Case Studies

First Case Study:

             Case Study: Phonology   

                                               

Phonological process:

     As the language is acquired within levels, and within a specific time, also the sounds of the letters are acquired in the same way, where the phonological process is also constituted of many levels. And as in language acquisition, each stage is specified by its errors, also phonological process stages are specified by their phonological errors.

The kid I’m working with is a six years old kid named “Zoulfikar Slaybi”.
 Zoulfikar was born and raised in Australia, surrounded by native speakers. But his parents are Lebanese.

1- Nadera: “What’s your name?” Zoulfikar: “Zouwfika  Slaybi.”	“Gliding the Liquids”.  “Final consonant deletion”.
2- Nadera: “What do you like doing in your spare time?” Zoulfikar: “Playing p  ay station.”	“Cluster reduction”.
3- Nadera: “What game do you play on the play station?” Zoulfikar: “Battle fiewd fow.”	“Gliding the liquids”.
4- Nadera: “How do you play the game?” Zoulfikar: “You kiw oder peopo.”	Replacing “Th” with “d”.  “Gliding the liquids”.  “Vowelization”.
5- Nadera: “Why?” Zoulfikar: “Because dere’s mafs.”	“Replacing the sound “Th” with “d” and “f””.
6- Nadera: “What are the problems?” Zoulfikar: “Don’t speak any English…lot of English. I speak Arabic mowe.”	“Gliding the liquids”.
7- Nadera: “What do you pack in your bag before going to school?” Zoulfikar: “Like a food, like a sandwish, and a pencil case.”	“Deaffrication”.
8- Nadera: “What do you like about the holidays?” Zoulfikar: “Playing socca with my brotha and playing netball and doing anysing I want.”	Replacing the sound “Th” with “s”.  “Socca” and “Brotha” are in most a part of the Australian accent, so they’re not considered a phonological error.

Why:The reason behind phonological errors made by the kids mostly is because they want to simplify the pronunciation.

Some of the activities that help the kids get over their phonological errors:

1- Slap it:

  In this game we must use each time two words, one with the correct sound and the other with the wrong sound. While saying the word we hold out one hand facing up the child, and when saying the other word we hold out the other one, and the child must slap the hand with the correct production. 

2-Beans jar:

   This activity makes the drill more fun. For every accurate production of the target word make the child put one bean in the jar, and make marks with a marker on the jar for different amounts, and tell the child when you fill the jar of beans till the line (you already marked on the jar) then you’ll get a candy, chocolate bar… going to cinema, trip…             

3- Catch me if you can:

  Tell the children that they are detective and they have to catch you saying the incorrect sounds. They can whistle, ring a bell, maybe even clap their hands or do whatever they like to do that motivates them to catch the incorrect errors. This activity will get the child listening with all of his attention.
As the game goes on, we can flip our roles, and give the child the chance to give the two words, and we pretend to discriminate between the wrong and the right productions.

Second Case Study:

                                                            Case study: "Khalil"

          Hatem Al Taii section of grade three is a class full of energetic active children, full with life. However, as any other class, this class has different kinds of learners: “The high achievers, the low achievers, students with special needs, the careless ones…” and as any other class, Hatem Al Taii class has some students that refuse to obey the teacher’s commands, or behave well, or even listen at all to the teacher. These students, as people calls them “Low achievers”, which I think it’s so unfair to say and I don’t like to call them that way, they are more misbehavior students (as I see them) that aren’t interested in the way the teacher is explaining the lesson or the way she’s dealing with them, or maybe just as any one of us, they have their own personal problems.

When Miss Faten Taha asked us to do a case study about any student, I couldn’t think but in one single student that had always and will always have a special place in my heart “Khalil Saada”. Khalil Saada is a ten years old boy. His mother died after five months of his birth. His grandmother (mother of his mother) raised him till the age of five years old, after his father had married another woman and had a baby girl from her. She (Khalil’s grandmother) became his second mother; he got used to her and loved her so much. Suddenly, his dad wanted him back, but not to live with him, but with his second grandmother (mother of his father), whom Khalil doesn’t know her or used to her.

            Regarding his behavior in the class, Khalil is the most careless boy I have ever met. He doesn’t read, he doesn’t write, he doesn’t follow, he doesn’t participate… but he has the most beautiful handwriting and accent in the class, for he had lived in America till the age of five years old with his grandmother.

The most obvious thing you can notice about Khalil, is that he doesn’t trust anyone, and nothing interests him at all. It’s like he has been through too much things, he lost his childish innocence.
The teacher let go on him. She no more believed in him. When I first met her, she believed in him and his abilities to change and improve, but after several tries to control him and help him she gave up.

            I remember some of the situations that happened in the class between Khalil and the teacher that I can’t forget, for I thought so much about him and his feelings, and how if I was the teacher I would’ve dealt in such situations differently and more carefully.

Firstly, Khalil once was absent, and so was Lamees, his classmate. So the teacher asked if Khalil is absent. The students told her that Khalil and Lamees are absent. She added: “I didn’t notice that Lamees is absent because she’s so quiet. She doesn’t speak at all; she is a polite good student.”

Miss Nadia talked about Lamees in order to say in an indirect way that Khalil isn’t a good student, and that he’s a misbehaving student, which is something she shouldn’t do at all even if Khalil was absent and didn’t know that. She shouldn’t even think this way between herself.

If I was her place I wouldn’t discriminate between my students, I would’ve simply said: “I hope the two of them are okay, and going to join us back soon.” That’s what I would’ve done if I was the teacher.”

Secondly, another inappropriate situation I still remember was when one of the students was presenting his “Show and Tell” (where the student brings something he/she loves with them and talks about it. Then, their friends ask them questions about it). He brought with him a four wheels jeep with a remote control. Khalil asked him if he can play with it, he accepted happily. So the teacher told him: “You can say no, it is not necessary to say yes.” As if she is asking him to say no, as if Khalil was her enemy, even though he is the most innocent weak student in the class. Even if he didn’t react to this, he surely got offended, and that will have its double impact on his feelings, because he is trying to compress it and don’t show it.

If I was her place I would’ve clapped for Khalil, and asked him to come to the board to show us his driving skills, as a kind of joke, instead of hurting his feelings.

Thirdly, in mother’s day, the teacher asked her students to write something to their mother, each in his/her own way to tell her how much they are thankful for her, and how much they love her.

Khalil, unlike his friends, wasn’t writing anything, so she yelled at him telling him that she’s going to call the supervisor and tell him that he doesn’t write anything. She didn’t think about his feelings, and that he never experienced the love of a mother. She yelled at him not caring about anything.

Yelling at Khalil wasn’t actually the good choice to take. Khalil’s mother is dead and he might didn’t feel like he belongs to the class this session, because all the talk was about mothers. The teacher should’ve walked in his shoes and felt what he has felt, and dealt with the situation more wisely.

As teachers, we should always pay attention and care about our students’ feelings. We should walk in our students’ shoes. We must know about them more. It isn’t enough of us to just know about their learning abilities. At the end, they also are human beings, more emotional than us.

If I was her place, I would’ve given him my whole attention, love, and tender that day. I would’ve given him another subject to write about, I would’ve asked him to write about someone he really loves, or write about his grandmother.

Fourthly, the teacher once asked Khalil to read, and then she looked at me and told me in a low voice: “He doesn’t know how to read at all.” But Khalil heard her, and he said to her: “I don’t want to read anymore, you’re telling her that I don’t know how to read.” He was really sad, and disappointed. She tried to convince him that she didn’t, but he was sure she did, so she told him to prove her wrong, and read. He read really well comparing to the other times. He didn’t make a single mistake. So she said to him: “Excellent reading Khalil. I’m so sorry, I was wrong.”

The teacher shouldn’t talk about Khalil in front of me. It affects his feelings negatively and makes him never trust her again. Plus, it disappoints him. However, this time Khalil’s reaction was perfect because the teacher’s behavior encouraged him to read and prove her wrong in front of me. And so was what he did.

Our students are our children. We must protect their feelings and dignities as if they were ours. And each student has his/her own reasons and his/her own personal problems as anyone of us. We as teachers should search for these reasons and try to solve them.

            Khalil’s average, behavior, participation, and everything, for a period of time, have changed. I noticed myself how much he was improving! I asked the teacher: “Didn’t you notice that Khalil has changed?” she replied yes, so I asked her why. She told me that his grandmother (the she raised him and he loves) was for long trying to convince his dad to let him live with her instead of his second grandmother, but she didn’t succeed. But finally, he accepted to let him visit her two days a week.
I was so amazed by the way Khalil has changed! He was so happy, and he was so improving and participating. One single change has this huge impact on him. He simply wants to live peacefully with his grandmother he feels comfortable with.

 Third Case Study:

                                                            Case Study: "Jana"

Hatem Al Taii section of grade three is a class full of energetic active children, full with

life. However, as any other class, this class has different kinds of learners: “The high achievers,

the low achievers, students with special needs, the careless ones…”

They all are specialized with their own characteristics that make them who they are, and each

one of them needs a special treatment to give the best of him/her.

One of the students that grabbed my attention while observing the English sessions at O.M.E.C.

is “Jana”. Jana is a ten years old very smart girl. She is a hard worker that enjoys the feeling of

success, and she knows that she is successful. She is so confident and her attitude is one of the

rarest attitudes you can find in any ten years old kid. I’ve always used to tell her how beautiful

her personality is and gives her positive comments about her grades. But however, after observing

Jana for two whole semesters, I have memorized the way she talks, walks, writes, and noticed

that the thing about Jana isn’t just that she is confident but she is a bit more arrogant than

confident.

Jana unlike her friends participates rarely in the class, if ever. Plus, the way she talks with the

teacher is like if she had the same knowledge her teacher has.

I should mention here that the English teacher is Jana’s aunt. So after I knew this, I thought that

maybe that is the reason behind her behavior, maybe she is treating Miss Nadia more like her

aunt than her English teacher, and simply she must know the difference between the two

situations. But it wasn’t the case, because after I shadowed the students for a whole day, and

observed them with many other teachers, I noticed that Jana in all the classes is the same, she

doesn’t participate or answer any questions, unless the teacher asked her directly to. And when

making mistakes she tries to show the teacher that she doesn’t care or as if she isn’t convinced

that she was wrong. When telling her that her answer was wrong, she gives you that empty look,

smiles trying to look careless, and continues normally whatever she is doing.

I should highlight that Jana rarely does any mistakes, her answers are often right.

When I taught the students for the first time for fifteen minutes (dictation), Jana tried to

misbehave. She kept laughing for no reason, trying to make me mad, but I just smiled back at her

whenever she laughed and winked at her, as if I am telling her I know what she is trying to do.

The second time I taught them for a full session. I explained for them a phonic lesson, where I

grouped them in pairs, and gave them colorful papers on which I wrote one word with the target

phoneme, and I asked them to write a sentence (each one of the pair) using the word on the

paper. They all got very excited, and no one, literally, no one wrote only one sentence. They all

wrote more than that, one of the pairs even wrote six sentences. They all kept writing till the end

of the time I gave them to finish.

However, Jana came to the board to read what she wrote. She wrote only one sentence. She read

it and went back to her seat. I dealt with her as any other student, as if I didn’t notice what she

was trying to do, or her behavior.

All the students were interactive even the low achiever students, and they participated with me,

except for Jana who was unusually talking to her best friend Sama, trying to look careless again.

At the end of the session, all the students came to the desk and asked me if they can keep the

colorful papers. I told them: “Of course you can.” Jana came to my desk and gave me the paper. I

told her: “You can keep it.” She replied: “For what!”

I didn’t give her the attention she was used to getting from me or other teachers, and I dealt with

her as any other students, for example, I enter the class with Miss Nadia greeting the students,

and talking to some of them, but differently to the beginning of the year, I no longer talked to her

or with Miss Nadia about her personality or high grades (In front of her).

After I decided to study her case, I asked her to write me a paragraph as a homework telling me:

how she learned English, and why she loves it. She wrote me the next paragraph:

1- “I started to learn in O.M.E.C. school. Teacher nadia helped me talking English, from

the first time she taught me English I learned very well. I understand english by teacher nadia

because from the first time I saw her she started talking with us english. Teacher nadia made my

language stronger and better. all my cousens and My sister have good accent in English. And

they teach me English too like teacher nadia. and she helped us write in cercev very well. this is

how I learned English.”

(The paragraph is written exactly the same way she wrote it, as the pictures show.)

From the paper she wrote (in the picture), I can tell that she had wrote and erased many times

before she finally wrote it right as she wants, which means she is trying to get my attention and

interest, again.

After several observations, I decided again to teach them, but this time I only got the chance to

explain and help them with their writing exam. I wanted to know if Jana changed as I noticed she

did in the past few weeks.

Before starting, she came to me by herself, and gave me the homework I asked her to do, and

then she gave me her midyear reading comprehension exam I already asked her to give me.

When I asked: “Who wants to read the subject?” she raised her hand, and stood up. So I gave her

the permission to read it. And throughout the session she participated a lot and kept asking

questions and asking about the way of writing some difficult words.

I asked her again to write me another paragraph telling me how she first became interested in the

English language. She wrote me the next one:

2- “Cartoons and movies are my favorite. And when I was small I refers to watch them in

arabic language, but when I got older my sister told me that watching movies in english languag

helps my english accent become stronger, and it will help me to avoid making mistakes in writing

paragraphs in English.

Soon I only watched movies in English. And I started reading stories every day, and it was one of

my hobbies.”