A very important lesson: Respect and the socialization of order(s) in high school ESL

Abstract

The “stigma” associated with ESL in K-12 public schools is a widely referenced if little explored topic. In this paper, I consider how this “stigma” was produced in a high school ESL class in Hawai‘i, specifically, as it was licensed by and framed in terms of teaching students “respect.” Based on analysis of two extended teacher-fronted interactional displays, I argue that local constructions of respect in this class served as a powerful socializing resource, working to produce “order” in the form of classroom control, as well as “orders,” or hierarchies, along lines of English expertise and “mainstream” status. In particular, I examine the ascription of disrespect, pragmatic incompetence, and moral and intellectual impairment to the category “ESL student,” while the positively valued opposites of these traits were attributed to “mainstream” student. I conclude with an argument for greater empirical attention in applied linguistics to K-12 ESL settings and to the subject of linguicism, or linguistic prejudice.