Kelly TP-1

On May 10th I met for the first time with Carolina at the Leon County Library downtown. Carolina is originally from Tampico, Mexico and has lived in Quincy with her husband for 7 years. She has two children, a son of 4 years and a toddler daughter. She is at an intermediate level with her English. She associates with a Spanish speaking community in Quincy almost exclusively. Her husband has a physically and time demanding job in the timber business (he sometimes works 6 days a week, and works from 6AM to 7PM). Such tiring work leaves him too exhausted to take on the task of learning English. Because of this, Carolina is in charge of logistical things such as grocery shopping and doctor's appointments.
It is because of these logistical situations that Carolina has initiated herself into the Literacy program at the library. On a worksheet she claimed her goals with English to include talking on the telephone, making appointments, talking with the doctor, reading medical information, and communicating with your children's teacher. It is on this point that Carolina wanted to focus. Her son attends an American school and is apparently "acting up." Carolina knows that he is a good boy, and would like to determine if it is completely her son causing trouble, or him being influenced by a group of boys he associates with. In our next meeting I would like to conduct a brief role play where I play the teacher and Carolina as herself. I noticed Carolina has an ITouch and I expressed that I would like to find a simple "Mother's" themed podcast for her to practice her listening with.
She told me that she is reading Game of Thrones and has underlined words that she does not understand. I asked her to bring the book in so we could go over those words together. In our next meeting I intend on starting a vocabulary list for Carolina and encouraging her to add to it when she can. When the film comes out on DVD I encouraged her to watch it, perhaps with Spanish subtitles so her husband could enjoy it with her. Carolina also told me that she cut the Spanish language stations out of her cable television at home. She watches some program's with her children, which I would think would provide a help with language acquisition as children are just getting the hang of it themselves!
Carolina's family speaks Spanish at home, but her youngest daughter, who is just starting to speak, may be the first fluent English speaker in the house. Carolina's daughter is in day care and has been completely immersed in an English speaking situation from a very young and tender age. Carolina told me she learned a new word from her daughter, "trash!"

Tampico, Mexico

                                       And now for a wholly American view of Tampico. Yikes!