Alicia Taylor

Tch Lrn 409

Needs Analysis

The individual that I interviewed was my mom, Barbara Taylor. My mom is 51 years old

and her family immigrated from Lubaczow, Poland to Vancouver, Canada back in the late 1940s.

Even though my mom was born and raised in Vancouver, but she was brought up speaking

Polish with no formal education of English. My mom is fluent in 3 languages, Polish, English,

and French. French is a very common language spoken in Canada, as well as English. After

interviewing my mom and having her give me a better look into what her English journey was

like, it amazed me what she was able to accomplish with no formal English teaching. She learned

from reading books, watching TV, and watching other people interact. My mom was taught

English around the age of 3 years old, and has been speaking English ever since. She moved to

the U.S in 1993 when she married my father.

According to Gottlieb, my mom is considered the type of ELL with limited or interrupted

formal education (SLIFE) (Gottlieb, 2016, pp.4-6). My mom had told me during our interview

that she started learning English when she was 3 years old. Since both of her parents immigrated

from Poland after WWII, Polish had been her main language. Her father was in the Polish army

during WWII, and was stationed in England, where he picked up some English, and later become

relatively fluent. My mom’s mom, was not fluent in English, but had a good understanding of the

language. She took classes for immigrants for 6 months and then learned from watching TV. My

mom had said that it was mainly her brother who taught her a majority of her childhood. My

uncle is 5 years older than my mom, so he was already in school when my mom started learning

English.
 When my mom entered elementary school in Canada, her teacher was aware that English

was not her first language. Her teacher had offered to help my mom by giving her extra attention

and helping her when she did not understand what was going on. My mom also mentioned that

the teacher would send home books for her to read to help practice her speech and fluency with

English. Once my mom became relatively fluent in English, it stuck around well with her. While

my mom was in middle and high school, she got her best grades surprisingly in English. My

mom had worked so hard to learn the language, that she learned to love it. It also sparked her

interest in English Literature, which inspired her to get her Bachelor’s degree in English when

she attended university. My mom had struggled with math especially during school though.

After interviewing my mom about her English language journey, I took away a lot of

information. One thing that surprised me when I interviewed my mom was she said that learning

English was a lot harder than learning Polish. I have read that Polish is one of the hardest

languages to learn due to the language having three types of gender rules; feminine, masculine,

and neutral. My mom said that while there are a lot of different grammar rules to follow in the

English language, there are also a lot of random and unnecessary words that are added to

sentences. Her examples was the word, “the”. In Polish, when you want to tell someone

something, you would just say, “I watered plant”, not, “I watered the plant”. When my mom was

learning English, she said it got confusing when she was trying to learn the meanings of words.

Another thing that surprised me was the amount of support my mom got when she was in school.

There were no pull-out programs or ELL teachers in my mom’s school during that time. It was

up to the teacher to recognize that they had a student who didn’t speak English, and to try and

work around it. My mom was very fortunate that her teacher took the time to give her extra

attention and work with her to help her try and understand what was going on in the classroom.
 In terms of Gottlieb and the problems, priorities, abilities, attitudes, and solutions that my

mom endured during her English journey, I was able to easily identify them in her responses to

the tool that I created. Some of the problems that my mom endured was that she got no formal

education in English. She learned from her brother and father, and a little bit from one teacher

she had in school. Other than that, she was forced to learn through watching and interacting with

people. My mom said she would play with the kids in her neighborhood and interact with them.

When she did not know a word, my mom said she would either ask them what they meant, or go

home and ask her brother or dad. These were the solutions that my mom was able to use when

she was learning. My mom was very determined to learn English and communicate with her

peers. When asking why my mom chose to get her degree in English, she had mentioned that

when she was learning English initially, she had worked really hard to learn the language. She

was motivated to be able to communicate with her peers and understand what was happening in

school. There were her attitudes while learning English, it also shows her priorities. She wanted

to put learning English first because she was behind where every other native English speaker

was.

All in all, I thought the interview with my mom was very eye-opening and interesting. I

learned a little bit more about my mom’s childhood and how she learned English. After learning

about the different types of ELL students, it is clear that my mom is classified as SLIFE (student

with limited or interrupted formal education) because she was not formally taught English. My

needs analysis tool really helped me identify my mom’s problems, abilities, attitudes, priorities,

and solutions. The tool helped me organize my questions to easily find the answers I was looking

for. It helped me organize my thoughts and everything I wanted to accomplish during the

interview. I feel that using the tool was a success. My mom was very comfortable during the
interview and gave me good insight into what it was like growing up not knowing English and

having to find different ways to learn.

References:

Gottlieb, M. (2016). Assessing English language learners: Bridges to educational equity:

Connecting academic language proficiency to student achievement. Thousand Oaks, CA:

Corwin.

Appendix:

Questions:

1. When did you start learning English?

“I started to learn English when I was 3 years old. My parents are both from Poland and

moved to Canada, so the first language I was exposed to was Polish.”

2. Did your parents know any English? If so, did they help teach you?

“Yes, my father was fluent in English. He learned it from being in the army during WWII

when he was stationed in England. My mom wasn’t as fluent though. She did attend

English classes for immigrants for 6 months, and after that she learned from watching

TV. But, mainly my older brother and dad taught me, also I learned from watching

Sesame Street.”

3. Compare your knowledge of your native tongue and English. Which was harder to learn?
 “English was harder to learn because they are a lot of weird grammar rules and language

rules to follow. There are a lot of unnecessary words in the English dictionary that have

no meaning, like the word “the”. In Polish when you want to tell someone something,

you would just say “I watered plant”, not, “I watered the plant”. It got confusing to me

when I was learning the meaning behind words.”

4. What type of support did you get at school in Canada?

“My teacher knew that English was not my first language, so she helped me and gave me

extra attention. We worked a lot one-on-one with learning how to read and speak. She

would also send home books with me to read to my family to practice my fluency.”

5. How often do you find yourself thinking in your mother tongue?

“When I was a lot younger it was about 50/50. When I lived at home I would think in

both languages, but now that I am an adult and living in America, I only speak English

unless around family, so I think in English. When I was at school and around friends, I

spoke English, but when I was at home, I spoke Polish.”

6. What are your favorite things about living in the US?

“I love to shop! I also love how there is access to a variety of different types of groceries.

If I wanted to make a Polish dish, I can go to any grocery store or European market and

find the ingredients. It is also very culturally diverse.”

7. What subjects did you receive the best grades in? 

“Surprisingly English! Also, social studies, French, and art, but I always excelled in

English. When I went to university, I got my Bachelor’s degree in English.”

8. What was the hardest part of your school day in Canada?

 “I struggled in math especially. I hadn’t been taught mathematical terms, so it took me a

while to understand the language and how to solve the problems. My math teacher didn’t

provide me extra help and support, so I had to figure things out on my own, or ask my

older brother for help.”

9. What language is spoken at home? How many languages can you speak?

“When I am around my mom and brother(father deceased), we mainly speak Polish

because my mom is not so fluent in English. When I am around my kids and husband, I

speak English because they do not speak Polish. I can speak 3 languages total, Polish,

English, and French. French is very commonly spoken around Canada.”

10. How did you practice English?

“I mainly spoke with my brother and the kids in the neighborhood. I would play with all

the kids in the neighborhood and speak English with them. Whenever I did not

understand a word that was said, I would either ask them what it meant, ask my brother,

or ask my dad what it meant.”

11. Why did you want to major in English?

“I majored in English because it was a subject that came naturally to me. I had worked so

hard to learn English; it later became my first language. I fell in love with English

Literature and immersed myself in the English culture. It was also my best subject

throughout school and I felt like I didn’t have to work hard to be good at it.”