Cultural Case Study: Maria
This cultural case study examines the language competencies, social and human capital assets of a Spanish immigrant to the U.S. named Maria. She is 16 and lives in a community where the Hispanic population is considerable. Her family is supportive and engaged in her life and she receives substantial assistance from them. She is motivated and does well in her studies. She is able to practice her L1 and her L2 all the time thanks to a school that is good at helping ELLs and a community that shares in her ethnic background where her L1 is still commonly used among the inhabitants. This paper also provides some simple suggestions for what the school could do to continue to help Maria to achieve her objectives.
Introduction
Maria is an ELL who has a strong personal and cultural identity. She is Hispanic -- an immigrant from Spain -- and is 16 years old. She is in possession of strong human and social capital. Her family of mother, father, two sisters and brother are very supportive and offer her strong supportive relationships that she can and does use to give her confidence, support, direction and guidance (Suarez-Orozco, Rhodes, Milburn, 2009). She is friendly, outgoing, positive, communicative, inquisitive, helpful towards others, motivated, and disciplined. She does not demonstrate any stressors because she is always positive and always views challenges as opportunities and not as obstacles. She is motivated to be a primary care nurse and she has friends in her community, which is very bilingual oriented (a majority of Hispanics live in the community). She draws on the her L1 language competencies (is fluent in Spanish, can read, write, listen and speak the language), and her L2 language competencies are very good as well (she can read, write, listen to and speak the L2). Her types of capital and competencies have worked together to help her achieve academic success, which has helped her achieve some standing in the community, as she is recognized by others as doing well in school and being a leader.
Maria the Language Learner
As a language learner and a student, her capital and competencies have enabled her to want to pursue higher education and obtain a career in the medical field as a primary care provider. She wants to be bilingual and use both her languages so that she can help many different types of people and be someone whom others seek out for help and care. Her social and human capital has been gained by her strong familial supports...
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