"Eduardo" a Case Study in English Language Learners

When thinking about who I wanted to do my case study on their were two possibilities. One student who is quieter and works hard, and another student who is often in trouble, talks back, and is sort of a class clown. As it would happen, they are both very good friends and often together

When I mentioned these two students to my CT, she said that the loud kid, E., probably has an undiagnosed learning disability, which might make it more challenging to understand the language needs as opposed to the special needs of this student. So I chose the other student, a quiet student who I’ll call Eduardo.

Eduardo’s behavior in class is very low key. He rarely draws attention to himself, or volunteers to answer a question. He nonetheless generally stays engaged when the material is accessible. Usually, his work shows good effort and attention to detail. He excels in the drawing. His portfolio of work is full of colorful and life-like pictures - of Animals, Egyptian gods, etc. He is also enrolled in an architectural drawing class after school. His writing is, however, far below proficient. He regularly spells words phonetically and incorrectly, “Polar Beard” instead of “polar bear.” Or “por” instead of “poor.” Verb tenses are often incorrect. Nonetheless, his work shows improvement over the year.

Eduardo’s family is from the municipality of Toluca. He loves soccer, and wants to be a professional soccer player or a doctor.

Eduardo is academically motivated – he appears to want to do well. He wants to ake up work that he doesn’t do for example. In the letter he wrote my CT in the beginning of the year, he wrote that he wants to be a doctor. He also included his graduation day (from 5th grade), in his list of his life’s most important events, and he wrote that he was very proud. Thus I think he wants to do well. Nonetheless, he lags behind by most indicators.

He has below basic test scores on the CST in Math, Science, and English Language Arts.

His overall CELDT score is 3, with scores on the different sections of mostly 3, with the exception of a 1 in his writing.