ABSTRACT
The presence of many ESOL students in the sociology courses I teach at the University of Massachusetts Boston, an urban commuter university, presents both a gift and a challenge. The personal experiences shared by these class members supplement the readings and validate the importance of multicultural awareness in human services. However, barriers related to oral communication combined with cross-cultural factors can get in the way of some students’ ability to share their experiences fully with the entire class. Because I highly value the sharing of all students’ experiences and want to establish communication with everyone in the class, I have had to develop specific strategies designed to encourage participation and to bridge an array of linguistic and cultural gaps. To fulfill my
goal, I have needed to question my own assumptions in order to make sense of the way each individual’s complex educational and social experience impacts the communication process. Two cases in point are the stories of Toko and Mia.1
