ESOL Case Study Interview

Emelia Mendoza
Emelia is born in October 9th 1993. She is 13 years old and arrived here in the U.S. from Mexico about a year and a half ago at 11 ½ years of age. Her parents are José and Elizabeth, she has an older sister, Carmen that is 20 years old and does not live with the family. Her brother, Christian, is older that she is, he is 14 years old and does live with the family. No one in the family spoke English when they arrived here in the U.S. Her mother is learning English and both Christian and Emelia are learning English in school. Spanish is the language spoken at home.
Emelia’s mothers, 37 years old, has an 8th grade education and her father, 38 years old, has a 9th grade education. Both Emelia and her brother Christian are in the 8th grade at Country Middle School (a middle class school). Her parents can not help her much with her homework because they do not speak English. Her mother is the ESOL representative for Country Middle School and goes to as many meetings as she can. In school there is an instructional assistant that helps out the pod (this is the group of students in the 8th grade that go to their different classes and are in close proximity to each other). The instructional assistant (Sara, she is bilingual, Spanish) helps out different groups of students at different times. Sara thinks that Emelia is doing a great job with her classes and says that she puts forth a lot of effort to learn. I am told by the ESOL instructor that all of her teachers say that Emelia works hard in their classes and makes good grades; they believe that she is progressing well. There is no ESOL pullout at this school. There are ESOL strategies that they use in class and they have the instructional assistant help out with the ESOL students.
Emelia’s reading level in her L1 is 7th grade. Her reading level in English is 4th grade. She tends to pronounce the English words with a Spanish pronunciation. For my reading sample I had her read a 4th grade level reading book called Lucky last Luke by Margaret Clark. She read very haltingly but did not stop; she did not pronounce the past tense very well in English and did not always say the whole word. She would often run the words together with out a stop between the words and I noticed that she did not pronounce the teachers name in the story correctly. Emelia does not understand everything she reads but she does get the gist of some of the story through the pictures. In writing about the book she read she writes, for the most part, what she saw in the pictures. I believe that Emelia would benefit from lessons in pronunciation in English, and lessons in pronouncing and understanding the past tenses. If she could get more lessons in reading and shown how to slow down and read for information, not just to read, she may understand more of what she reads. I would say that she is in the speech emergence stage progressing to the intermediate stage.
Emelias parents work hard as gardeners. They left Mexico to come to the U.S. so that both their children could get a better education. They do not want their children to work in lower level jobs like they do. Emelias aspirations are to be either a doctor or an architect.
Emelia likes school and makes good grades. She does have the supplies she need for school. Her favorite classes are science and history and she is also good in math. Socially she can communicate with her classmates. If she continues to study hard and practice her English she will get steadily better, she does not have any learning disabilities. She says that she needs to work on her letters more. At home she helps her mother with the house work. On her free time she likes to play basketball, swim, and jumps rope. More than likely she lives in a lower middle class neighborhood.

Reading Transcription

ESOL student
Transcription of reading

Luke was always last. It didn’t matter what was happening—something always made him late or last. “Hurry up, Luke. Your toast is getting cold!” Mom called. Luke always tried to be last to breakfast. He didn’t like his toast too hot because the butter would melt and make his toast soggy. And he didn’t like to watch his sister, Jane, heaping horrible apricot jam on her toast, or slurping her milk through her missing front teeth. It was so gross! And he hated the way his baby brother, Thomas, would spit cereal, dribble orange juice, and finger paint with the peanut butter that had started out on his toast!

“Hurry up, Luke, and get in the car. It’s time for school!” yelled Dad. Luke grabbed his schoolbag and wandered out to the car. Jane made a face at him because she was first, and so she got to sit in the front. But Luke liked sitting in the back. He could see everything that was happening out of all the windows.

“Hurry up and get in line, Luke,” called his teacher, as the bell rang to go into school. “One day you just might surprise me and be first!” But Luke liked to be the last in line. He could pick up things that the other kids had dropped and give them back to them.

“It’s an exciting day,” said Luke’s teacher, Mrs. Michaels. “Did you all remember? We’re going to the zoo. Hurry up and get on the bus.” Luke was last in line, as usual. And when he finally climbed up the steps and onto the bus, there were no seats left because some of the mothers had come on the field trip, too. “Just sit up front next to the driver,” said Mrs. Michaels. She was way in the back with Emma Evangaline, cleaning up because Emma had already thrown up.

Luke got off the bus first. It was strange being first. He didn’t like it much. Amanda Brown stepped on his heel, and his shoe came off. Mrs. Michaels pressed her lips together, which meant she was about to lose her cool. “Hurry up and put on your shoe,” she said angrily. Luke had to stay behind, put his shoe on again, and do up the laces.

Last in line again, Luke felt happy. They went to see the elephants, and the biggest one was in a bad mood. It squirted black gooey stuff all over Sarah Diaz’s best blue dress, and she screamed her head off. “Be quiet, Sarah. It’ll wash off,” snapped Mrs. Michaels. She hurried them all away from the elephants. Luke was last, of course. He picked up the doughnut Sarah had dropped and threw it to the baby elephant. The big elephant trumpeted so loudly that Luke nearly jumped through the sky. But it was great fun.

At the ostriches, Ben Borgani teased the biggest ostrich by strutting and jerking his elbows up and down. It fluffed u its feathers angrily and charged at the fence. Everyone screamed. Mrs. Michaels went ballistic at Ben, and then she hurried them all away. Luke was last in the line again. He was able to pick up the beautiful feather that the ostrich had dropped. He put it in his bag.

They all arrived at the gorilla’s cage. Ben Borgani mad faces and jumped up and down in front of the gorilla. “Hey, King Kong, can you play Ping-Pong?” he yelled. Then he took off his cap and threw it into the cage. Everyone laughed. Mrs. Michaels went ape! She made them all move on. Luke was at the end of the line, so he was able to pick up Ben’s cape when the gorilla threw it back. “Mrs. Michaels, Mrs. Michaels,” he called. But she wasn’t listening, so Luke put the cap in his bag.

“Hurry up, Luke” called Mrs. Michaels, as they walked toward the picnic area. “We’re going to have our lunch.” Luke sat by a tree, eating slowly. Everyone else finished and Mrs. Michaels took them off to play base ball. Luke finally finished and started after them.

But on the way, he saw some people who were busy with cameras and overhead microphones. They were making a TV program about the zoo. “Could you just walk over there and hold out this bread to those geese?” said a man wearing a floppy hat, to Luke. So Luke did as he was asked. Mrs. Michaels came rushing back. She thought that Luke was getting attacked by the geese. The man asked her to sign a piece of paper so that Luke could appear on TV.

“Stay with the group, please, Luke,” said Mrs. Michaels. She went rushing off to stop Ben Borgani from putting his fingers in the aviary. The other kids were near the kangaroos. Luke wandered across to look, too, just as the rest of the class walked off with Mrs. Michaels. A baby kangaroo had climbed out of its mother’s pouch and gotten its head stuck in the fence. Luke told a zookeeper. The zookeeper rescued the baby kangaroo and gave Luke some special zoo postcards. Luke proudly put them in his bag.

Reading Sample

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Writing Sample