Return-Path: <nifl-fobasics@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id hBHKS7m00034; Wed, 17 Dec 2003 15:28:07 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 15:28:07 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <000d01c3c4d9$b0904ca0$130101c8@workstation1> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-fobasics@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-fobasics@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-fobasics@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "George Demetrion" <george.demetrion@lvgh.org> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-fobasics@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-FOBASICS:905] Interview questions X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1158 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; Status: O Content-Length: 4415 Lines: 95 Colleagues; This upcoming Monday, I'll be conducting an audio-taped interview with an intern who tutored in our program once a week for the past two months. She did a nice job and the students respected her a great deal. They're sorry to see her go. Me too :( The purpose of the interview is to add to the qualitative data base of our own historical archives to be utilized for a variety of purposes as becomes relevant over time. Surely, program justification is one such purpose, though how these materials would be used remains to be seen. I have done audio-taped interviews of students and tutors for a long time and the transcription (and I do full transcriptions) is time consuming, indeed. In the past we have used these materials for teaching, training, public relations, and research. I've drawn on interviews in my formal research, most comprehensively in an extended essay, Motivation and the Adult New Reader: Becoming Literate at the Bob Steele Reading Center, accessed at http://www.nald.ca/FULLTEXT/George/Motivate/cover.htm For a similar study, check out Dancing in the Dark: How Do Adults with Little Formal Education Learn? How Do Literacy Practitioners Do Collaborative Research? at http://www.nald.ca/PROVINCE/ALT/RiPAL/Resourcs/dark/cover.htm Even though works like these are marginalized in our public discourse, I think they are important in their effort at describing in a somewhat systematic and organized way something of the phenomenon of adult literacy education. The need for this kind of research came home to me again when I read Michele Craig's recent poignant description of her GED class. In another message I want to share some narratives recently created by a few of our students. In any event, in terms of the upcoming interview, which will last for about an hour, I've tentatively organized the following general questions, with the expectation that they will sufficiently open up a stream of dialogue between us to stimulate a satisfactory examination of adult literacy learning. I'm eliciting your feedback on the questions I've listed to discern what else might be asked or what questions should be further refined. With the tutor's permission, I'd be willing to post the interview once transcribed. Given the availability of electronic storage and Web housing, it becomes more critical than ever, in my view, to develop some type of national qualitative repository of our field. One of the reasons I press on the listservs so heavily is because the archives represent a built-in repository of the field speaking to itself in "real time" on a wide array of critical issues. In addition to the archives, I continue to remain convinced that some type of centralized repository be developed as a storage center for our collective classroom experiences that would serve as primary resource material for the development of instructional material, and resources for staff development and research. I think of the Canadian site NALD as an example (http://www.nald.ca/Index.htm). Surely in the United States, we could establish something comparable. Thoughts? Ideas? Questions? George Demetrioon 1. What did you expect it would be like when you first thought about tutoring in the adult literacy program at XXX? What were those assumptions based on? 2. What was it like? How would you explain the difference between what you initially thought and what you came to experience? 3. What materials did you select and what went into your selection decision? 4. Describe what teaching was like in terms of the interface between the students, the materials, and your own interaction 5. How would you describe the learning dynamics and challenges of each of your regular students? What is it that you think they're learning? What do you base this on? What do you think they should be learning? Why? 6. Describe in some detail what happens in a typical session. 7. From what you observed of what value is adult literacy education to the students you've worked with? What do you base this on? What additional information would you need to have to make a more informed evaluation? 8. Should the program be supported through public funding sources? Why or why not? 9. From what you've seen, what is the contribution of adult literacy education to the public good? What do you think is the potentialcontribution? What do you base this on?
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