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Contingency and Agency in Adult ESOL Classes for Asylum Seekers
Author(s) -
NORTON BONNY,
BAYNHAM MIKE
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
tesol quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.737
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1545-7249
pISSN - 0039-8322
DOI - 10.2307/3588538
Subject(s) - contingency , agency (philosophy) , refugee , contingency plan , psychology , pedagogy , sociology , linguistics , criminology , political science , law , management , social science , economics , philosophy
It is an early summer evening, and an ESOL teacher is called in from the garden to the phone. It is one of her students, an asylum seeker housed with her family on a white, working‐class housing estate in an inner city area. She is cowering under the table with her 6‐year‐old son while her racist neighbours are bombarding her house with various objects because they have discovered she and her family are asylum seekers. Their next door neighbours, an elderly Scottish couple who have befriended them, are out for the evening and cannot intervene. The police are on their way but she is afraid that her English will not be sufficient to explain what is going on.