Goals Of A Case Study On Language Acquisition

“Her language, as I hear it, vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery. That was the language that helped shape the way I saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world” (7). The author talked about her personal experiences with the different kinds of English. She talked about how her

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).

I propose to you a case study on a pre-kindergarten English language learning student through qualitative research. My goal was to find out if he faces any problems with regards to his behavior, academic progress and attitudes towards his teachers, classmates and parents. His name is David and just recently came to the United States from Russia about two years ago. He has a complicated time understanding what goes on in his environment because of the language barrier. The one positive aspect for David is that my assistant in the class is Russian as well. Even though he has a hardship speaking the English language and understanding his peers, my assistant helps translate words from Russian to English for him and vice versa.

Furthermore, Vonderlack-Navarro suggest another beneficial way to support English language learners is to involve parents in the students’ education. Because of the language barriers, education levels, and culture, this goal will not be a stress-free assignment; however, once the parents have “buy-in” and trust the school systems, the goal would be accomplished (Stover,

While it is clear from this passage that she had some trouble learning English, it is also clear that she has a great mastery of the language and

Over the last decade or so, important legislation has been implemented to positively ensure fair and equal access to a quality education for English Language Learners (ELL). Change did not happen without there being obstacles to overcome. There were many overturned cases that initially sought to strip English Language Learners of their basic rights to an education. Yet, there would eventually be legislation instituted to help alter the course.

With nearly 30 million immigrants crossing our borders in the last three decades, the United States education system has seen a dramatic increase in the number of English Language Learners (ELLs) entering the classroom (Migration Policy Institute website, n.d.). With this influx of non-native English speakers has come the need to find the best ways possible to meet them where they are academically and teach them accordingly. However, after years of research, education gurus are still divided on how to best meet the needs of ELLs. While there is no clear-cut approach, there are several strategies and programs that schools can implement in order to help immigrant learners and their families be successful in our school system.

At a young age Condoleezza was introduced to the French language. She was always willing to learn and

In the article, Amy Tan is that mother tongue is a door to her mother's heart, it helped her change her view about her mother. Amy Tan disliked and felt ashamed of her mother's English:“ I know this for a fact because when I was growing up, my mother 's "limited" English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English..” But as she grew up and got used to this limited English, she began to understand her mother, and her limited English, she viewed it as a symbol of intimacy:“ It has become our language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk, the language I grew up with.” So it is evident that mother tongue helped her understand her mother. In our life, have many different languages, native language is

When she describes her mother’s language as being “broken” or “fractured”, it helps the reader to understand how they are being portrayed according to the way they speak. For example, she states that when her mother went to the hospital for an appointment, she had spoken very good English. Unfortunately, she did not understand why the hospital did not apologize when they had lost the CAT scan. This demonstrates that because her mother did not speak really good English, they felt no sympathy for her. Although she explains that her mother reads things such as the Forbes report, and listens to Wall Street Week, she still does not understand how her mother belies how much she actually understands. Also, she sort of criticizes English because it is not precise as math which only has one correct answer. She states that English was not exactly her strong suit. Lastly, the author uses pathos to describe how she thinks her mother’s English almost had an effect on limiting her possibilities in life. For example, Tan states that she does think that the language spoken in immigrant families play a large role in shaping the language of the child, as a reference to the beginning of the story when she says that language is a tool of her

When these non-English-speaking children arrive at their local school for the first time, they will unfairly be expected to perform at the same level academically as their English-speaking peers, and this will be a big challenge for them because they will have a hard time understanding what their teachers are teaching and what their textbooks are saying. In addition, learning the English language is especially important for young English language learners who have recently immigrated to the United States because they have an additional and serious responsibility beyond just adding a new language; once they do begin to pick up the language, they will more than likely have to take on the role of translator for their parents and will become the sole line of communication between their non-English speaking parents and the school’s teachers, guidance counselors and administrators.

Anzaldua is a Chicana who believes that others should not judge her linguistic and feminine identity, but be proud of the fact that she is a Chicana. When Anzaldua was a child, her mother would say “I want you to speak English” (34) because her mother was mortified by the fact that Anzaldua spoke English like a Mexican. Anzaldua’s personal experience leads her to advocate for the acceptance of her culture by saying “wild tongues cannot be tamed” (34) and “I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing. I will have my voice” (40).he believes that she should not cover up her Chicana side since it represents who she is. Anzaldua also sees ethnic identity as “twin skin to linguistic identity—I am my language. Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself” (39). She sees that her language is utterly important to defining her identity; she cannot live without it because it is her pride. Her personal experiences of dealing with others who mention that she must be more “American” than Chicana has led her to become more accepting of her linguistic

An astounding twenty-five percent of children in the United States are born of at least one foreign-born parent; eighty-eight percent of those children are second generation (Zong). Second generation immigrants typically acquire the language spoken in the receiving country (the L2 language) when old enough to leave the household for schooling. By contrast, first-generation immigrants who emigrate in adulthood often neglect to learn the L2 language, relying instead upon residential ethnic concentrations and the language-brokering of their children to get by. The lingual disparity between parent and child causes a cultural rift within the relationship, thereby stressing it.

Numerous theories try to explain the process of language acquisition. These theories fall into one of two camps. The environmentalist (or connectionist) theory of language acquisition asserts that language is acquired through environmental factors (Halvaei et al. 811). Theorists in this camp believe that a child learns language by gaining information from the outside world and then forming associations between words and objects. The nativist (or rationalist) approach, on the other hand, asserts that it is innate factors that determine language acquisition. Noam Chomsky, often described as “the father of modern linguistics”, falls into this camp as he believes that speech is the result of hidden rules of language that are hidden somewhere in the brain (Rahmani and Abdolmanafi 2111). Steven Pinker, a colleague of Chomsky, is a renowned psychologist, cognitive scientist and linguist who discusses his own theories on language acquisition in his book Words and Rules.

She realized that her "mother tongue" has become their "language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk,..."(Tan 61) Her "mother tongue" is the English she uses while she is in her first world, her private world, which is a completely different cultural community.