Chloe Talbott

EDUC 6530
Case Study

The English Language student I have been working with all semester is a seven year old

named Dara who is currently in 1st grade in a Metro Nashville Public School. She has been in the

United States learning English for three years. Her family is originally from Honduras with a

native language of Spanish, therefore; is the language spoken at home with her family. When she

enters the school building every day at 8:00 am and when she leaves at 3:40 pm is the time she is

immersed in the English language. Dara switches her language from English to Spanish when

she leaves school to go home everyday. The factors influencing her language development is her

limited time immersed in the English language. She is an amazing bilingual student who is able

to code switch from language to language at age 7! From conversations with the classroom

teacher I have identified Dara to be on 1st grade benchmark level with her reading, writing, and

language skills. During the school day, Dara is pulled out for an hour to receive EL services by

the EL coach at her school. Dara is a student in the classroom who is very engaged and excited

by learning. She loves to read all types of texts and interact with her classmates. The interactions

I had with Dara were in the general classroom setting and in the literacy coach’s classroom. The

setting of the formal conversations that were transcribed were in the literacy coach’s room; the

room was very quiet and free from any distractions that may happen in the room during the

conversation.

Oral Language Abilities

Pragmatics

A large part of our conversation relied heavily on linguistic context. Dara is quiet and a

little reluctant to speak in English, and this had been only the second encounter I had
experienced with Dara. Throughout the conversation, Dara’s one-word utterances of “yes”, “no”,

or “brother” revealed linguistic context because they were appropriate responses to the preceding

prompts given to her. Moreover, these responses without knowledge of the conversation context

would not have been understood. As Dara was drawing her family, I asked her who she was

drawing and her response each time was a one-word description. For example, “my broder”.

Without being in the conversation and not listening to what came before the utterance, someone

would not know what Dara was saying.

A large part of the linguistic context that I have identified from our interaction was the

use of nouns in Dara’s responses. As we were having conversation, I noticed many of her

utterances or responses were also one-word utterances, containing mainly content words, such as

the people, place, or thing. There was usually no sentence introducing or describing the noun.

For example, as she drew, I asked her who was in her family. Her response was “My dad, my…

my both sisters, and one brother and my mom.” As we were looking through the book, she often

did not tell the story, but just pointed out people, places, or things in the pictures. When we

flipped the pages, for example she would say, “Wolf. Butterfly”. Without being in the linguistic

context on this interaction, you would not know what was happening in the conversation.

As I reflect on the conversation, I notice and think about the social context of this

conversation. When Dara and I met to record this, she had only met me once in her own

classroom. Thinking from her perspective as a young student, she was very quiet for this reason

and a little bit timid in the beginning. Throughout the conversation she looked to me as a teacher

and herself as a student, instead of possibly a friend and friend. This relationship showed me

little evidence of communicative competence. I was unable to fully determine if she has the

knowledge necessary for a social context nor many different ways to express the same
communication goals. Many of her responses are responses she would give to a teacher in a

school setting because that’s what I looked like to her. As we were looking at a page in the book

with an image of a grocery store what we were looking at. Her response to my prompt where is

our character was, “at a shop”, a prepositional phrase. This was a very formal and put together

response as if she was giving it in her class to her teacher. It is straight to the point with no other

details. As she got to know me more through the conversation, she started to open up and give

more excited responses.

All of Dara’s utterances reflect appropriate situational context. All of her utterances have

a relation to the picture she was coloring or Islandborn, the book we were looking through

together. For example, looking at the title page in the book Dara said, “I see letters. The colors

it’s a pattern! Blue red blue red”. This relies heavily on situation linguistics because I know from

the page in the book that we were looking at that it makes sense that she would point this out. As

she became more comfortable talking to me, I started to get responses such as, “Wait that’s a

whale! It’s so big! I think it’s going break the house. Oh yea”. From these comments, I knew she

was talking about the giant whale in our book. From her saying, “I think it’s going to break the

houses!” I know she was looking at the drawings of houses right under the whale and thinking

about if that whale came back down into the ocean it would break the houses. Throughout our

conversation, I can identify many situations where the utterance Dara makes are situational

because in another context the outside listener would be unsure of what we were talking about.

Dara is still learning the new customs and cultural aspects of the English language;

however, she is doing an excellent job on picking up many conversation rules. Adhering to the

Cooperative Principle during each and every conversation or interaction, she is always

contributing purposeful phrases to the conversation. Throughout my interaction with Dara, I

noticed she consistently adheres to Grice’s Maxims, especially the maxims of quality, relevance,

and quantity. I recognized the maximum of quality at the very beginning of the interaction

because there was no answer given that would be false or untrue. Analyzing all conversations

with Dara, I notice she does not say anything that she lacks evidence for (Dawson & Phelan,

2016). Throughout the conversation, Dara responded to questions and images in the book in a

very relevant way. There were very few times where what she said did not make sense. The

thoughts and ideas presented in the conversation were very organized. The one time I can

identify through our conversation that she did not adhere to the maxim of relevance was when I

asked her if her dad was the tallest and her response was, “This is me. This is my brother. This is

Sophie”. From this response, I have identified that Dara does not know what the vocabulary term

tallest means. Throughout the conversation, she also upheld the maximum of quantity. At no time

did she go on a tangent of offering irrelevant or excessive information. Her responses were

detailed enough to express her thoughts to inform me of what she was thinking. I have identified

through the transcript that in some situations she gave more information to answer a more

detailed question, and in other times did not give more information than needed to answer a

simple yes or no question.

The maxim of manner was not adhered to as often as adhering to the others. The maxims

of manner is the “expectations about how one goes about giving and interrupting that

information in being a cooperative conversational partner.” (Dawson & Phelan, 2016) I believe

Dara shows less knowledge of this maxims because many of her utterances can be termed as

jargon. For example, “My broder. At Pre K. Four”. The response that she provided showed

obscurity of expression creating confusion in the conversation. Within the cooperative principle,

Dara did not show discourse competence. Meaning, she was unable to combine and connect
many of her utterances and sentences into a meaningful whole. However; the utterances were

very orderly in organization and chronological order. Dara flouted a maxim because she violated

one of the rules of conversation and expected the listener to understand clearly what she was

intending for the utterances. Even though Dara did not adhere as closely to this maxim, overall

her knowledge of social conversation rules are very strong for her age and exposure to the

English language.

Dara demonstrated many uses of different speech acts, “production of speech acts, which

have been defined as routinized utterances that speakers use to perform different functions, such

as requesting, complementing, complaining, refusing, suggesting, and so forth” (Martínez-Flor &

Usó-Juan, 2006). I identified through all the interactions I had with Dara she has knowledge of

how to take turns, provide and respond to feedback, use appropriate volume and tone of voice,

and stay on topic throughout conversation. Dara consistently presented body language and facial

expression that helped me identify what she was thinking about the particular question or page in

the book (e.g. smiles when she pointed out something she loved in the book). Dara was

communicatively competent in her speech by successfully balancing her ways communication

and having a very positive interaction. The directives used in her speech implied that Dara’s

attitude and intention were directed towards the listener’s actions (Martínez-Flor & Usó-Juan,

2006). For example, in every conversation and interaction with Dara she showed full presence in

the conversation and had purposeful interactions. She was able to balance her communication by

asking questions, making assertions, and expressing agreement or disagreement with what I

thought.

Phonology
 Phonology specifically looks at the person’s ability to pronounce sounds and words in

conversation. (Lightbown & Spada, 2017). “Mispronunciation occurs when phonemes and

phoneme patterns of a person’s L1 are overlaid onto the phonemes and phoneme patterns of a

new language” (Lems, Miller, & Soro, 2017). Overall, Dara’ pronunciation is intelligible when

she speaks there are not many errors in her pronunciation for a bilingual student in 1st grade. I

have noticed often times she replaces the “th” sound with a “d” sound, assimilation. For example

Dara pronounces bother as “broder”, the as “de”, and there as “dere”. Each time there is a th

sound, Dara replaces it with a different sound, but she is consistent with substitution the

insertion. This overgeneralization could be related to her native language of Spanish and

transferring some of her knowledge of pronunciation in the Spanish language to the English

language. The L1, which Dara speaks, does not have the sound /th/ so thus she is taking the

known sounds from her native language and using it the English language (Lems, Miller, &

Soro, 2017). The sounds /th/ and /d/ are formed very close in the mouth as each other so it is an

easy mistake for a student in stages of language development.

Syllable stress is when proficient speakers understand what parts of words need stress

when speaking orally (Lems, Miller, & Soro, 2017). Dara is not at the stage in her language

development were she has recognized specific stress patterns in words. In her pronunciation she

places wrong and unnecessary stress on certain sounds. When Dara pronounced the word “grey”

there was a larger stress on the g sound in the beginning. The unnecessary stress that I notice in

her pronunciation comes usually in the initial sound of the word. I think she pronounces the

initial sound in the word with more stress because of the position in the word. In the final

conversation interaction I had with her, I notice this pronunciation clearly when she is reading.

While she is reading, she pronounces the onset letter the heaviest because of the strategies she
uses to decode words. This strategy would entail the student to pay close attention to the

beginning letter or phoneme to determine what the word is. The allophone I notice in her speech

does not change the meaning in the conversation.

Dara’s pronunciation exhibits several strengths. She is able to speak very fluently without

difficulty for her age especially. Her language development shows strength in her ability to delete

sounds that are omitted in our English pronunciation. In her rapid speech, Dara has picked up on

omitted sounds and blending in the English language. I believe this directly relates to the

extensive phonological and phonics instruction Dara receives in her 1st grade classroom. In this

phonological awareness instruction she is explicitly taught how orally segment syllables and

phonemes. The distance Dara’s native language of Spanish has from the English language, has an

impact on her ability to pick up on pronunciation rules quickly.

Grammar

The writing samples I collected from Dara, were two different types, one informal and

two formal. The informal writing piece stemmed off the end of a conversation we were having

that involved story starters. Dara was prompted by myself to explain a time when she felt

excited. The second writing sample I collected from Dara was a formal culminating task she

completed in her 1st grade classroom. The prompt for the writing piece came from Metro’s scope

and sequence: write an apology letter from another character in the story’s point of view to the

main character. Within this letter Dara was prompted to use first person, details, and a clear

beginning and end. The third writing sample, Dara was asked to compare two characters with a

character a scientist would have.

To determine what morphological stage Dara is in and to better understand if she is using

prefixes, suffixes, and root words, I looked at all of the utterances she had made in my
transcriptions during our conversations. An utterance in spoken language is a spoken word,

statement, or sound. The utterances I calculated in regards to this paper, were spoken complete

thoughts. In her oral language, these ranged from single word to complete statements, it just

depended on the situation. When calculating the mean length of utterance in Dara’s oral

language, I noticed that there are very few extra morphemes used. Her score for MLU was a

4.56. I calculated this number by counting all of the morphemes in two hundred utterances from

the transcript I transcribed using the audio recording. From these calculations Dara is in stage six

of the MLU chart. To count all of the morphemes in the speech I paid close attention to the

endings and contractions used in her speech, not confusing the number of words with

morphemes. As I was counting, I was noticing how all of the morphemes are mainly just the

word, and not many extra morphemes were identified. For example, in Dara’s speech she uses

many plurals when she is talking, “I can open presents” “friends”, “monsters”, and “whistles”.

The multiple morphemes in her oral speech per utterance are mostly plurals and occasionally

contractions. There are a few contractions that are used in her oral speech, such as “don’t”,

“it’s”, and “that’s”. These grammatical morphemes added in her oral language add obligatory

context to the conversation. Obligatory context is necessary in spoken or written language to

make the sentence grammatically correct (Lims, Miller, & Soro, 2017). The verb tense that is

present in Dara’s spoken utterances changes from future, present, and past. She has the

knowledge of all three verb tenses, but tends to use the present verb tense the most when she is

speaking. Dara shows no knowledge of derivational morphemes yet in her spoken language,

dynamic and rich prefixes and suffixes. I believe this skill to be lacking because of the age level

Dara is currently at, 1st graders who speak English as a native language are still developing this

kind of language in their speech.

 The utterances in her writing samples I analyzed were complete thoughts. Dara was

lacking punctuation in her writing, so the utterances were pulled out by complete thoughts and

my judgement of where the punctuation should have been. The mean utterance length in Dara’s

writing is 9.75. I found this number by adding all of the morphemes together from one informal

and formal writing samples, then divided it by the total number of sentences or phrases in the

writing sample. From this calculation, Dara can be placed in stage six for her mean utterance

length. In her writing, as the same with her oral speech, most words she uses are free

morphemes. The words she writes are content words including nouns, verbs, adverbs, and

adjectives. In her writing, Dara does not use compound words to express her thoughts. The one

plural word that Dara used in her two writing samples I collected was whistles spelled “wesoz”,

this word is in regular plural form. The other type of non free morpheme used in Dara’s writing

was the contraction “I’m” spelling as “Im”. In her writing she only uses free morphemes except

for the occasional contraction “I’m” and a plural form. She has strength in her oral language

ability and when her morphemic awareness strengthens this will transfer to her spelling skills.

Overall, Dara’s utterances are free morphemes that can stand alone in meaning. The

lexical morphemes that are present in Dara’s oral speech and writing are mostly high frequency

words she is familiar with. After analyzing the third writing sample, I notice Dara starting to use

more academic language in their writing abilities. For example the character trait of patient is an

advanced word that she used to characterize two characters. A strength in her oral and written

that I have seen progress in this semester is her use of functional morphemes to connect her

thoughts. By using many function words, such as she, the, is, but, we, she clearly defines the

connections to content words around them (Lems, Miller, & Soro, 2017). She shows strength in

her skills to to make words plural when necessary. In Dara’s grammatical morphemes she shows
knowledge and development in the accuracy order for her spoken and written morphemes. This

accuracy order can not be explained using the student’s native language (Lems, Miller, & Soro,

2017).

As a result, the syntax in Dara’s writing abilities is at a very basic stage. In her writing,

Dara uses phrases that are not complete sentences, but does use a few linking words. For

example, “Im nevr gun be men to you beks Im your frend eveday.” Within this sentence she uses

the linking word to show she is never going to be mean again to this character because she is her

friend everyday. Dara has knowledge of the use of the pronominal form of linking words to make

her writing cohesive. For example, “I like to go to school to see Beatrice She wesoz wen we

came back”. In these sentences she replaced the noun Beatrice with the adverb she. Dara uses NP

+ VP phrases to form writing, such as “Im sony for bigh men to you”. In Dara’s oral and writing

samples there is no use of academic language. Her language use is very basic knowledge of

conversational words.

As I analyze Dara’s oral and written syntax knowledge, I notice that the written sample is

very closely related to how she speaks. There is little difference in the word choice that she uses

in writing and in oral communication. In her writing she begins almost every sentence or idea

with the word I’m. There is very little variance in how she starts her oral and written sentences,

for example “I like to go to school” (writing) vs “I can open presents” (oral). Her syntax ability

is consistency comprised of simple sentences of subject-verb format. A strength that Dara has in

her syntax ability is her ability to form simple sentences that explain her thoughts in the English

language. An area that needs further development is her ability to form complex and compound

sentences that are varied throughout her oral and written language.
 The word order in both her oral speech and writing is a strength for Dara. She does not

mix up her word order in either case to show grammatical errors. I notice that she is able to

successfully order words to creating a meaningful and purposeful message for her audience.

From her exposure to the English language in recreation and academic setting, Dara has picked

up on patterns and rules for word order in spoken and written language. Her knowledge of word

order is very consistent of listemes and grammar rules. Listemes are words that are commonly

used together in the English language. (Lims, Miller, & Soro, 2017). I have noticed in her

transcripts and writing samples that the word order usually follows the pattern subject verb. For

example, “I am sorry for…” (writing), “I am never guna me mean to you again” (writing), “I

love erasers” (spoken), and “I play with my friends”. All of these utterances begin with the

subject and verb. The word order in these phrases makes sense grammatically and provide clear

word order for the listener or reader.

When Dara is in the school setting she is immersed in a very balanced environment filled

with many sources of language exposure. In her English Language Arts classroom, she spends

time listening, reading, conversing with peers and teachers, and writing. All of these sources of

language exposure are varied on her academic level. These sources of language do not seem to

overwhelming or difficult for Dara to understand and engage with, enabling her to have multiple

opportunities everyday to internalize grammatical patterns and rules. The input hypothesis can

help explain how Dara has acquired her grammar use and knowledge. Throughout the day she is

exposed to many different inputs of grammatically correct language use.

Semantics

Semantics is the study of word and sentence meaning. One of the most critical area of

knowledge for English language learners is their vocabulary knowledge. The knowledge of the
L2 vocabulary knowledge directly correlates with their comprehension level. To analyze Dara’s

word and sentence semantic level I will be analyzing the third transcript. This conversation took

place at the Elementary school she attends. During this conversation, we were reading a book

and discussing it together. This type of conversation was an academic conversation about a book,

but in more of an informal setting because I was sitting next to her on her level looking at the

book as well.

The word choice that Dara uses in her speech is very basic level or high frequency words.

For example the words I, the, be, to, going, and yeah are used very frequently in her speech.

Even though these words are very basic level word choice, the words that are chosen make sense

in the context. Dara has a solid understanding of these high frequency words that she uses often.

When reading the text, Dara did not understand what the words rooster and fence meant. These

words are in a domain specific category that Dara would not get as much exposure to on a daily

basis. To help Dara understand what these two words were, I used the pictures in the text to give

her a visual of what these words look like. To analyze Dara’s lexical diversity in her speech, I

used a text content analyser to see what kinds of words she was using and how frequent. From

this data, I conclude Dara spoke 314 words and had 120 unique words within that. The lexical

density of her responses was 38.22. The majority of her words spoken were between 2 and 4

letters long. The most frequently used word in this conversation was the word “I”. The image

below shows the words used most frequently in her speech. I, to, and the were the top three most
used words.

These words that are used most often are words that are high frequency words that Dara

encounters in her daily classroom. These words would be considered tier 1 words on a

vocabulary knowledge level that occur most often in texts and in conversation.

One strength that Dara has is she is able to read vocabulary words. In the book we were

reading, it had vocabulary words that Dara could read based off her decoding skills and strategies

to look at the pictures to guide her. While she was reading, she was able to understand the text

for meaning. Through conversation, Dara has the ability to express herself in a meaningful and

purposeful way. During conversation, there are very few times that the word choice selected does

not make sense. Her phrases and sentences in conversation all have meaningful purpose. A need

for growth is Dara’s level of academic language knowledge. Through this conversation, I notice

that Dara has very little academic language because the majority of her word choice is high

frequency words. I am unsure if Dara does not know these types of words, or just does not feel

comfortable using more academic level vocabulary in her speech.

Assessment of the learner’s current stage of second language acquisition

The motivation that Dara has to learn the English language is both integrative and

instrumental (Lims, Miller, & Soro, 2017). Dara interacts with her classmates in the school

environment on a daily basis, and she needed to learn the English language and continue to

develop her knowledge of the language to be apart of the community. The intrinsic motivation

to become part of the culture and make friends at her school has a huge influence on who she is

as an English speaker. To be successful in her academic environment, Dara needed to learn the

English language. The tests and assessment that Dara complets in school are all in English, so

to be successful she is motivated to further her language. The motivation that Dara experiences

to be successful integrating into this new culture is both integrative and instrumental.

Dara’s phonology development is within the stage that Lightbrown and Spada would

identify stage two termed formulaic. She “includes primary memorized routines and frequent

use of imperatives” (Lightbrown & Spada, 2013). For example, when prompted by the question

what do you think he is doing in our book, she responded, “cleaning the school”. This phrase

starts with a verb and is missing a subject.

After analyzing Dara’s speech and listening to the recording, I have identified Dara in as

a level four on the Student Oral Language Observation Matrix. A SOLOM rating of four for

comprehension means that the L2 speaker understands nearly everything at normal

speech, although occasional repetition may be necessary. During the conversation with

Dara, I never once had to repeat myself or phrase it in a different way to make it clearer. I

would equate that to being completely immersed in the language she is learning right now

with peers that she collaborates with on a daily basis. The fluency that Dara uses is very

appropriate for conversation and academic purposes. She has occasional lapses when she
is unsure of what expression to use. Her vocabulary development overall is very clear and

is at the level needed for conversation. The vocabulary use in formal writing assignments

is very academic. Dara occasionally does not understand what is being asked of her and

responds in a way that does not make sense. For example, in conversation Dara did not

understand what the word tallest meant, and her response to this prompt did not make

sense. In ranking her pronuncaitation on the SOLOM chart, I would rank her as a 4. She is

always intelligible, but her Spanish accent is there when she speaks. When she came to the

USA she was so young, and her accent shows because she does not have a thick accent it is

more subtle. Using the SOLOM chart to assess Dara’s ability in grammar knowledge and

development, I would score her as a three. The errors that Dara makes in her grammar do not

affect the comprehension of the audience to an extent that it would be difficult to make sense of

what she is trying to convey. In Dara’s writing the one thing that really obscures the

comprehension and understanding of the words and sentences is the spelling. For example

“wesoz” for whistles, “wen” for when, “sony” for sorry, “men” for mean, etc. Once the words

are interpreted through the spelling mistakes the grammar in the sentences makes sense for the

prompt of the writing assignment. Dara makes few written standard English grammar mistakes

in her writing. For example, one of the only standard English mistake is using the word “gun”

(gunna) for going to.

Instructional Recommendations

Just like all English language learners, Dara just needs time to develop these language

skills. Being immersed in the language is not enough to develop appropriate language abilities,

Dara needs specific instructional strategies to further her languaging abilities. In order to have

purposeful and meaningful conversation, Dara needs to further her knowledge of

linguistic resources to use in a given context (Martíínez-Flor & Usoí -Juan, 2006) To further

Dara’s pragmatic skills, I recommend time communicating with native English speakers in

a social setting to help her improve vocabulary and grammatical skills. Social interaction

theorists say that conversation with peers in the language can provide rules and

mechanism to the speaker. She lacks the ability to put her thoughts into complete

sentences, but this could be due to the grade level and academic level she is on in the 1 st

grade. The language skills Dara is currently missing will start to emerge through practice

conversing with her peers at school. According to Lightbrown and Spada her classroom

environment should consist of “Communicative, content-based, and task-based language

teaching.” All three of these teaching strategies will help Dara to receive a wide range of

inputs and knowledge in her everyday routine in her stages of learning English.

The next steps for Dara in the classroom are to have activities that separate the

meaning of words and pronunciation from each other. For English language learners

studying both at the same time can be very difficult and confusing, as meaning tends to take

precedence over pronunciation. These pronunciation activities should emphasize the

suprasegmental, rhythm, stress, and intonation (Lightbrown and Spada, 2013). Lems,

Miller, and Soro suggest intensive listening activities in the classroom that include dictation,

transcribing, and using subtitles and captions. These types of activities would support

Dara’s language development in a supportive and controlled setting. These activities would

be in teacher led groups for explicit instruction with phonology. By listening to oral texts,

Dara would listen to a text more than once and analyze its features and sound

combinations. The dictation activity in the classroom would help Dara to practice saying

words with the correct pronunciation and then continuing to write the words down,
extending this knowledge of the sounds in the words and sentences. In the classroom, often

times Dara’s pronunciation gets pushed aside and other academic skills are the main focus.

The more explicit teaching that directly teaches and guides the students understanding in

their second language such as syntax and grammar will help the student to become a better

linguistic in the second language. To further Dara’s knowledge of grammar and syntax, I would

recommend morphological instructional practice, ELLs at all grade levels benefit from

instruction in morphemes. A morpheme word wall in the classroom would help Dara to visually

see parts of words including prefixes, roots, and suffixes. The morpheme word wall could be

organized on an actual wall in the classroom or could be an individual binder for Dara. The

would provide the meaning for each morpheme and color code the morphemes per academic

vocabulary domain. Another instructional practice in the classroom that would further Dara’s

syntax knowledge of how to create well formed sentences in her spoken and writing abilities

would be so have activities that Dara is challenged to make different types of sentences. This

activity could be a center activity that gives the students a visual guide to make different types of

sentences using sentence prompts. Dara is lacking in knowledge of how to create different types

of sentences and structures in her language.

To increase Dara’s knowledge of vocabulary in her speaking, reading, and writing skills I

would recommend to use explicit and implicit reading strategies. One way Lightbrown and

Spada (2013) recommends English language learners to gain more vocabulary knowledge is to

independently or silently read during class time. This activity would provide implicit instruction

that Dara would be reading and soaking in her words from the text. When students read silently

they are readily able to learn new words in a context that is meaningful. Often times English

language learners struggle with learning vocabulary because they are exposed to such little
amounts of text. If Dara is given ample time to read independently in the classroom then she will

be exposed to a range of text lengths. This is not the only recommendation I would give to

extend Dara’s knowledge because context sometimes is not the most reliable source to learn new

words. I would recommend using explicit instruction with the activity translate. This activity

would be teacher led in small groups, and the groups of students are challenged to work together

to translate the section into their native language. Students would be working in groups with

other L2 speakers. Translating the sections into their native language gives the students more

knowledge into the meanings of the given words. They are able to put a definition to it using

their native language. This activity would help promote bilingualism in the classroom as well as

vocabulary and semantic instruction.

Critical reflection

This case study was an eye opening experience that challenged me to analyze specific

parts to an English learners language development. The largest take away that I had during this

process was all the parts that go into forming proficient language abilities. I gained a firm

understand what phonology, grammer, semantics, and pragmatics are and how they affect the

English learners to effectively communicate within the English language. In building a city for a

student who is bilingual all of these linguistic components need to be explicitly taught and

developed in recreational and academic environments. Our schools are so diverse with students

who have the ability to code switcher from their languages. The teachers that interact with

students who are developing their English language, need to be knowledge people who support

these students during their challenging path. If teachers are not knowledgeable about language

development they will not be able to teach bilingual students to the best of their ability. Our

classrooms need to transition into environments that have positive connotation about language,
instead of monolingual environments. By changing our mindset about language as educators, we

invite students to use their native languages in our classrooms that furthers their academic

knowledge. Students who are bilingual are truly amazing students, and this needs to be promoted

in our classrooms rather than shut out. There has been such a flux of the number of English

language learners in our schools; therefore, I think many teachers have been inadequately

prepared of how to teach these students. English language learners in the classroom provide

unique opportunities for teachers to be real teachers and really teach.

Working with a 1st grader has provided hands on experience with all four parts of these

linguistic components with a student in the age range I wish to work with in the future. The

children in our schools who are English language learners all develop at different times in their

language abilities. Many teachers in our schools do not understand where English language

learners have difficulty in their language development. Often times these teachers just give up on

differentiating instruction for these students because they do not know what to do next. Through

this case study, I have had the experience pinpointing particular strength and gaps the student has

in their language development. I had never analysed someone’s speech or written language so

intensively before now. This aspect of the case study shows how just listening to an English

language learner can be one of the best forms of assessment to determine where these students

are in their language development. After analysing particular gaps, I was then able to think about

instructional strategies that would help fill these gaps and lead the student to success. Many of

these linguistic components rely on each other for the linguistic to be proficient in the language

so it is key to have a range of instructional strategies in the classroom.

 References

Dawson, H., & Phelan, M., (2016) Language in Context. Materials for an Introduction to

Language and Linguistics; Language Files

Lems, K., Miller, L., & Soro, T., (2017). Building Literacy with English Language Learners,

Insights from Linguistics.

Lightbrown, P., & Spada, N. (2013). How Languages are Learned (Fourth Edition). Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

Martinez-Flor, A., & Uso-Juan, E., (2006). A Comprehensive Pedagogical Framework to

Develop Pragmatics in the Foreign Language Classroom. Applied Language Learning.

Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 39-64