Learner Portraits - Inez - Classroom Learning

Inez - Classroom Learning

In the classroom

Inez was an inquisitive learner in the classroom who was not shy about asking questions of the teacher when she did not understand something. While asking the teacher a question is not easy for most students, for beginning adult learners of English, it is an especially daunting task. The learner must ask their question about the instructions given by the teacher or about the language itself in the language that they are learning.

Inez reported that she liked most of the pedagogical and interactional activities used in her classes (except ‘using the native language' and ‘asking questions of peers'). When asked which four activities in the classroom she liked the best, her answers show her interest in the analysis of English. She listed ‘grammatical explanations', ‘work on pronunciation', and ‘correcting homework' as three of her top four activities.

Assistance to peers

Observing her classroom interaction, in addition to her asking the teacher questions, it was also notable that Inez frequently offered help to her peers in the classroom even when the peer did not speak her first language. In such cases, she used English to the best of her ability, as excerpt (Click to View) (Requires Internet Explorer) shows. In this excerpt, before the start of the lesson in the fifth week of her first term of English language study, Inez helps explain the procedures of the in-home interview study to Vasily, a 75 year-old student whose home language is Russian. We see Inez explain to Vasily that the researchers come to the house (lines 5, 33), that there is a questionnaire and tests (lines 23, 24, 32-33), and that the student-participants do not pay for this, but rather, the researchers give the student-participants money (lines 35-48).

We cannot determine the effectiveness of this explanation by Inez. But we do know that later Vasily also participated in the in-home interview study for three years.

The next excerpt shows Inez helping a peer - a man from Mexico with much less education who speaks Mayan as a first language and Spanish as a second.(Click to View) (Requires Internet Explorer)

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Inez Personal Bio Family Classroom Learning Learning Outside Class Work Culture Shock Timeline Inez - Classroom Learning In the classroom Inez was an inquisitive learner in the classroom who was not shy about asking questions of the teacher when she did not understand something. While asking the teacher a question is not easy for most students, for beginning adult learners of English, it is an especially daunting task. The learner must ask their question about the instructions given by the teacher or about the language itself in the language that they are learning. Inez reported that she liked most of the pedagogical and interactional activities used in her classes (except ‘using the native language' and ‘asking questions of peers'). When asked which four activities in the classroom she liked the best, her answers show her interest in the analysis of English. She listed ‘grammatical explanations', ‘work on pronunciation', and ‘correcting homework' as three of her top four activities. Assistance to peers Observing her classroom interaction, in addition to her asking the teacher questions, it was also notable that Inez frequently offered help to her peers in the classroom even when the peer did not speak her first language. In such cases, she used English to the best of her ability, as excerpt (Click to View) (Requires Internet Explorer) shows. In this excerpt, before the start of the lesson in the fifth week of her first term of English language study, Inez helps explain the procedures of the in-home interview study to Vasily, a 75 year-old student whose home language is Russian. We see Inez explain to Vasily that the researchers come to the house (lines 5, 33), that there is a questionnaire and tests (lines 23, 24, 32-33), and that the student-participants do not pay for this, but rather, the researchers give the student-participants money (lines 35-48). We cannot determine the effectiveness of this explanation by Inez. But we do know that later Vasily also participated in the in-home interview study for three years. The next excerpt shows Inez helping a peer - a man from Mexico with much less education who speaks Mayan as a first language and Spanish as a second.(Click to View) (Requires Internet Explorer)