After finding this hero in my seaweed, my career changed

“You will have a new boy from China in your room and he does not speak any English.” The first time I heard such a statement was in 1980 and I thought the principal was joking. Immigration was just beginning to move into suburban Atlanta as the eighties began. Yet the year Jimmy Chang was in my classroom left an enduring impression and reshaped my career.

Few in the school system knew what to do with this student. The ESOL teacher came once a week, worked with Jimmy for thirty minutes, and quickly conferred with me in the hall. Thus, it was left to me to figure out how to instruct him. On the first day of school, I had taken the students to a bathroom break, and then out to PE. Jimmy accidentally took his break on the field, soiling himself and his clothes to the extent that everyone knew of the accident. The first problem I ever solved with an immigrant student was a big, messy one. On the spot I quickly learned that in a crisis you find a translator. Outside the bathroom door I used the student to convey to Jimmy that he would be all right. However, I went home that night exhausted, uncertain over how to proceed, and hoping never to have another ESOL student.

As the year progressed, Jimmy became our class project. Students who finished their work early came to love sitting on the floor with a picture dictionary or reading books to teach Jimmy. Daily, a growing box of index cards went to lunch where the students taught Jimmy the names of new foods he was eating. In math though, he could compute far above his American peers. Jimmy would take his turn at the board to do his problem, yet he could never explain the process. Suddenly one day, after his turn, he spontaneously began to tell how he subtracted by borrowing. Upon his finishing, the class broke out into applause which thundered and swelled. The cheers which filled our classroom were like those reserved for the greatest performance in the finest concert hall. We all were vested in Jimmy’s English acquisition and celebrated from our hearts that proud moment. The remainder of that year was filled with more success. On the last week of school, our class had the responsibility of providing a thought for the day and leading the Pledge over the intercom. Thus, our final lesson was teaching Jimmy the Pledge of Allegiance. When he led the school on the last day of the year, we made the recitation with misty eyes.

The impression of Jimmy’s success forever shaped me as a teacher, for I grew to like the challenge of working with immigrants and found satisfaction in how visibly they learned.
When I entered the second ESOL teacher training class at Georgia State University, I learned that these students endure a silent period when they are not producing English, but are absorbing it. Research shows that second language learners gain as much language from their peers as from the teachers. Thus, much of what I had figured out on my own through necessity proved to be successful pedagogy for assisting an ESOL student. These forms of teaching have been used countless times in my years as a teacher to learners of English.

In those years I have worked with hundreds of immigrant pupils, supporting them through many problems and a multitude of successes. Jimmy Chang’s presence in my classroom in 1980 shaped me as a teacher, for it encouraged me to enter ESOL education, which I have seen grow from a small program into one which is currently an area of critical need. I teach international students for low English proficiency means they have the least chance of academic success in high school. I love the challenge and responsibility of standing as a light in their darkness. It is my job to make learning possible for pupils in the most impossible of environments. This is done by encouraging those who are faithful to study, and cheering on those who are weary from the burden of being so far behind. Instructing Jimmy, and the others who followed him, shaped me as a teacher. Through working with my pupils I have learned that effective teaching searches to find every chance for even the least capable student to grow academically.