ABSTRACT
Born in India, I grew up with English as my primary language, having from my kindergarten through middle school years attended convent schools run by missionaries, and then in high school, an international school modeled on the U.S. system. I never felt the pain of learning English as a second language and of battling with its contradictory rules. Therefore, the insights I have arrived at with regard to ESOL learners, I have reached haltingly over the last few years-fighting against my own very traditional, prescriptive, and Anglophone educational background and my immersion in teaching environments where grammatical accuracy was prized, and where a full command of the Queen’s English (with the right inflections and accent) brought one respect.
