I was frustrated and concerned that the learners were not fully able to express their thoughts and ideas in the interviews due to their struggle with English language proficiency. The only learners among the eight whom I interviewed that were not very concerning were Hector and Elida. Both had taught before and both had a fairly good command of English. (Hector had been a submarine school instructor for the Colombian Navy and had studied English pretty extensively while working for the Navy. Elida had taught Portuguese in a South Florida community school setting.)
I was surprised that more learners did not opt to write their responses in Spanish. This leads me to ask for what reasons the learners were really participating. I have no direct evidence but I feel that it is because they wanted a chance to practice their English with me (which I mentioned as a benefit for participating in my study during my classroom recruitment talks with students). Only two students met with me in person for a second time to go over their transcripts (Mimose and Celina). The others were too busy and preferred for me to email them their transcripts which they all okayed with no corrections, deletions or additions.
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