Education and language learning

Nina received basic education in Peru having attended school for seven years. In three interviews in consecutive years starting in 2003, she listed higher educational goals for herself each year. In 2003 she reported no goals for education; in 2004, she reported wanting to pass the high school equivalency exam (GED); in 2005, she listed getting a two-year college degree as a goal.

However, these goals seem unrealistic given that her English language skills did not seem to progress much during that time. Nina reported using Spanish inside and outside the home as a means of communication and that there are very few times when she needs to use English in her daily life. Her children are grown so unlike the learners with young children, she doesn't need to use English to help them with their homework or speak to their teachers. Instead, her children help her when she needs to use English shopping, doing the laundry, or communicating with her supervisor at work. Nina's doctor speaks Spanish.

Given this characterization of Nina's lack of progress learning English, her behavior in the classroom is interesting. From early in the first term of class (second week), though her English is not strong, she acts as helper for her classmates. In this excerpt from the classroom, we see Dean starting a language learning task in which students are to ask one another about people in pictures that they have. In line 1, Dean is asking Nina about a picture he has, trying to formulate the question: are they sad? Nina informs him that his choice of pronoun is incorrect because the picture shows a woman "one woman" and that "she" is the appropriate pronoun (Click to View) (Requires Internet Explorer).

It seems that Nina may be more comfortable understanding oral English than some of her peers in this beginning level class. This may be due to the fact that even though she has lived in the U.S. just a short time, she had visited the U.S. many times.