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Focal-student-pseudonym's story as a student Describe your student's past schooling experiences, current academic ability, and any relevant background information that can help us understand who he is as a student Zeus is a well schooled ten year old boy currently in a fourth grade class in the United States. He has gone to school outside of this country from age 4 or 5 until last year when her moved to Berkeley, CA. He is an extremely bright student who, despite his inability to read and write in English, has been able to keep up with what is going on in the classroom academically. Last year was his first year in the United States and his first year in an all English classroom. He is at the same school this year as last year, so he has had the opportunity to develop friendships and establish himeslf in the community. He arrived last year speaking absolutely no English. In the course of one year, he has learned a huge amount of casual/playground (non-academic) English. However, he does not read or write in English yet. He is proficient in all three areas in his native language. :-)
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Focal-student-pseudonym's story as a language learner Describe your student's native language and culture and any information that can help us understand who he is as a learner of academic English Zeus arrived here last year from Yemen with only his father. They are both native Arabic speakers. For the past year, it has been just the two of them. Recently, about two weeks ago, Zeus's teenage brother also came to live with them. The rest of Zeus's family, including his mother, are all still living in Yemen. When asked about this situation, Zeus seemed okay with the arrangement. He communicates with his family weekly, and understands that someday the rest of them will join him in the US. His father and brother both speak English; his brother has had a couple of years of schooling in the US with other relatives. It is important to Zeus and his father that he become proficient in English. Language and general academics are very important to this family. Zeus's father has been in for a conference to ask for help on what they can do at home to increase Zeus's language skills. On top of the numerous challenges that many ELL children face, Zeus is also faced with learning an entire new alphabet, reading from back to front, and from reading left to right. In Arabic, it is a completely different system altogether.
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Focal-student-pseudonym's proficiency in oral (listening and speaking) academic English Summarize your assessment of your student's oral proficiency based on data you collected Zeus is fairly proficient in understanding oral English. He can easily follow directions and understand a conversation in either playground or academic English. Zeus is also skilled at speaking English. While he is not completely fluent, he has excellent recollection at details and can regurgitate much information from past experiences and other situations. His playground English is much further developed than his academic English. However, as his reading and writing skills improve, he is moving towards becoming fluent in this aspect.
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Focal-student-pseudonym's proficiency in written (reading and writing) academic English Summarize your assessment of your student's written proficiency based on data you collected I have done extensive one-on-one work with Zeus in reading and writing in English. We have read many Dr. Seuss books and have made great progess so far. Currently, he is in the stage of sounding out letters and sounds and improving his letter recognition. He does not want help when reading and only seeks it if he is really stumped; it may take him a minute or two to figure out a word or phrase, but he is determined to do it. His writing skills are really in a transitional stage. He can copy words, but sometimes does not know their meaning. When writing short words, he will sound it out and then write it how he thinks it should be. He is still grasping the idea of spacing between words and the concepts of punctuation and capitalization.
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Focal-student-pseudonym's current classroom Describe your classroom's composition in terms of the three dimensions that you used to analyze your focal student: (1) schooling experience and academic ability, (2) cultural and linguistic background, and (3) linguistic proficiency Most of the students in the classroom have been in this school since kindergarten. They have a really good sense of their community and are generally welcoming and respectful to all newcomers. This class and the one next door have started a language club to help ELL in their school! However, the utter diversness of academic ability in the classroom is staggering. There are students reading anywhere from a second grade level through a fifth grade level. In addition, there are nine English language learners in the classrom within a school that offers ZERO resources. Three of these students speak no English and five of them do not read or write in English either. There are a total of nine languages spoken among the students in the classroom and over fifteen cultural and linguistic backgrounds represented. Most of the children can speak on a relatively solid academic English pedestal, but there are a great many who have numerous difficulites with reading and writing.
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Focal-student-pseudonym's current school Describe your school along the same three dimensions. To help you with this part of your inquiry, go to http://www.greatschools.net/modperl/go/CA. There, you can find information about your school. In addition to summarizing relevant information from this site, use the "Edit Links/ Upolad Files" button below to add a link to the page with information on your school.
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