ELL Case Study

Paul De Carlo

ELL Case Study:

Student background information:

Bryan is a 19 year old 12th grader enrolled in the special education program at his district. Bryan was born and raised in the United States. He was never properly given the appropriate education and was sadly pushed through the system. He is currently enrolled in special education classes due to his low level of academic performance in ELA, and Mathematics. Bryan currently lives in a single family home with his grandmother and mother. His parents are divorced and his father lives upstate New York. Bryan is currently trying to achieve a high school local diploma within the next year. However, he is struggling significantly with his academics. Bryan requires a small class room environment with minimal distractions to be successful with his academic achievements. Bryan’s long term goal is to enroll in a trade school after high school and to be competitively employed as a plumber. For Bryan to achieve his short term and long term goals, he will have to enhance his fundamentals in English as well as his basic problem solving in mathematical operations. Bryan has missed a significant amount of his eleventh and twelfth grade years due to inescapable life experiences.

Bryan tends to lose focus very easily when he is not actively engaged or if he feels the lesson doesn’t appeal to him. If the subject or a topic doesn’t appeal to Bryan he either tunes out, day dreams, or becomes disruptive towards other students. Bryan’s disruptiveness is caused by him asking irrelevant questions or making outlandish comments to another student. Bryan is a struggling reader; he becomes so frustrated with reading that he refuses to go to his ELA class 3 out of 5 of the school days. He is very discouraged with his level of reading and feels as if other students are criticizing him when he is asked to read aloud. Bryan works best when he works independently with the teacher or someone that he is comfortable with. He has low self-esteem and is afraid to take the initiative or risk with his academics. He becomes frustrated when he is told he is wrong and gives up easily on himself. What I’ve noticed through observing Bryan in his ELA class is that his teacher takes the time to over with him words that he doesn’t understand and has difficulty pronouncing. When Bryan is struggling to pronounce a word the teacher will instruct Bryan how to pronounce the word correctly. The teacher will say “great job Bryan, but try sounding the word out such as…..” In doing so this gives Bryan the positive motivation that he requires to continue reading and completing the passage.

 Currently Bryan’s favorite subjects are math and living environment. These two subjects require minimal reading and comprehension. Most of the words are familiar to Bryan. Bryan is able to understand mathematics because he can memorize the formulas and steps to solve a problem. Since he has been in this program he is able to determine when to use certain operations.

Assessment Analysis:

In Bryan’s ELA class he seems to get lost within the comprehension of the book that they are reading. Bryan uses an index card to follow along as the class takes turns reading aloud as a group. The teacher generally has group discussions to review and reflect what was currently read. Bryan usually stays quite as this point of the lesson or gets out of his seat and walks out of the classroom. He becomes so frustrated that he gives up on himself. When Bryan is willing to work, the teacher works independently with him. The teacher works with Bryan by assessing him on words that he is familiar with and words that he struggles to read and understand. Bryan’s pronunciation of words makes it difficult to understand him due to his dialect. We as educators are able to understand what he is saying, but at times he must lapse or repeat the sentence that he is trying to express. Bryan tends to do well until one of his fellow classmates mimics him. This discourages Bryan tremendously; the student that mimics him is reprimanded for bullying. The teacher also practices silent independent reading, group reading, and reading as a class aloud. Bryan is better able to comprehend what is being read when the reader reads at a slower pace. This allows Bryan more decoding time, which can at times make Bran lose focus. As for his writing samples he tends to write English and spell words correctly. However, makes many grammatical errors, and tends to miss arrange words, which obscures the meaning. This is common miscues for an ELL student that speaks another language other than English. Bryan sometimes realizes his mistakes and is able to correct them on his own. The main reason that Bryan struggles with comprehension is because he is unable to understand the unfamiliar vocabulary words. One of Bryan’s favorite subjects is math. Math is a language within itself, in which he is able to comprehend. He is able to understand math when it’s related to relief situations. Bryan is native born to the United States, so he is able to count and understand numbers in spoken and written English.  As Bryan’s math teacher I was able to accommodate his needs to have him understand mathematics. I was well aware of his struggles with ELA ( reading and writing in English) so I created his lesson to force him to write and read more as compared to other students. Bryan would sit in the front row first chair, to allow him better assistance from the teacher. Recommendations that should be made in Bryan’s learning is front row seating, refocusing, related lesson to real situations, and individualized learning.

SOLOM Report:

Bryan’s SOLOM report score is a 15. He scored 2 out of 5 in comprehension. He understands most of what is said at slower than normal speed, requires some repetition. At times the slowing of speech can cause Bryan to lose focus on the topic or main idea of the story being discussed. Bryan’s fluency score is 4 out of 5. His speech in everyday conversation is generally fluent. However at times he tends to lapse and has some difficulty searching for words to express in English. Bryan scored 3 out of 5 in vocabularies. He frequently gets confused with word meaning and uses the wrong words. His conversation is somewhat limited due to his lack of English vocabulary. He scored 2 out of 5 in pronunciations. At times it is very difficult to understand Bryan because he speeds up his speech. It sounds almost like he is mumbling. His increase in speech speed causes him to have pronunciation issues and he must frequently repeat himself to be understood. Bryan scored 3 out of 5 in grammar. His writing samples were actually very acceptable given his level of ELA skills. His spelling of words was appropriate however he had many grammatical errors that obscured the meaning of his sentences. His word ordering caused his sentence structure to be below average. This could be recognized as a very common error with ELL students because most foreign languages the word order is much different as compared to the English language.

Instruction:

Currently in Bryan’s ELA class, the class is reading a book titled Into the Wild. I made sure that his ELA teacher was aware that Bryan was a Struggling ELA student prior to them reading the book. I observed Bryan and the instruction of how the teacher implemented teaching techniques that would assist Bryan in his struggles. His teacher would have the class read the book aloud, each student taking a turn reading a page or two pages each. Bryan is required to sit in the front of the class, and is not required to read if he chooses. As the class reads Bryan is required to write down or fill in main ideas, and character names to keep him engaged in the lesson. After the class reads 2 chapters they watch the movie that is based on the book. The class only watches up to or a little past the point that they reached in the book. This technique helps Bryan to reinforce the meanings and main idea within the book. At times the class will have silent reading; this is when the teacher will work independently with Bryan to enhance his comprehension, pronunciation, vocabulary, and fluency. The teacher would give Bryan homework assignments that would entail him to read a section of the book and answer or fill in questions of what is happening in the story.  At the end of the week the class would be assessed on what they have read. The quiz would include general questions about the book, as well as vocabulary discussed. Over the course of the 6 weeks Bryan’s scores have increased from a 50 to a 75. This is a tremendous improvement over a period of 6 weeks. In order to continue his performance in ELA Bryan should attend summer school to prevent regression as well as be enrolled in a read 180 class in September to assist him with any other difficulties or skills that he may lack. Bryan doesn’t like to work his peers mainly because they are much younger then him and he feels as if they are making fun of him. He becomes easily discouraged and frustrated; he enjoys working with the teacher or teaching assistant individually.

Reflection:

I am Bryan’s math teacher as well as his homeroom teacher for the program that he is enrolled in. From Bryan’s first day in the program until now, he has made tremendous improvements academically and emotionally. A lot of his academic interference was due to frustration and lack of motivation. At times he still makes errors, however is able to correct his mistakes on his own. One of Bryan’s underlying issues is that he doesn’t speak English at home. His family’s main language is Spanish. I feel that for Bryan to get more experience in practicing English is to get involved with more community activities. I have made many suggestions to his parents to help Bryan with his English Language learning at home. However, they’ve been non-compliant. Bryan is eager to learn English and much other academic knowledge; however he receives no motivation and assistance from his home environment. I felt that this case study was of use to me. Especially to test my knowledge and skills, that I can express and assess my students. I have built a professional relationship with each one of my students to the point in which I know and understand their individual struggles academically and emotionally. The tough part about being an educator is knowing your students, how to determine what their needs are, and how to accommodate their needs.