The following sections provide the answers to our interview and questionnaires. The interview was conducted in Spanish via a Skype call. The English questions may be referenced in Appendix A. The interview was with Arlen, one of two administrators at SONATI. After the interview with Arlen, we created a questionnaire for the other administrator, Belkin, who was unable to attend the interview. Subsequently, the teacher questionnaire was given to the new volunteer, Julia. Lastly, Spanish questionnaires were provided to SONATI for the students to complete.

Interview

The first part of our needs assessment was to help us gain a better understanding of the project and expectations of SONATI for our group. Based on the predetermined questions, we talked with Arlen in Spanish about the program. Through our conversation the following information was gathered from the notes written by Kelly and Dean:

  • The classes will be two hours long on Saturdays
  • There are 20 students between the ages of 12 and 16
  • There is a new volunteer teacher who began teaching in March
    • They will be working on pronouns, colors, and general vocabulary and grammar
  • The students might learn English in public school, but they have very low proficiencies
  • Their classrooms have projectors, computers, a blackboard, and CD players.

We also discovered that, contrary to our original understanding from Lucy’s initial presentation introducing the project, they do not want only a summer syllabus program. SONATI is hoping that our group will provide a curriculum that can be used throughout the calendar year. Arlen also expressed that she didn’t think Content Based Instruction was a good idea.

We also discussed the overall semester deadline for our Curriculum Design course, explaining that we would not have the curriculum developed until about mid-May. We promised to keep them updated with our progress.

Administrator Questionnaire

The second administrator, Belkin, responded to a questionnaire that mirrored some questions of the interview, but also questions that we had after reflecting on the initial interview. She clarified that most Nicaraguan teachers serve for one year and foreign volunteers typically only stay for three to six months. These teachers typically teach alone in the classroom but in one case they co-taught. SONATI focuses on conservation of wildlife, the forest, and water. They also emphasize recycling and, for this reason, would prefer that we design lesson plans that don’t require paper handouts. Belkin would like the curriculum to cover a one year period but be broad and flexible so that the teachers have room to manipulate the lessons and adapt it to their needs. She also verified the same classroom resources that Arlen mentioned in the interview.

Volunteer Teacher Questionnaire

Unable to interview the teacher, we provided a questionnaire to help us understand the background experience of the teacher. Julia, the teacher, is not a native speaker of English. She studied English for 10 years in school and has practiced English in school, traveling, and at work. She is not a trained teacher and has never taught English before. However, she indicated that she is interested (four out of five) in teaching English through environmental lessons. She is also confident in her abilities to manage group work between students (four out of five). She also responded very positively (five out of five) to using games to reinforce learning.

Student Questionnaire

The student questionnaire was distributed in class by Julia in their second session of class. Only 11 of the 20 students showed up. The table shows the combined results of the students’ responses. The columns indicate the shorthand for the questions on the questionnaire. The rows indicate which student (represented by survey number) and their corresponding responses.  

student responses