ESL Case Study

Improved Essays
Yi (2013) conducted a case study of a Korean high school student named Hoon (a pseudonym) in a United States school. Hoon felt his ESL(English as a Second Language) status stigmatized him. He felt embarrassed or that he was “losing face” because he was an ESL student. Hoon reported some his classmates made fun of him for being in ESL which further contributed to his feeling of stigmatization. Because of his negative feelings he had his ESL teacher move him from Beginning ESL to Advanced ESL skipping over Intermediate ESL. However, he repeated Advanced ESL three times. His teacher attributed his difficulties in English to him skipping over Intermediate ESL. Yi’s study of Hoon also discovered his stigmatized status was having an effect …show more content…
Corazo at first enforced the district policy of English only in her classroom. She started seeing the negative impact the district policies were having on her students. She discovered she was not getting desired results from her students. Ms. Corazo started to change her own attitudes about her students and became more understanding of their needs. She started allowing her student to speak in Spanish to each other. Ms. Carazao spoke Spanish fluently and started using a little Spanish in the classroom and would translate key terms to students to help them with comprehension. Even though she made changes in her own classroom, she felt she still had to follow the districts policies and did not advocate for change at the district level. She still felt she would be held accountable if she did not follow the district policy. So, by the end of the school year if a student asked her a question in Spanish, she went back to pretending she did not understand, leaving her students feeling …show more content…
The amount of support (or lack thereof) a teacher receives may have an effect on the learning environment. Brooks, Adams, and Mortia-Mullaney (2010) conducted a study where they went into schools where the ESL teachers felt they had very little support. They observed the school before and after a professional development program they designed went into place. Before the program Brooks et et al. discovered these schools were putting all the responsibility of the ELL students on the ESL teachers, releasing the administration and the students’ other teachers of responsibility. This included placing all home-school communication on the ESL teacher, which potentially takes away the time they need to meet the academic needs of their students. Brooks et al. further points out when the administration does not have direct access to the ELL students and their families they may misunderstand their needs and not take them into consideration when making decisions. Furthermore, the ESL teachers reported feeling isolated at their school. Their classrooms were located away from the content teachers, making it difficult to have quick conversations with content teachers concerning an ELL student’s progress or difficulties. The ESL teachers also reported when they did try and have conversations with a content teacher the teacher would not listen to their

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