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Hannah Schumsky
TCH_LRN 333
Nalee Moua
September 23, 2018
Student Interview
For this project, I interviewed my friend’s roommate, Natalia Candelario. She is a Junior here at

Washington State University. She is going in to the medical field to become a nurse. She was

born in Mexico and was brought here when she was one and a half with her mom and dad. I

interviewed her on Sunday, September 23 around 3pm. The interview was located in Natalia’s

bedroom at her apartment. I only have spoken with Natalia maybe a handful of times but all

conversations have been short and sweet. After officially interviewing Natalia, I now know so

much about her and her experiences with growing up as English as her second language. I never

could have begun to imagine her life without hearing her story. She may have been an easy

person to interview because of close connections but at the same time, I’m so glad I had the

opportunity to see a glimpse into her life.

I started this interview with the most difficult questions that made Natalia think outside the box. I

asked her what a language meant to her and at first, she looked at me like I was crazy. A question

like this is not ever asked, yet we use language every day. She explained that a language is

something that we speak to communicate with others. Although that is true, there are many more

components to a language. That leads to my next question. I asked, what components form a

language? Her answer kind of surprised me because she not only said that letters make up a

language but more importantly, body language. We can speak so much without even saying a

single word and sometimes it’s much louder than our words could ever be. We have the power to

speak with a simple body gesture. She then answered my following question of what teaching a
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language is and how she would teach it. She expressed that she would start off with teaching

them easy vocabulary words then move on to simple conversations. More importantly, Natalia

said that it was important that the learners are all at the same level if they are learning in a group

setting. My last thought-provoking question seemed to be the easiest for Natalia to answer. That

was, “what does it mean to know and use a language?” She simply stated that what it meant to

her to know a language was just knowing different forms of communication and using it meant

being able to express how you feel.

I then went on to ask her more personal questions about her experiences of growing up and

having to learn English while her entire family is fluent in Spanish. Natalia said that she learned

English in her school in an ELL program. They taught her English and Spanish because they

found it important that she didn’t lose or forget her native language. She found that learning

through peers was easier for her because after hearing the same types of words over and over,

she said that she could catch on to not only the words but the content behind the words. Although

this is true to her, Natalia did also say that if she had to do it all over again she would still prefer

to learn English exactly the way she did: through school. This to me shows how important it is to

an ELL student that they not only have proper teaching of that language but also that social

interactions with peers can also speed up the process of the learning. Natalia then went on to say

that English has only become much easier for her since she’s been away at college because she is

constantly needing to speak it in her school and work place. Not being at home as much, where

only Spanish is spoken has made it so she just doesn’t get to speak her native language at all

anymore. She says that because of this she has started to forget simple words in Spanish and that

she may lose her native language completely. Although this saddens her, Natalia tells me after

that “Learning English has helped me go through school and have the opportunity to learn at a
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higher education. It has let me get jobs and make friendships and relationships. It helps me to

communicate with most of the daily people around me” (N. Candelario, personal

communication, September 23, 2018). This resonated with me quite a bit because I realized that

not knowing a language closes you off to so many things. This also tells me that because I don’t

know Spanish like she does, I am closed off to all kinds of people that only speak Spanish and

more importantly, the true culture of Mexico.

Natalia also said that she would much rather prefer to speak English over Spanish today because

she feels that at this point it’s a little easier for her to fully express herself in English. Her parents

were a big part of her learning English because if they hadn’t put Natalia into school she would

not have had the opportunity to learn. Next, she said though that it was also forced upon her from

the outside world to learn English so that she could move forward in her new life and

communicate with the majority of the people around her. If there is anything she said she still

struggles with, it would be grammar. Other than that, everything comes first hand. I found it so

interesting that she said she has dreamt and thought in her native language. She doesn’t always

realize it because she can still somewhat go back and forth between English and Spanish but

when she really thinks about it, she knows she has. Lastly, I asked her how she learned English

in school. Natalia answered back that she had instructors that would teach her and a group of

students but then she would have lots of one-on-one time with other instructors. This helped best

because learning in a group setting can only take you so far. She also said that all her instructors

were very easy to understand, even more than some people she spoke to outside of school. It’s so

needed to have personal one-on-one time with a teacher to make sure that what they are learning

in group work is actually sticking with them.

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In my eyes, teaching a second language is teaching someone a new life. You’re exposing them to

a completely different culture, which in return is a completely new life. Learning a new language

opens you up to a whole new world where you are able to communicate with people you never

saw possible. How I would go about teaching a second language to someone is simple. I would

start by getting to know the student so that they are comfortable with me. It’s important to a

second language learning student that they feel comfortable with their instructor. Even more than

comfort, Natalia expressed that it is important that she can clearly understand her teacher. A

“normal” American dialect is needed to understand so that she can correctly repeat afterwards.

Strategies I would use based on what Natalia had to say would be to start with simple vocabulary

that we use in our everyday lives. For example, food and sports are good vocabulary to start

with. Once I feel that my student is comfortable enough with his or her vocabulary, the next step

would be to start conversing. Being able to hold a conversation in a new language isn’t easy so

speaking slow and repetition is needed. With all these components, learning a new language will

come easy.
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Appendix

1. What is a language?

2. What components form a language?

3. What us teaching a language and how would you teach it?

4. What does it mean to know and use a language?

5. How did you learn English?

6. Do you think it was easier to learn English through your peers or through formal

instruction?

7. If you could do it all over again, how would you prefer to learn English?

8. Is it easier to hold a conversation in English or your native language?

9. In what ways has learning English benefited you?

10. Do you prefer speaking English or your native language? If so, why

11. Was learning English a choice?

12. In what areas of English do you still struggle with?

13. Do you dream or think in your native language?

14. In what settings do you use English the most?

15. While learning English, was it in a one-on-one or group setting?

16. Why did you need to learn English?

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References

WRIGHT, W. E. (2017). FOUNDATIONS FOR TEACHING ENGLISH LANGUAGE

LEARNERS: Research, theory, policy, and practice. S.l.: MULTILINGUAL MATTERS.