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This paper examines how the children of African immigrants construct their identity in the United States. The U.S. immigration policies allowing citizens of foreign countries to migrate into the country, have favored the immigration of many Africans into the country. Many of those immigrants experience challenges ranging from language and economic issues to social and cultural integration. The challenges are more accrued for the children who have to juggle between their cultural backgrounds reinforced at home and the values available in their new cultural and social environment. While there is a large body of literature dealing with issues of identity faced by immigrant children in general and English language learners in particular, the case of African children has remained unexplored. Because of the linguistic diversity in African countries, most of the children spoke at least one language other than English before immigration, they do not always have the space to practice it as their languages and cultures are marginalized both at school and in the society. In this paper, I investigate the following questions: To what extent are African children familiar with their social and cultural backgrounds? How do children identify themselves? What are the factors that impact on the children's identity? To which extent do parents influence their children's identification of the self?

The widespread use of English in the social, political, economic, and international business spheres compels non-English speaking countries to revise their English language curricula to meet the needs of the global economy. In Burkina Faso, educational policy makers have revised the English as a foreign language (EFL) syllabi from middle to high school with the expectation of helping students achieve communicative competence. However, the delayed implementation of these new syllabi unveils a discomfort from the perspective of both teachers and teacher supervisors. This paper provides a critique of the syllabi of quatrième (4ème)--the US equivalent of 8th grades. It draws from document analysis and stakeholder interviews to highlight the discrepancies between the theory of the vision and the reality of the practice and assess the extent to which the syllabus promotes or hinders communicative competence. The overreaching argument is that despite tremendous efforts invested in the conception of syllabi, these tools hardly help implement communicative language teaching (CLT) in their classrooms.

This study examines the interaction between African immigrant students and their mainstream teachers. I am particularly interested in the influence of classroom practices on the literacy development of Francophone African immigrant children in the U.S. classroom. The student participants in this study (two French speaking African students) were all permanent residents in the United States. They were all born and schooled in their home countries and were fluent in French (the language of instruction in their home countries). Since their immigration to the U.S. with their parents, the children have been confronted to several linguistic, social, cultural, and economic challenges that slowed down their academic progress and achievement. This paper uses Krashen's (2005) discussion on language acquisition to argue that specific classroom practices can hinder the literacy development of immigrant children. The data used for this discussion was collected through the observation of a 5th grade classroom, informal conversations with two French speaking African students, and interviews with their mainstream teacher as well as their English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers.