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IAAL Research, Observations, and Findings

The experiences of ELL students in American classrooms are a topic of continued

discussion across the nation, in primary, secondary, and higher educational settings alike.

Methods of academic scaffolding and differentiation vary from classroom to classroom, but

individual student experiences are heavily dependent on the extent of linguistic, sociocultural,

and cognitive support (Herrera & Murry, 2016). The role of culturally relevant pedagogy,

assessment experiences, and metacognition to enhance and gauge individual academic

achievement in the classroom are heavily emphasized to promote personal and intellectual

growth (UNLV Online Education, 2017). Furthermore, many ELL students at the selected school

for this case study come from immigrant backgrounds, so the connections between enculturation

and acculturation will be crucial in understanding student progress and achievement in the

classroom (Herrera and Murry, 2016). The focal point of this case study will be the bilingual

nature of English language acquisition from a native Spanish language speaker perspective, as

the majority of students from the selected school come from Spanish-speaking countries or

households.

In this case study, the selected student moved to the United States from El Salvador, and

they only speak Spanish, but their English language development is improving with the

simultaneous daily exposure to ESL classes and cooperative learning activities (Wright, 2010)

with peers who speak both Spanish and English. The student selected for this study is in 7th

grade, and they are an intelligent, hardworking, and inquisitive twelve-year old. They really

enjoy cooking with their mother, going to church, playing sports, and babysitting. Their favorite

class is science, and they hope to one day be a lawyer to help and advise immigrants in the
United States. They did not have an academic record prior to their schooling here, much like

Ramona from the in-class case study (UNLV Online Education, 2017). As such, their other

teachers have expressed the challenges of assessing this student based on content in the

classroom because due to the lack of data on file from standardized tests and transcripts from

prior grades. However, the student has shared their classroom experiences from the home

country, and it seems that the sociocultural context of education is quite different in El Salvador

from that of the United States. Because the student only speaks in Spanish, the ability to

communicate with them in the native language has been a strong asset for bilingual instructors

that other teachers at the school are not able to utilize, which fosters further understanding of

their academic, linguistic, and cognitive development from a sociocultural dimension (Herrera &

Murry, 2016).

In this study, the student will be given multiple forms of assessments to better get to

know them from a personal and intellectual perspective. To begin with, the student will be

assessed using interest inventories, and the later assessments will focus more on contextual and

cognitive engagement through social/affective, cognitive, and metacognitive learning strategies

(Herrera & Murry, 2016). Based on conversations with the student, it appears as though they are

able to make connections between linguistic cognates in English to those in Spanish and

understand concepts taught in class using prior knowledge, as outlined by the definitions of

transfer, elaboration, and contextualization in the development of a constructivist learning

environment (Herrera & Murry, 2016).

The students language and academic developments show a significant correlation with

how they interact with peers and understand individual metacognitive abilities (UNLV Online
Education, 2017). The main emphasis of this case study will be on WIDA English language

development standard one, which refers to the students ability to communicate for social and

instructional purposes within the school setting (WIDA, 2012). To better gauge the relationship

between sociocultural processes and academic achievement, extra-curricular involvement will be

addressed in an effort to connect academic content to personal growth (Herrera & Murry, 2016).

Instructional content will be provided in bilingual forms to provide the student with opportunities

to comprehend Spanish and English material. Furthermore, the student will work with the

teacher one-on-one in addition to a responsible and academically driven peer mentor to support

and help the student better understand content from a peer-based perspective.

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