If you took the placement test and it said you were fluent enough to take non-ESL classes, then you are. 🙂 However, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. Just because you’re fluent enough to take mainstream classes doesn’t mean you’re fluent. I would suggest carrying a translation dictionary around (or one of the little electronic ones) and having a native-speaker friend review all your papers before you turn them in. As for feeling like a mouse in a corner, only you can change that. You *have* to speak up. I promise no one really cares that you have an accent – a lot of people probably think it sounds cool. Remember that you don’t necessarily need a brilliant, extended answer for everything. Stick to what you know (preferably to what you know in English), and you’ll sound much better. Good luck!

ESL is really a misnomer. ESL students are really English speaking students, who have a “tradition,” language possibly spoken at home or at a grandparents house. I would have been considered an ESL student (if we had it in those days), because my mother and family spoke Spanish to their parents. But they never spoke Spanish to us, so we never learned it. So most ESL students already use English as their dominant language (even though the acronym stands for English as a Second Language). ELL are your real English Language Learners. They predominantely speak a language other than English, and may come to school speaking absolutely no English. So the answer to your question is – ESL students already use English in class, around campus, and just about every place else. They may be exposed to another language at home – and trying to learn and / or maintain their tradition language – such as Spanish, Navajo, Keres, etc. Education is a much more confusing business than most people realize. Although it doesn’t really have to be that way – that is how it is currently set up.