Case Study in theRegular Ed. Classroom

When doing the case study, I chose the same student I had for the neighborhood profile and ethnographic narrative. In doing so, a teacher is able to see all aspects that make up a student. The home life, how the student works in the regular ed. classroom, and the student telling me how they feel about their home life and school. I feel like I truly know the student and am completely able to teach the student in a way that will accommodate everything in their life so they are successful because I have completed all of these projects. By completing the case study and ethnographic narrative, the student's teacher next year will have a lot of data and information on the student that will help them to meet the needs of this student.

For my case study, I decided to observe a 4th grade classroom in my school. The student I observed working is a more timid student when working in pairs because they have low confidence in themselves and the work they produce. Therefore, I was interested to see how the student would work with their table because they were the only ESL student and their partner excels in Math. The activity to practice function tables was the student and their partner had to go to 6 tables that have the students practice what they have been learning about function tables. With their partner, they worked together through discussion to determine the answers. Then, they would go check their answers with the teacher and if correct, they would move on to the next table. At the end of the lesson, I was pleasantly surprised that my student was able to work and when it was their time -- they took the leadership role! That tells me that the student is beginning to feel more confident and comfortable in the classroom.

From the case study, I have learned it is important to do the following when second language learners are working in a group environment. They need to have the following to feel confident and work successfully:

• Allow the students a set of mathematical (or any subject) term dictionary. Therefore, the student will be able to recall the terms they have learned to better explain how they determined their answer with their partner. Also, the student would be provided with more chances to use and remember those key vocabulary terms.
• Since the student struggled with longer word problems, by discussing with the whole class before the activity what each problem was looking for might benefit second language learners.
• Lastly, a great strategy that encourages student's language learning success is through group discussion and with other groups. Therefore, the students have more opportunities to use the key vocabulary terms and builds CALP.