Blog Project: Focus Groups

For this project, I will be focusing on two groups of students I have identified as having unique challenges as they undertake their first college composition course. The first group, older students either returning to or entering college for the first time after years in the local work force, often enter the college with a deep sense of trepidation about using the computer. These students need a higher degree of exposure to both computers and Web 2.0 offerings. I have a personal degree of knowledge and compassion for this group of students as I am one of those students who returned to college after a 20+ year absence during which I worked in the U.S. work force and raised my family.

The second group, students whose first language is not English or who were raised in a home where English was not the primary spoken language, struggle with barriers and gaps in their movement between their spoken languages and written English. These students who are often identified as ELL, ESL, or Generation 1.5 students, are all quite capable of expressing themselves verbally in any of their languages, but lack the ability to clearly present their thoughts in written texts. These same students are often very comfortable with the use of computers and the internet which they view as a less intense, more user-friendly atmosphere than the standard classroom.