Language acquisition and engagement in a Spanish-speaking seventh grader

Child Case Study: The Story Manuel Rodriguez

The arena of children's language development is one that really does incorporate a choice of distinctive theoretical viewpoints. The theoretical subject that has prevailed over all the others in this part for the last twenty-five years or more is that of the amount to which children are pre-planned for the detailed mission of language learning. An associated problem is that of whether language is autonomous of other extents of perception, or is it reliant on upon more all-purpose cognitive aptitudes. With that said, this is a case study of a 7th grade student named Manuel. Manuel is a new arrival -- he or for 8 months, he has been living in the United States. His family comes in from Brasilia, Brazil. Manuel L1 is basically Spanish. Through easygoing debate he specified that he went to private school in Brazil and that basically, "a life that was privileged." Manuel shared that his father Ceasar is a college professor and came to the U.S. because he is on a 4-year project for the United Nations. This information leads me to really think that Manuel has been raised in a prosperous home and has been very educated in his first language. The family contains of his father Ceasar, his mother Nona and his 7-year-old sister Anna.

Manuel really appears to be a little indifferent when it comes down to the school environment. He really does not appear predominantly content or hopeless to be here. I observed that he this child really appears to be weary most of the time. Manuel just sits in the classroom and looks very drowsy. His communication with other pupils gives the impression to be insignificant. I do not really think of him as a chiefly quiet child; Manuel through my observation seems to be a little disinterested. A lot of times it makes me think that the school work or material is just boring to him. I believe that in a lot of nations, education seems to be more of a drill and youngsters are pressed to learn faster than they do here. However, a lot of times children from foreign lands have already been open to what they are presently learning in America.

Findings- Informal and Formal Assessments

I was able to watch and observe Manuel on about 3 different situations. The first was conducted in class. Then the other two occasions were done independently in another room. I was able to really get a good observation of him in class because it was important to see how manual had interaction with his teacher, his other classmates and the text that was offered. From the very first surveillance I was able to garner numerous things about Manuel as a student, his literacy actions and the educational inferences that had been fashioned by getting the bulk of his teaching in a second language.

The first thing I noticed was that Manuel appeared to be pretty unenthusiastic when it came down to utilizing English or speaking at all except if he is spoken to. The issue that had been fashioned here is that he is not really just learning or recollecting the content that the rest of his peers in the classroom are learning. Manuel does not do a lot of participation or really provide that much attention and appears as if he is going through the motions so as not to be reproached by his teacher.

When triggered, I detected that Manuel would habitually lapse back to Spanish or practice an assortment of Spanish and English which is more normally denoted to as "Spanglish." It looked to me as if he would sometimes start to forget and mechanically give a reply in Spanish. It never really seemed as if he would catch himself. He was continuously prompted by the teacher to move to English. A lot of times when he got discouraged he would mumble under to himself in Spanish. In his English Class the teacher would normally try and call on him for a reply.

Manuel facial expression appeared to turn to anger whenever this would occur on occasions. He would sort of utter out the first part of the sentence out of his mouth and would then struggle and ultimately just thrown in the towel and give up. The teacher at that point would then just move on. The expression he utilized most in this class was "forget about it." Manuel's body language had really spoken to the fact that he was not interested in being there at all. He would just sit slumped in his chair. A lot of times his head would go completely down on the table. Manuel did not smile much and had very little to say. He did not really try to make any attempts to do any work unless the teacher had come over to see if he was on task. Usually, she would ask if he was doing any work and even then he essentially just give her the cold shoulder. It was obvious that during that moment that he was getting a kick out of ignoring her. The class appeared to be a bit uncontrolled and on those seconds when his friends were clowning around, Manuel sat in silence just frowning his face. I believe that his incapability to communicate, read and comprehend what was going on around him shared with the absence of provision, scaffolding and appealing material is was guided him to being standoffish in this specific class.

Interpretation of Assessment Discoveries -- Student Assets and Challenges

Upon appraisal of Manuel's running record and work data I understood that he really come as at the high beginner end of the range. He really does have a pretty good hold on the present tense. He does know how to use the past tense, but there is normally a few second pause while he conjugates in his head the verb. His terminology is pretty elementary. This is what sort of gets him a little discouraged most of all. He will give it a shot and does a mild job in trying to explain a story and get a little stumped on a certain term. In relationship of his reading comprehension -- Manuel knows how to read at grade level. He really does get the plain indication and can figure out the connotation of a lot of words in the course of context clues. He can effortlessly recapitulate what he has just read and grabbed some of the main ideas as well as extrapolations. His writing needs a lot of work. A lot of the time he leaves out things like prepositions and over uses the imperative regarding creating the words so that they could be plural. For instance -- take the word "children." Manuel will normally just adds an "s" on it so that it can be plural. During other times he does not make certain terms plural. Homonyms are a big issue for Manuel. His language appears to emphasis needs to be on structuring a basis of appropriate sentence structure and sentence syntax. Regrettably for Manuel the existing tendency in the New York City School system is to be able to get students to enthrall grammar by means of content learning instead of repetition conjugation and maneuvers. I really believe that there is something that can said for both. My view is that persons need a groundwork that is openly taught and then they can construct upon that.