This article reports on a qualitative investigation into the ways that speakers of other languages negotiate their identities in an English-medium international school. As elective-bilinguals, it is generally assumed that such individuals are exempt from unfavourable positioning. As beginning speakers of English, however, older participants in this study find that they are marginalized. This article offers an account of the ways that the student participants resist this positioning and how they individually and in groups exhibit agency in negotiating more empowering identity positions.