A Case Study Of An English Learner 's Use Of Carnegie Speech 's Nativeaccent Online Speech Recognition Software

General education classroom teachers are responsible for providing the primary instruction for English Language Learners (ELLs) development in English literacy skills (Thompson, 2004). Supplying ample resources to accommodate ELLs inside and outside of the classroom are essential as the number of ELL students has grown steadily. According to research, “one out of four of all children in the United States are from immigrant families, and in most cases these children speak a language other than English at home” (Samson & Collins, 2012 p. 4). Further research suggests, “students from a non-English speaking home and background account for the fastest growing population of children in the kindergarten through twelfth grade setting (Short &

It's a regular Tuesday morning, just like any other. A Hispanic mother is called to the school for a meeting for a consultation about her son’s performance. While in the meeting, the principal tells her that her child is in the 2nd grade, but is very behind. He adds the fact that her child does not understand the language the teacher speaks, and consequently, is not learning. The mother feels helpless since she cannot help him by reason of not understanding the language either. Hence, this is the difficult reality for numerous Hispanic families.

The first and second year after moving from China to the United States, I was afraid to talk to strangers because my English was not quite well. I had to depend on my husband to deal with my personal business, such as making a doctor’s appointment, calling to the bank, or questioning the DMV officers. Douglass says, “being a slave for life began to bear heavily upon my heart” (62). Being a dependent and helpless adult is a shame for me. In addition, I did not have extra money to go to school to improve my English skills. Thus, I stayed home all the time to avoid the embarrassment that happened when I did not understand strangers’ conversation. Meanwhile, being silent at home leaded worries to my future. I realized that I had to improve my oral English to gain self-confidence. I spent time reading various articles on the internet, and I watched English dialogues’ videos on YouTube. As a non-English speaking immigrant living in the U.S., I challenged myself to overcome difficulties to integrate myself into a new

When an educator walks into her classroom for the first time, she needs to be prepared to encounter students that come from a variety of backgrounds. The children will be in different stages of language development, and the educator must accommodate for each of these students. Magruder, Hayslip, Espinosa, and Matera (2013) state, “The US Census Bureau projects that by the 2030s, children whose home language is other than English will increase from roughly 22 percent to 40 percent of the school-age population” (p. 9). This increase in second language learners will cause the educator to accommodate for those needs. Second language learners “need teachers who welcome them and recognize their unique abilities, what they know, and what they need to learn” (Magruder, Hayslip, Espinosa, and Matera, 2013, p. 10).

When a student who is not proficient in English enrolls in school, parents are given an English language survey. When the parents fill out the survey, if the student’s parents respond to the first three questions on the survey that their home language is not English, then the student is given an English

English learners are currently the fastest developing student population in schools today. This makes it extremely important to provide these students with the programs and services they deserve. Providing a strong education for ELL students is what I personally believe to be an asset in America’s future. Today there are many challenges I believe teachers and students face when it comes to instruction and assessments.

The day I stepped off the plane and landed in America, I knew that I’d have to face a great challenge. Being a first generation immigrant from Vietnam, I would have to learn English as quickly as possible. Although I’ve arduously prepared for this transition by learning basic vocabulary and grammar in my native country, I quickly realized that my practical aspect of using the language such as listening, conversing, pronunciation to be insufficient. By immersing myself in an English-speaking world, I finally addressed my lingual deficiency within a year.

The real life scenario still challenged him to understand people. Same way applies to first year in school too. It reflects that the normal test-prep practice does not help student prepare enough for their future life and curriculum. As a result, what they need is to get so more and diverse input language recourses other than test preps in order to enrich the understanding and accumulation of language usage. As far as I know, the lack of comprehending ability came from not listen enough, which make us vulnerable in front of these native expressions or regular speaking pace and pronunciation. Before Chinese student came to America, most of them learn English in schools, majorly grammar learning and writing. They truly do not have enough input of original English, instead they could be satisfied with in class learning and slow-paced English, which is not what their American teachers do in real life. And Test preparation for listening section is way less than what is enough for them to practice. Take my personal experience as an example; I truly did not have such story of not understand my teacher in America like most of my friends do. I did listen a lot normal-speed speech and news on

In a country like America where people all over the world come to obtain a better future for themselves and their children, there is a large diversity in culture and languages. Most immigrant families come to America speaking a different language and have to adapt to the American language, English. However, several people do not learn English or have difficulty learning it. Usually older people struggle to learn English because they do not have time. Though, children may not have a hard time learning the English language because they are often sent to school. Currently children are now expected to learn a new foreign language, but most of the children’s families would like them to continue speaking their native language as well.

The second language learner that I have chosen to assess in my case study is an international student from Korea who is now attending year 11 and does the ESL course at my school, the Hills Grammar School. I will refer to my student with the name ‘John’ for confidentiality reasons.

With the already high-impact pressures that are put on students in education these days, difficulties in speech and language only escalate their stress. Due to the progress made in technology though, several of these children can adapt to their educational environments smoothly and without concern.

After immigrating to the United States, I was grouped in a class of English as a second language learners in a public middle school. In that class, I

The learner I have chosen has a general level of education from her native country, having attended nursery, primary and secondary schools. In her period of education in secondary school, she managed studied the English language for approximately 5 years.

Neither was I able to get their points, nor could they understand me. The reasons were that my Turkish English teachers are not the experts in pronunciation and there is no class focusing on speaking at state schools in Turkey. An experiment was performed by Major et al. about speaking and listening problems for international people. Four groups of one hundred listeners, whose native languages were Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, and American English, heard brief lectures presented in English by speakers with different native languages and answered questions based on the lectures. The results indicated that both native and nonnative listeners scored significantly lower on listening comprehension tests when they listened to nonnative speakers of English, and Chinese group scored significantly lower when listening to speakers who shared their native language. Only Spanish group did well when they listened to their native speaker (174). This experiment showed that learning English from a nonnative speaker may cause troubles in both listening and speaking parts of English. Additionally, I lacked of ability on word choice for the first couple of months in the USA. For example, I was using adjective “too” for positive circumstances ” instead of “very” or “so”, and I used to say “according to me” instead of “in my

Nowadays, although teaching and learning English has constantly changed, the Audio-Lingual Method still plays a significant role in many English classes around the world. According to Larsen-Freeman (2000), the Audio-Lingual Method was developed from an interesting idea that behavioral psychology and linguistic conventions are closely related to each other. Thus, this method aims to enhance learners’ ability by overlearn and habit formation.