Analysis

Case Study Analysis 

Yunior, a native Spanish speaker who came to Florida in high school, explained that his Spanish fluency has decreased over the last few years, since he has been in the United States.  His experience in a high school in Miami involved an ESOL program and a situation similar to that of immersion.  Through his experience he gained a great deal of practice in speaking, reading and writing in English and he continues to adopt the language as he is now 21 years old and attends the University of Miami.  We consider these things as we match the characteristics of his oral language to the SOLOM matrix.

                In listening to Yunior speak it was surprising to understand him so easily.  In fact, it seemed as though he was a native speaker!  As the interview continued though, and Yunior’s responses grew in length, his areas of struggle became more apparent.  Being that the interview was a conversational piece about the interviewee’s personal experiences, the piece we are evaluating is authentic oral language use and therefore, the SOLOM is a good way to measure Yunior’s oral proficiency.  Using the SOLOM as a guide, his speech errors can be better analyzed as it will be broken down to five categories of comprehension, fluency, vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. 

                Yunior’s comprehension could be rated as a 5 (out of 5).  He seemed to understand all of the questions that were asked of him throughout the interview without difficulty.  The questions were asked at a moderate pace—not terribly fast and not noticeably slow—and the questions never had to be repeated.  His understanding was apparent as he answered each of the questions in great detail, especially once he got comfortable.  He even seemed to understand idioms and slang such as “cool beans.”  He either understood them or disregarded them.

 His fluency could be rated as a 4 (out of 5).  As previously stated, at the beginning of the interview, when Yunior’s responses to the questions asked were short, his speech was close to that of a native speaker.  However, his responses through the bulk of the interview had multiple yet minor errors such as pauses, repeated words, unfinished phrases, and run-on sentences.  These errors did not disrupt the overall delivery of Yunior’s information; however, it did slow down the conversation a bit.  His fluency was also affected by the large amounts of information he was discussing and poor organization of his points.  For instance, when describing the most fun part of learning English, he began his explanation with an analogy but halfway through the analogy he described something different and then returned to the analogy.  During conversation Yunior would oftentimes veer off in tangents about a different topic, making it hard for the listener to piece all of the information together and understand completely.

Yunior’s vocabulary is characteristic of a mixture of a 4 and a 5 (4.5).  While he has a wide vocabulary to work with, he oftentimes had a hard time choosing which words to use and/or had to backtrack to rephrase them.  His English education is apparent though, in some of the words that he used throughout the conversation such as indoctrinated, obligatory, nuance, and bastardized.  His BICS and CALP are both fairly high.

His pronunciation could also be considered a mixture of a 4 and a 5 (4.5).  While his accent at times is not very apparent, at others it makes it clear that he is a native Spanish speaker.  Even though he has an accent, it is rarely hard to understand him.  It is only hard to understand him when he speaks fast with an accent.  For the most part, his intonation and pronunciation resemble that of a native speaker.

Yunior’s grammar could be rated a 4 (out of 5).  He occasionally makes grammatical errors that do not affect the listener's understanding.  For instance, Meagan asked him, “Do you remember learning to read and write?”  He responded, “Yeah, of course I did.”  In this case, he inappropriately changed the tense that was being used originally, the present do to the past did.  His common use of the words uh and you know were distracting to the listener but again, did not majorly affect the listener’s understanding.

With each of these ratings in mind, we give Yunior an overall score of 22 which is Phase III, Limited English Proficient.  While the term limited has a negative connotation, we believe that Yunior has an exceptional grasp of the language.  He has had great educational input as well as authentic practice with speaking the language during his time in the United States.  With continued practice, Yunior is well on his way to Phase IV where he will be considered Fully English Proficient in oral language.

 

Writing Portion

Writing Sample 

 

Writing Analysis 

The picture that Yunior choose for our interview was one that in essence is the quintessential American Saturday. It shows a multitude of people barbecuing hamburgers and hot dogs, playing football. When analyzing Yunior's writing sample one can tell right away that he has a very clear understanding of the English language. Throughout his writing sample he uses intelligent vocabulary such as representative of, principal ideas, requisites and other articulate phrases that express his ideals of American culture in a very intelligent manner. The only mistakes Yunior makes in his writing is grammatical, such as the simple misuse of words such as "on" instead of 'in", or "for" instead of " in", as well as slight misspelling such as "persuit' instead of "pursuit." Overall Yunior's writing sample is articulate and representative of someone who has an extremely good grasp on the language. He has proven that he has a clear understanding of tenses and sentence structure and is an extremely confident writer. As well as a wide vocabulary, that can be measured at a collegiate level. The only recommendations I have to assist in remedying his small errors in writing would be to practice more in his day to day life with his speech, at to allot more time when writing, so that he may process his ideas fully before putting them to paper.

Reading Portion

Reading Sample 

The oceanside community of Lozano Beach is debating whether to allow homeowners to rent out their homes on a weekly basis during the summer. Such rentals produce high incomes for the owners and the city, which gets part of this income through a 15-percent surcharge to the owner. "This can be a boon to our coffers," said Rick Brown, city manager. "In the summer, homeowners can bring in $2,000 a week or more."
However, these rentals can also be a can of worms. The city stopped allowing weekly rentals 10 years ago because of the problems they were generating. Two, three, or even four families would pile into a two- or three-bedroom house. Then they would park their cars on the lawn and produce huge amounts of trash. Sometimes they would toss this trash on the streets and sidewalks.
Noise would be another problem. Some people would party late and loud every night. This abuse created a lot of friction with neighbors and resulted in extra work for city maintenance crews and for police, who had to respond almost hourly to residents' complaints about noise, music, trash, and parking problems. But now, the city's budget problems are making it reconsider its ban.
City officials will hold a community meeting next week to listen to the pros and cons. One official has already suggested a proposal. He thinks that a fine might work. If the city has to respond to complaints, the homeowner will be charged $200 per response. Such a fine might cause the homeowner to be careful to rent only to people that he is sure will be considerate of the neighbors. The city would still get 15 percent of the rental fee, even if the homeowner's rent were totally offset by fines. The city would post inconsiderate renters' names on the city website so that other homeowners would know about them.
Some officials think the ban should be continued because these visitors to the community have already proven that they have no consideration for others. Their money isn't worth the headaches they cause.

Reading Audio

http://brinkman.podmatic.com/entry/2011-04-22T16_33_08-07_00

Reading Analysis 

I rated Yunior’s reading sample based on some of the criteria on the SOLOM matrix.  I focused on fluency and pronunciation, because I did not ask him questions to judge his comprehension.  I rated Yunior’s reading sample as a “4” in both areas.  For his fluency, I could not give him a “5” because he was not native-like in his reading.  There were awkward pauses between words, and his speech lapsed while he searched to recognize the words that he was reading.  I also gave him a “4” in pronunciation, because although his pronunciation was easily understood, he did stumble over quite a few words.  He also replaced “this” with “the” on several occasions, and there were also a couple of words that he used Spanish pronunciation instead of the English (examples include “percent,” and “community”).

 

Photo Portion

Photo Chosen

Photo Explanation

http://brinkman.podmatic.com/entry/2011-04-22T16_34_47-07_00

Photo Analysis

In regards to the American culture, Yunior choose a photograph of a picnic. He states earlier in the interview "The most difficult part of learning a language is learning the culture, because if you cannot connect the language to the language, you will miss the important idioms and slang connected to the culture." Throughout his writing sample he articulates his own view of the American culture, a view that helped greatly in his understanding of the language. Yunior touches on the differences in American culture compared to Cuban, with his photograph. He highlights the inferred prosperity that comes with sharing food and leisure time, something that is not as prevalent in his home country. He emphasizes the concepts of freedom that we experience as Americans and the phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Which he describes as fully represented in the photograph he has chosen. Yunior's perspective of American culture are is one of positivity and naivety. He has a fresh and innocent perspective. He sees the good in America, because where he came from is the antithesis of American in regards to freedom and prosperity.

Introduction

Our ELL interview subject is Yunior Savon, a twenty one year old Florida resident. He was born and raised in a small province of Cuba, and attended public school in Cuba till he was in middle school, till he and his family moved from Cuba to Miami, where he was then placed in an ELL program. Throughout his education even in Cuba, Yunior was exposed to the English language, very similar to the manner that American students experience Spanish. Like most students in America Yunior didn't take the language extremely seriously until he was forced too. He described these classes as introductory, touching mostly on vocabulary and staying on the surface of the language, not focusing too much on the real structure of the English Language. In High School he was given the option, to either stay in his ELL history class or enter a full immersion, English only class. This was where he was finally pushed to fully apply himself to learning the language. Soon there after he was placed in honors literature and English classes, proving that practice and determination can be the push that children need in acclimating themselves fully to a new language. Two years later Yunior finished his ELL program and was fully immersed into English only instruction.

Throughout the interview Yunior was able to give us in depth information on what is important to learning another language, and the process one goes through when fully acclimating themselves to a new language. At first Yunior found science and math to be the easiest subjects as stated in the interview. He felt this way, because even though the science instruction was in a new language the concepts and ideas were still the same. Once he fully applied himself to learning English he found it to be more enriching and an easier task. For example Yunior stated in the interview that he was first motivated to learn English so that he could listen to the radio and watch his favorite television programs, then once his English improved enough, the reading of Literature played a important role in the furthering of his language development. He found that for him personally, special tools and manipulative did not play an integral role in his learning of English. Instead he found that reading and immersing himself in the culture allowed him to pick up on nuances and slang that he could not learn from a textbook.

In regards to the American culture, Yunior choose a photograph of a picnic. He states earlier in the interview "The most difficult part of learning a language is learning the culture, because if you cannot connect the language to the language, you will miss the important idioms and slang connected to the culture." Throughout his writing sample he articulates his own view of the American culture, a view that helped greatly in his understanding of the language. Yunior touches on the differences in American culture compared to Cuban, with his photograph. He highlights the inferred prosperity that comes with sharing food and leisure time, something that is not as prevalent in his home country. He emphasizes the concepts of freedom that we experience as Americans and the phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Which he describes as fully represented in the photograph he has chosen. Yunior's perspective of American culture are is one of positivity and naivety. He has a fresh and innocent perspective. He sees the good in America, because where he came from is the antithesis of American in regards to freedom and prosperity.

During the interview Yunior seemed very comfortable and at ease with the questioning. He took his time to answer all the question, and responded with articulate and well thought out answers.  His expressed a lot of positivity about his journey with learning a new language, and gave us a lot of constructive feedback, that can used instructing future students. Helping us understand his perspective and what he found to be most difficult with our language such as blends like TH, and the differences with the sounds Z makes. These types of clues can help future teachers better understand how we can help students learn the language as well as Yunior did. Also allowing us to understand what motivational strategies worked (watching movies and the radio), and what didn't  can also help us eliminate procedures that aren't always helpful for our students. Throughout the interview Yunior expressed his full acclimation to the American culture. An interesting fact that we find prevalent in students who fully acclimate themselves to a new language, is their first language becoming worse as they become more proficient in a new language, a phenomenon that Yunior too experienced. He states in the interview that as he started to learn English his Spanish suffered, and soon he was even dreaming in English.

Interview Audio & Transciption

Interview:  http://brinkman.podomatic.com/entry/2011-04-22T16_29_53-07_00

Transcription

Key:
Bold: vocabulary
**: pause
Note: “uh” is the way that Yunior takes pauses at times

Meagan: Hi Yunior!

Yunior: Hi Megan!

Meagan: Uhm so… Describe yourself please. Where are you from? How old are you? Where do you go to school?

Yunior: Uh, well I’m 21. I was born in uh little place in Cuba called Matansas. It’s a a province that’s what they ** describe that’s like the biggest subdivision over there it’s comparable to a state. And I went to school at uh, ** uh you know first in a place uh called South Miami a high school and then at University of Miami.

Meagan: Cool beans. Did you go, you know, where did you go to school when you were in Cuba?

Yunior: Oh uh, well the last grade I attended over there was uh, ** I guess it was uh, uh ** actually I cannot even remember. I think it was middle school (laughs) but uh, the name of the school I cannot remember (laughs).

Meagan: Okay, uhm. So you obviously know how to read and write in Spanish.

Yunior: Uh yes.

Meagan: I’d say you’re pretty fluent in Spanish.

Yunior: Uh yupp. Pretty fluent. I’d say completely but you know you forget a little bit here and there.

Meagan: Okay. And so we already talked about, you went to school in your home country.

Yunior: Uh yeah.

Meagan: So is there anything that you miss about school in Cuba?

Yunior: Uhm, mmm, ** it’s the, I would say it’s the same as anywhere else (laughs). Except uh you know, you get indoctrinated in their ** stuff. (laughs)

Meagan: Okay. Uhm… Now the good part.

Yunior: Yay!

Meagan: Can you describe what it’s like to learn English? When did you learn it? When did you, Okay here, When did you start to learn English?

Yunior: Uh, high school. Well technically I started to learn since I was young but I, you know I never took it seriously. But uh, ** the first time I really started to learn was in high school.

Meagan: So you didn’t take any like English classes in Cuba?

Yunior: Uh, yeah I did. You know, but it it’s just like the obligatory like, “Hello my name is uh Yunior. I’m going to the library.” Just the same as you would take if you were taking like intro to Spanish or whatever.

Meagan: Okay. So what was the hardest part about learning English?

Yunior: Uh, I guess I would have to say it was uh basically connecting everything to the culture. Cause I find that to be the most difficult part of any language you can know the language but if you don’t- if you don’t connect it to the culture then you don’t really understand the language because you don’t get most of the idioms, you don’t get most of the the slang, you don’t get you don’t understand any of it (laughs). So it’s you feel left out.

Meagan: Oh, that’s kind of sad.

Yunior: It is (laughs).

Meagan: So do you remember learning to read and write?

Yunior: Yeah, of course I did. I remember struggling at the beginning and then the big turning point was at one time uh my history class was full, my ESOL history class and I I just told uh the teacher uh, well she actually asked if there were any volunteers to move up to the English only class. And I was like, ‘You know what, whatever I’m just going to make the jump and just go for it.’ And I did and I ended up doing well so I guess it worked out (laughs).

Meagan: So you kind of did like the full immersion, ‘let me learn how to speak English now.’

Yunior: Yeah well I mean they they still wouldn’t let me out out of the like some of the ESL classes so I still had to take some of them. But yeah, for the most part I did the full immersion thing.

Meagan: So why- is there a reason that they wouldn’t let you out or is it they liked to keep track of where you guys all are.

Yunior: Well I guess uh let me see. I think ** I think I ended up doing two- let’s see did I do two years? I think Yeah I think I ended up doing two years of like uh ESL and then I I did then I did regular like honors English (laughs) literature and then uh, something else the uh, the uh you know just the regular the grammar class. ** Once I actually understood it (laughs) and could read and write.

Meagan: So how long did it take before you could go into the regular, was it the two years?

Yunior: I guess it was yeah, I think it was two years or I ca- honestly I can’t remember. I think I might have actually switched to a higher ESL class like halfway through the year. But I can’t remember right now. It wouldn’t make any sense they wouldn’t do that. (laughs)

Meagan: Yeah. Uhm so, you talked about how the idioms and slang were the hard parts of learning English. So were there easy parts?

Yunior: Uh, yeah I mean just uh basically uh the every day phrases and and the science stuff is you know, it’s all the same. At least it has the same structure in every language. So it’s pretty easy to just coming from whatever even if you speak, I would imagine even if you spoke like Chinese or Farsi or whatever you could understand that because its its maybe not exactly(?) the same but but uh at least you you kinda you just kinda understand it and you know that its pretty simple. I don’t know how to describe it (laughs).

Meagan: Okay. And so what was the most fun part about learning English to you?

Yunior: The most fun part? Uh, well, I guess just uh, I guess just uh I the only way I can describe it is you know, it’s like whenever there is a TV show that has been out for a while and and you know you have a lot to watch, you’re excited about it but then once you (laughs) say it was just knowing that there was this whole other language that basically pretty much the entire world speaks and then the fact that you know you could understand it and that the fact that I could understand everything that everybody said on TV and the radio, that that was fun. (laughs)

Yunior: And I mean to continue my analogy to the TV show, once you run out of uh of episodes you’re you’re like bummed because you can like (laughs) it’s not gonna be there anymore and that’s the way I feel about the language now a little bit but you know, it’s it’s still fun cause you you read uh interesting literature here and there now and then.

Meagan: K uhm let’s see. So when you were learning English were there any activities or materials that you think worked best for teaching you that we can kind of apply to our classrooms?

Yunior: Uhm, honestly, the best thing that I found was uh, just practice not not really even materials and (laughs) it may sound lame but watching TV helped and you know especially in terms of uh understanding like idiomatic phrases and slang and stuff like that. ** So yeah, just practice and uh and uh TV (laughs) that’s what I think. And just yeah, just and just reading like reading novels and stuff like that. Like uhm, I’m trying to learn French and I found that I made the biggest progress when- once I got to the point when I was able to read uh a novel, I was supposed to be reading like sect- like sentences from a book (laughs) from a textbook.

Meagan: Okay.

Yunior: But yes, once you start to put it all together, it makes more sense. That’s basically what I’m trying to say.

Meagan: That makes sense. Uhm so what about specifically like when you’re speaking in English, are there hard sounds like are there sounds that are more difficult for you to work with than others?

Yunior: Oh, oh yeah yeah definitely. Uhm the, okay, the th sound is really hard, not just for me but for anybody from a Hispanic background (laughs) or I mean used to be. And uh let’s see what else, uh I guess the z is pretty hard too because in Spanish, uhm the the z I mean it half is slightly different sound too but its uh there’s not that big of a you know it doesn’t have the same nuance as it does in English between like the c and the z. And uh let’s see what else and you know just uhm ** just random things like for example I I had a really hard time pronouncing words like Fort Lauderdale, I could never pronounce that (laughs).

Meagan: Well, hey there’s people who speak English fluently that can’t pronounce it so more props to you!

Yunior: (laughs)

Meagan: Uhm, so how how long until you felt that you were proficient, like you were fluent in English? Do you feel like you’re fluent in English yet or I mean?

Yunior: Uh, it’s actually kinda funny tha-you-ask cause I feel that I am and I feel that I can read anything and that I can understand anybody and like like I said the biggest challenge was uh understanding songs cause you know songs you know you don’t necessarily speak the way you’re supposed to when you’re singing so uh. But uhm, you know, every now and then I find myself uh, whenever I’m like tired or uh whenever I have a lot on my mind I just find that I screw up whenever I speak (laugh) and I have to think about it. Whereas you know whenever I’m just uh ** fresh I feel that it’s it’s my language it’s my first language but whenever I’m tired somehow it becomes that other language, it’s weird (laughs). And it’s funny because at the same time, the my Spanish is becoming very bastardized too so (laughs) so yeah. But uh yeah, for the most intents and purposes I believe right now English has basically succeeded Spanish as uh the primary language like my thoughts are in English I guess, ** most of the time.

Meagan: Do you dream in English? That was always my Spanish teacher’s big thing. You’re fluent in a language when you dream in it. So which language do you dream in?

Yunior: Yeah (laughs) ** Uhm honestly at the beginning it it uh it used to be apparent that I did like when I started learning but now I ** I don’t even know what language that it is anymore. It it just is. It’s weird (laughs).

Meagan: Okay random question, sorry.

Yunior: Yeah, no, and I mean, like I said, I took a little bit of French, and in French too like one time I had a dream in French and yeah, my teacher used to say the same, I guess it’s a pretty universal thing and I was pretty proud of myself when I had the first uh, French dream (laughs).

Meagan: That’s cool. So you talked about reading so what kind of things do you like to read and which ones do you find the most difficult.

Yunior: Uh, ** okay well uhm, ** I guess at the beginning I I liked to read uh a lot of science articlesbecause uh, science, I mean apart from the fact that uh that’s what I study, uh ** science is pretty universal so you know you can understand it more or less no matter what language you’re reading it in. But then what I find difficult I guess it would be uhm, ** uhm you know some some uh literature that has a lot of slang, you know things that I wouldn’t know. Uh either uh African American or or uh ** I don’t know from any any ** segment of the population that might have some language basically or dialect.

Meagan: Well yes, that that I can understand that.

Yunior: But yeah, I guess that’s for anybody. (laughs)

Meagan: I know, it it wasn’t easy for me in in certain literature classes.

Yunior: Yeah, yeah exactly, I took I took uh uh, a Carribbean literature class and even though it was in English sometimes I was like, “what?” (laughs)

Meagan: Yeah, It’s not the same. So if you could go and you could learn English all over again, is there anything that you would do differently?

Yunior: Uh, ** let’s see, is there anything I would do differently? I I guess uh, ** honestly I think I would try to uhm, I guess at the beginning I was too reliant on on uh on classes to teach me but I guess I would just reinforce it myself just from whatever I am ** learning in class, I would just try to go and read more and watch more tv and try to talk more to people cause I you know whenever you’re learning a new language at the beginning you’re shy and you’re afr- you’re afraid to screw up so you just don’t kind of talk to people. So I would just do that.

Meagan: Okay.

Yunior: You know, outside of uh you know, a classroom environment.

Meagan: Alright, I think I’m done. Thank you Yunior.

Yunior: No problem!