According to Gillham (2010), the concern of the case study method is studying people and their context, in order to understand them very well. In addition, the case study methods can help researchers develop an in-depth understanding of the subjects in: “1.focusing on what they perceive; 2.framing what they perceive; 3.interpreting what they have done, including how they solve problems and the results of their enactments” (Woodside, 2010).

 

    Thus, my dual purpose of this case study are; first, to figure out as much as possible about the new Arab learner of English in a USA school. Second, find out about what struggles and challenges the learner has in learning English. Finally, develop my analysis skills and my ability to deal with issues like Ahmed’s.

 

     In this project, the child study, I worked with the ESL teacher in the ESL program at a school in Lawrence, observed her teaching a newcomer-beginner student named Ahmed. I monitored the student's progress in acquiring his second language. I focused on pronunciation, especially in differentiating between some vowel sounds and consonant sounds. In addition, I focused on differentiating between two lowercase letters "b" and "d".

 

     I found two results, first; Ahmed, as most of ESL Arab speakers do, had challenges in distinguishing between vowel sounds and some consonants such as /p/ and /b/. He often either omitted or put vowel sounds in the wrong place, but he continuously in his English writing maintains the consonant structure of words, which most of the ESL Arab speakers do the same according to Ryan and Meara (1991).

 

    Second, he also had struggles in the spelling and reading comprehension, which is also a common challenge for the Arab learners of English. In a study among two groups; Arab learners of ESL and non-Arab learners of ESL, Fender (2008) found out that Arab learners of ESL got lower scores on the spelling and reading comprehension tests comparing with non- Arab learners of English. According to him, the reason that makes these two skills challenging for nearly all ESL Arab learners is L1 transfer since Arabic written words focuses on consonant to identify words’ root form, but then on diacritics to identify short vowels, Arabs rely on "extra-linguistic sources of knowledge (sentence context, morphological knowledge)"p.16.

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     Therefore, I would like to work in the field to have more experience in how to deal with these issues and how to apply what I have learned from my classes in making appropriate lessons that have suitable strategies, activities, and assessments for my students.