Interview with a comparable ESOL learner

The person that I interviewed is Etee Patel and she is in 6th grade. She attends a class that I teach in Sunday school. Etee, her parents, and her younger brother live with ten other members of her extended family. The extended family members include her grandparents, four younger cousins, two uncles and two aunts. Etee and her family have been in America for six or seven months. She normally converses in her native language at home because almost all of her family members speak this native language. Everyone in her family speaks and understands English except for her grandparents. Her parents know a little bit of English. One of her younger female cousins helps her with English at times so that she can understand what is going on. For example, when Etee is reading and she comes upon a word that she does not know or what the sentence is trying to say, her cousin will translate it into their native tongue to help her understand it. She is very fluent in reading and writing in her native language. She practices it at home on a regular basis.
Etee goes to an ESOL class. She told me that she goes to this class for FCAT purposes. She has problem with vocabulary words, pronouncing them and not knowing the meaning of words that she is not familiar with. Etee sometimes needs the teacher to repeat the question over again or restate it. For example, during Sunday class, sometimes I have to translate what I say into our native language because she does not understand. Another thing is that when she comes upon an unfamiliar word in a sentence, she needs for it to be translated so that she can comprehend what is occurring in the story. She does not fully comprehend the English language like a child who grew up in America and is in sixth grade. Yet, she speaks moderately well English for someone who has been in America for only six or seven months. She does sometimes pronounce words that she knows incorrectly. Etee is not shy when it comes to answering questions that the teacher asks the class. Every time that I ask a question in Sunday class, she is always raising her hand to answer it. She is very active in learning English and is not embarrassed to ask any type of question. She has no difficultly conversing in English with her friends and teachers at school. She does have difficulty in her science and social studies classes due to the terminology that is used in the class. She needs to have an example shown or explained on a fourth grade reading comprehension level.
Etee is able to write relatively well in English. She knows where to put a comma and a period. Sometimes she writes run-on sentences without realizing it. When you point it out to her, she does correct it or needs help to form new sentences. At times, Etee does not capitalize the word to at the beginning of a new sentence. She makes a lot of silly mistakes because she is always in a rush to finish her work and be the first one done so that she can play. I have noticed this from having her in my Sunday class. She loves to write no matter what she is writing. She especially loves writing in cursive because it looks prettier then writing in manuscript.
I had her read the book, “Watch for Bears! The Adventures of Henry and Bruno.” When she came across the word “Henry” on the title page she pronounced the word as “Herny” instead. When she continued reading the story and the name came up again, she had no problem saying it the right way. Also when she came upon the word “waffles” she pronounces it like “raffle”. Another word that she pronounced incorrectly was “meadow”. She pronounced it as “midow”. The fourth word that she pronounced mistakenly was “closer”. She said the word like “clozer” pronouncing the letter “z” instead of the letter “s”. The last word that she pronounced erroneously was “whenever”. Instead of saying the “w” letter, she said the “v” letter so she said it like “vhenever”. When she came upon the word “when”, a couple of times she pronounced it right. I do not think she realizes sometimes that she pronounces the word differently because she usually pronounces them correctly. Whenever she is speaking or reading, it does not flow. She has different pitches when she is talking and she pauses often at times when it is not necessary. Etee sometimes stretches words out longer then they are supposed to be.