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Christine Cook"
Dr. Paul Crowley"
EDRL 521 A"
28 October 2014"
Case Study Mac"
Mac is a 9th grade Chinese International High School Student. He has been attending a private Catholic school since August. He lives with a host family and takes an
ESL morning class in addition to regular required courses. In the beginning of the school
year, he was getting in trouble often for disruptive behavior. "
Mac arrived in America at the same time as 8 other Chinese International Students through the same program. To attend the school, students need to pass an admission test and pay yearly tuition. This is the first year for the school to be educating
international students. There is a mixed response with some eager educators while
some teachers say they dont know what to do with English Learners. His Chinese
peer group has 3 Juniors: one girl and two males, 3 Sophomores: two girls and one boy,
and 3 Freshmen boys. The group spends time together through activities, studying, and
eating luch together, but mostly socialize in their grade group. Macs peers in 9th grade
are getting high grades and marks from their teachers. Mac has an F in English and no
grade higher than a C in all classes. It appears Mac leans on help from his peers and
they are frustrated by his constant interruptions.

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In his English class he is expected to complete 70 hours a week on a vocabulary

training program. This program teaches the whole part of words and tracks student
growth in their ability to pass assessments. Students start with 200 words for level one.
According to this program, his Chinese peers have mastered anywhere from 10-80
words. After 3 months, he has 0 in his mastery list. Macs vocabulary homework and
program scores are the focus of the meeting I attended. The teacher believes the program will support his education while the family and ESL teacher are concerned that
the ability to grow and learn is harder to obtain because of the short time the program
allots reviewing and quizzing and the great mountain of words to learn. "

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In trailing Mac through his classes. I observe his lack of understanding and classroom behavior make it difficult for him to learn. Teachers give directions, and often need
to redirect him for playing video games on his iPad. Though the school is technology
driven and has scraped textbooks for iPads, there is no established way to really monitor cheating, game playing, and distractions other than catching students doing it. Within
each class, Mac is told to turn off a game more than once. Each time it is documented
and will be reported to the school dean. Each time Mac apologizes and turns it off, only
to bring it up again when the teacher is working with someone else. "
Though the games are a distraction and behavioral issue, it appears as they are
being used because Mac often times doesnt understand the directions or the later explanation of directions. His peers tell him in Chinese, but his face still has a confused
look. Unable to understand the language, I am unable to tell why his peers explanation
doesnt help the way Id expect. "
Mac faces a number of issues just by being a Chinese International Student. "
1. He is used to a stricter educational setting of lecture and note taking"
2. His actual parents arent easily accessible to give insight"
3. He is learning more formal English language and casual language, simultaneously"
4. The hidden meaning with general statements and idioms are missed by him"
5. The Catholic school is studying the Bible- in which he has no background
knowledge of commonly known religious figures, terms, or even concepts"
6. He has not acquired the sounds of language at a native level and is unable to

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make judgements about how his speech or reading aloud sounds."

In addition to these issues, he appears to be less emotionally developed as his

peers and doesn't take responsibility for his behavioral choices. He denies playing the
video games even when he is obviously caught. Also, his dependence on his peers is
frustrating and they patronize him often. However, in observing his interactions with his
host family who make sarcastic jokes and play with words, it is clear he understands
their secret language and picks up the language in the process of day-to-day liv-

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ing..(Freeman P 62) It appears as his acquisition of learning has been much stronger
than his learning since he arrived. "
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In response to this observation, we created a words study to help him to learn

and acquire his vocabulary words. The teacher has reduced the number of words to
learn on the program to 50. His ESL teacher will work with him after school to practice,
explore and learn the words while his host family will slip them into conversation to support acquisition. At the end of this case study, 3 weeks later; he has moved up from 0 to
7 words mastered in the online program and can use 15 of the words in conversation. "
Cited Works"
Freeman, David and Yvonne. Essential Linguistics: What teachers need to know to
teach. Heinemann, Portsmouth NH, 2014"

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