms of the consumption of

host country cultural products . These factors could help to explain the variants of

immigrants language abilities that I observed during and outside the classroom at the

Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians.

Holmes, P., (2015). The cultural staff around how to talk to people: immigrants intercultural
1
communication during a pre-employment work-placement . Language and Intercultural

Communication. 15(1). 109-24

 Researchers from Durham University interview 16 immigrants about their intercultural

communication experiences as they enter the workforce in New Zealand through volunteer

organizations. The research hopes to provide important feedback to employers, immigrant

communities, funders, and other voluntary organizations about the value of work-placement

programs and the intercultural communication challenges immigrants face when entering the

workplace. Comparing the experiences reported in the paper with my own working

experiences in the Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians, I could clearly recognize the

cultural challenges faced by immigrants in the U.S. settings.

Lee, J., & Bean, F.D. (2012). The Diversity Paradox: Immigration and the color-Line in 21st Century

America. Chapter 1: Introduction-Immigration and the color line in America, New York:

Russell Sage Foundation. pp.1-22

In this introductory chapter the research begins the discussion with the election in 2008 of

Barack Obama as President of the US. The authors ask whether the historic color line in the

U.S. society continues to exist and on which side of it the Latino and Asian immigrants fall.

This article reviews the history of intermarriage and multiracial experiences of both Blacks

and new immigrant groups from Asia and Latin America. This history background helps me

to understand the experiences of immigrants I met and the intergenerational differences

within the same immigrant group at the Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians.

Wilson, C.E., (2012). Collaboration of Nonprofit Organization with Local Government for Immigrant

Language Acquisition. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. 42(5). 962-84

The author uses personal interviews, document analyses, and other data to argue that local
2
government and nonprofit organizations are core collaboration agents that provide language

access services to immigrants in the City of Philadelphia. The author reviews literature on
 nonprofit organizations including Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians, as well as

interviews with the leaders of these organizations. The author identifies three implications of

the research for local government and nonprofit organizations:(1) continued need for

stakeholder consultation; (2) ongoing self-assessment and training; and, (3) responding to the

new suburban challenges of immigration. This research helps me understand the challenges

faced by non-profit organizations including the Welcoming Center.

Dudley, L. (2007). Integrating Volunteering into the Adult Immigrant Second Language Experience.

The Canadian Modern Language Review. 63(4). 539-61

The author of this article recognizes the problem that ESL classes for immigrants are often

not enough to increase their communicative abilities and chances for using English, and

suggests that immigrants could make use of opportunities outside the classroom, such as

volunteering. Using interviews of audio/video recordings documents the experiences of

volunteer work undertaken by adult immigrants L2 learners in Canada. The researcher

investigates how immigrants experiences contributed to their language development and

social integration. The report of the experiences of volunteer immigrants set a comparison

with my own volunteering experiences in Welcoming Center as a L2 speaker. Comparing my

own experiences with those described in the article helps me develop a broad view in

reflecting on my own experiences. Finally, the recommendations put forward by the author in

the conclusions to integrate volunteering into the ESL curriculum provides one possible

solution to the problem I observed at the Welcoming Center: The immigrants rarely have

opportunities to use English outside the classrooms.

3

Chen, Y. (2014). Are You an Immigrant?: Identity-Based Critical Reflections of Teaching

 Intercultural Communication. New Directions For Teaching And Learning. 138. pp. 5-16

This article is written by an international faculty member who is originally from Taiwan and

is now teaching courses of intercultural communication in the U.S. In this article, the author

examines moments of her own negotiations as an international faculty of color in an

intercultural communication course at a university where faculty of color are few. Using her

own teaching as a case study, the author critically reflects on how her identity as a non-native

speaker, a foreigner, and an international faculty member affects her teaching. The authors

reflections help me to clearly recognize the challenges I met when I taught ESL class at the

Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians.

Stewart, M. A. (2010). Writing With Power, Sharing Their Immigrant Stories: Adult ESOL Students

Find Their Voices Through Writing. TESOL Journal. 1(2). pp.269-83

In this article, the author examines methods of improving students writing. In order to help

the foreign-born students who wish to seek permanent residence with their English writing,

the author used methods of integrating students life experiences in their Written

Communication course. Given the generally positive results obtained by using the pedagogy,

the author comes to the conclusion that integrating immigrant students life experiences into

writing tasks helps to improve immigrant students writing skills. The design of the curricula

for the writing course and the various writing assignments the author gave to the students

offer a new approach to course planning in the context of teaching immigrants second

language writing.

Nenner, F. (2009). An immigrants story. Medical Humanities. 35. pp.118-9

4
This article reports a medical case in which a Chinese immigrant refused to leave the hospital

after the doctor decided to discharge this patient. After the doctor examined the reasons, it
 turned out that the patients fear of being refused by the hospital in the future for further

medical treatment for his identity as an immigrant had motivated the patients refusal to leave

the hospital. This report reveals a problem that is quite common among immigrants:

immigrants access to medical services is not guaranteed because of their immigrant identities

or lack of documents. This report of a real medical case helps me to learn more about the life

of immigrants outside the ESL classroom and have a full view of the challenges that

immigrants meet in their daily life and the difficulty they might need support to deal with.

Kumaravadivelu, B. (2003). Problematizing cultural stereotypes in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly. 37(4).

Pp.709-19

This article discusses three common cultural stereotypes about Asian students in TESOL

classes a) being obedient to authority; b) lack critical thinking skills, and c) do not participate

in classroom interaction. The author argues against the three cultural stereotypes by

reviewing previous researches and literature. In the article, the author also compares the

classroom characteristics of the English native-speakers with those of the Asian students

according to his own teaching experiences. The author argues that the three characteristics

which are regarded as the traits of the Asian students could also be found among native-

speaker students. This article helps me to reflect on my teaching experiences of ESL class in

the Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians. The arguments presented could serve as

reminders for me to check whether I have certain cultural stereotypes when evaluating the

classroom behaviors of immigrant students.

Nguyen, H. & Kellogg,G. (2010). I had a stereotype that Americans were fat: becoming a speaker of
5
culture in a second language. The Modern Language Journal. 94. pp.56

This article examines how adult ESL learners are socialized by learning the cultural content
 materials with the participation of the teacher. The researchers first investigate the students

understanding of stereotype at the beginning of the semester and how their understandings

change as the learning proceeds. Materials such as students blog posts are analyzed. The

authors argue that their analysis demonstrates that second language learning is not only about

the linguistic forms but also ways of behaving and thinking in new communities of practice.

Comparing the analysis of this article with my experiences of being a second language

learner and also an ESL teacher at the Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians, I obtain

new methods on second language learning and teaching.

Rymes, B. (2014). Communicating beyond language: repertoire and metacommentary as method in

Communicating beyond language: everyday encounter with diversity (pp.116-23) New York,

NY: Routledge

Rymes argues that we need to look into the communicative repertoire in daily encounters.

The author also puts forward the concepts of candidate repertoire elements, metacommentary,

metapragmatic discourse and metapragmatic function. By using these concepts, I can clearly

recognize the related daily interactions and language encounters in my internship

experiences. Also, these concepts help me to be aware of the new repertoire I obtained from

the interactions with people. The approach of observing and analyzing communicative

repertoire serves as one of my guide methods to observe during my internship.

Kramsch, C. (2014). Teaching foreign languages in an era of globalization. The Modern Language

Journal, 98(1), 296-311.

This article first examines the meanings of globalization and examines its influences on FL
6
education. The author also discusses issues including how teacher education could prepare FL

educators for the globalization, including helping them decide what contents should be
 included in FL classes. This article helps me to reflect on my observations during my

internship and my own teaching in the Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians. It also

provides me with a framework to check with when it comes to curricula design in future

teaching.

Rymes, B. (2014). Everyday encounters with diversity in Communicating beyond language: everyday

encounter with diversity (pp.101-15) New York, NY: Routledge

In this chapter, Rymes briefly makes an overview of how the notion of encounters develops

in different fields. Then the author discusses approaches to course designing which might

help students combine their various communicative repertoires in interactions with others.

The discussions of course planning help me to reflect on my teaching in the Welcoming

Center and also provide possible choices of approaches to designing course assignments for

helping students fully use communicative repertoire in my future teachings.

Rajabali, D. & Mina, R. (2013). The impact of ESL teachers prior language learning experiences on

their cognition about teaching grammar. International Journal of Research Studies in

Language Learning. 2(5). 45-62

In this article, researchers investigate 40 experienced Iranian EFL teachers on their beliefs

about teaching grammar and examines to what degree these teachers prior language learning

experiences influence their current beliefs. Researchers collect data by using questionnaires

and interviews, from which they analyze the variations of teachers beliefs about teaching the

grammar. The research shows that teachers previous language learning experiences have

significant influences on their beliefs. The authors suggest that teachers might reflect on their
7
prior beliefs and incorporate them into the empirical knowledge of teaching and pedagogy.

This study reminds me of reflecting on my previous language learning experiences and their
 influences on my teaching. The authors suggestions raise my attentions to adjust my own

language leaning beliefs to language teachings.

Ishihara, N. (2009). Transforming community norms: Potentials of L2 speakers pragmatic resistance.

In M. Hood (ed), Proceedings of the 2008 Temple University Japan Colloquium on Language

Learning. Japan: Temple University Press

In this article, Ishihara looks into the phenomenon of pragmatic resistance which means the

L2 learners deliberately ignore L2 community norms even though they have the knowledge

of the community practice.The researcher analyzes reasons for this phenomenon. The article

first examines two cases which display L2 learners pragmatic resistance and then analyzes

the traits and reasons of these resistance.The author suggests that pragmatic resistance could

be an individual expression of subjectivity which can be distinguished from insufficient

pragmatic competence and provides suggestions for pragmatic-focused instructions and

assessments. This study helps me to view the pragmatic misuse in multi-perspectives and

makes me rethink my instructions and assessments of students pragmatic language uses.

Akresh, I.R., & Frank, R. (2011). At the intersection of self and other: English language ability and

immigrant labor market outcomes. Social Science Research. 41. 1362-70

In this article, researchers use the data from New Immigrant Survey 2003 and investigate the

relations between the labor market outcomes and the self-estimations of the immigrants

language proficiency. They argue that although self-assessed language proficiency dominates

in the studies on immigrants well-being, this measure neglects an important additional factor

concerning immigrant self-perception and its agreement with the perceptions of others. This
8
study makes me rethink my responses to the immigrants statements about their own English

proficiency in the Welcoming Center. It also raises my cautions about explicitly giving my
 own assessments to my students, since that might influence the estimates of their own

English proficiency, which might negatively influence their labor market outcomes.

Ishihara, N. & Cohen, A. (2010). Theories of language acquisition and the teaching of

pragmatics.Teaching and learning pragmatics: Where language and culture meet. UK:

Pearson Longman.

In this article, Ishihara and Cohen provide an overview of the theories of second language

acquisition and framework related to identity, speech accommodation, and second language

socialization. The overview of the theories help me better understand how language learning

works and how social, cultural, psychological and emotional factors influence L2 pragmatic

learning and use. These theories provides me with references that I might refer to in future

course plannings and understanding the language learning of my students.