Interview with a student
Interview Prep:
- Questions
- How do you feel about being the person that a lot of your coursemates rely to explain but mainly translate of what’s happening in the class for them?
- Are there any times that you feel that you don’t want to be the translator?
- Do you feel because the rely on you a lot, especially in the contextual studies class, the pressure to focus more in class so you’ll be able to translate and explain to your coursemates?
- When you are in social situations like with friends and family, do you still have the role of the translator?
- Are there any suggestions or recommendations for us to support you and the other students when it comes to communication?
Intro:
I will introduce the subject of my project and explain the reasons why I chose the student take part in my research. I will explain that I’m noticed in class students rely on the participant to translate for them and explain what’s happening in the class. I will also clarify that this interview won’t impact the student’s performance in class and there will be no mentions of their name or characteristics. All the responses will be anonymous and I will keep recording and all the relevant documents secured and then destroyed the end of this project.
After interview observations:
The interview went really well, even though I wasn’t properly prepared and I think that I didn’t consider the questions enough; going through the transcript I can now see that they were missed opportunities to find out more about the experience of the participant.
Nevertheless, it was really constructive interview and gave me an insight of the participants perspective and thoughts. The main points came out from the interview, were positive which wasn’t something that I expected.
I’ve noticed while I was teaching in the class how a lot of the students were relying on the participants translations and explanations. I thought that it was something that the participant might have been struggling in class and one of the reasons that I wanted to conduct the interview was to understand how I can support the student better as well as gathering data. I found out that the student does not have a problem being the translator between me and the other students or the other way around.
The participant went on to explain that they are already part of a multilingual family and used to switch from one language to another. They also mention that is something that they enjoy doing because it means that he can help their coursemates but also improve both their English and Chinese as none of them are their first language. They mention how the feel no pressure as they have to pay attention to see what’s happening in the class and what they need to do next.
As partof their social life, they have to use multiple languages to be able to communicate with other people friends or family and sometimes using English as the main language of communication.
My main observation of this interview is how important is to communicate more with the students to be able to understand their experience but also how to support them .
Even though they are happy to help and translate for their coursemates, I still think that that they shouldn’t be in this position so it’s something that I’d like to investigate further.