English Language Learners: A Case Study

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Will my teacher hurt me if I make a mistake? Are there scary men who will try to take me when I am walking home after school and make me a soldier? Do I feel safe here? These are questions that most children born in the United States do not have to ask themselves when they enter for their first day of school. However, there are many children coming from countries such as Mexico and Sudan, where these are questions that children ask themselves every day. Accordingly, I began to ask myself the question what different aspects of a daily classroom routine that might prove to be challenging for English Language Learners due to cultural mismatches or misunderstandings in terms of their feelings of comfort and security while at school. I came upon …show more content…
from Ethiopia during a civil war with Eritrea and his growth from refugee to Harvard graduate. Mawi and the two boys from Mexico are just some of the examples of case studies that I found where there is a cultural mismatch between their North American school and their native school in terms of safety and security.
Quetzal was eight years old and Rodriguez was eleven years old when they came to the United States from Mexico. I came across their interesting stories in the article, “Dreams Beyond Labels: Case Studies of Four English Language Learners Who Are Beating the Odds” by Julie Israelson. As I was reading their case studies, I noticed a commonality among some of the lines of thinking among the children—the concept of safety. The two boys offered examples of events that occurred in their lives before coming to the United States that left them with feelings of insecurity upon arriving to their new school. When
…show more content…
However, in my opinion, the security and comfort of a new ELL student is a great component to an ELL student’s successful second language acquisition as well as cultural transition. In the cases of Mawi, Questzal, and Rodriguez, they came from two separate countries, but they were all raised in a culture of fear, and this fear needs to be addressed in order to ensure success in a classroom setting. In short, a student must be made to feel comfortable in his/her environment and establish a variety of support systems to feel safe in school. Once this feeling of comfort and safety is reached, the student will be more motivated to become a part of community and work towards English language

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