Interview for elderly people with less English Skills

I

India_2013

Registered Users (C)
Can someone who has taken their parent(s) with less english skills to citizenship interview and civics tests share the experience (interview process)

Thanks
 
Does your elderly parent meet the English exemption criteria? That's 60 years old and green card for 10 years, or 55 years old and green card for 15 years.
 
No. She is on green card for the last 5 years. She has very basic english skills. Its the spoken English where she has problems.
 
Basic understanding of written and spoken English is a requirement for citizenship, I hope te applicant was aware of it at the time of mailing the application. If the parent is going through with it, have him/her practice speaking and listening, A LOT. Is he/she OK with the civics tests questions? How about hearing? If he/she really want to go through this, then a lot of practice will be required, no way around (since she does not qualify for any exemption to language/civics requirements). How much time do you have?
 
India_2013 said:
No. She is on green card for the last 5 years. She has very basic english skills. Its the spoken English where she has problems.
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Then she'll need to spend time working on those skills before applying. She can be failed if the interviewer determines that the way she struggles to understand and answer questions in the interview shows that her English skills are too weak.
 
Jackolantern said:
Then she'll need to spend time working on those skills before applying. She can be failed if the interviewer determines that the way she struggles to understand and answer questions in the interview shows that her English skills are too weak.
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When one gets old, improving English skill can be very hard even there is still room for improvement, it is a slow gradual process
and it is hard to make any significant step in one or two month.

But since interview follows a pattern, one can just practice skills specifically for that. I can recoomdn teh following

(1) First let parent repeated listen to that USCIS citizenship civic test CD whenever there is time
(2) Make your own CD -- let someone preferably a native speak, recite all important N-400 questions and let parent listen to it whenever they have time and let them practice answeer , most of which are Yes/No anyway
(3) DO a similar CD for writing and reading ENglish test too.


If time is limited, place emphasis on most frequtnly asked question by IOs. In this form, there used to be a thread collecting all actual questions asked
 
WBH said:
When one gets old, improving English skill can be very hard even there is still room for improvement, it is a slow gradual process
and it is hard to make any significant step in one or two month.
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Well I didn't say she would only need one or two months of practice. She may need one or two years of lessons and practice, or wait 5 years to meet the 60 years old + 10 years green card exception.
 
Looks like OP did not read the guide to naturalization or discuss the requirements with the parent applicant at the time of filing the application.
 
Jackolantern said:
Well I didn't say she would only need one or two months of practice. She may need one or two years of lessons and practice, or wait 5 years to meet the 60 years old + 10 years green card exception.
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Most likely she already applied and the interview will take place soon. So she need a crash course.
 
WBH said:
Most likely she already applied and the interview will take place soon. So she need a crash course.
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I haven't applied for her yet. Planning to apply in mid Feb 2013. She has started making an attempt to read the Civics test questions. Like WBH mentioned in the thread, because of old-age the things that look trivial for young, seems a challenge to them.

One of the friend told that they may be more lenient and ask easier questions during the interview process. Only thing he was not sure if the other person went with 50/15 or 65/20 rule.

Thanks,
 
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India_2013 said:
One of the friend told that they may be more lenient and ask easier questions during the interview process.
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10 Questions for Civic test are not complete randomly chosen from 100 questions. USCIS has a few sets of 10 questions
and they randomly select one set from a limited choices. So if you could poll each applicants who came out of the USCIS
building you could really narrow down from 100 question to maybe 3 dozens. But I doubt you can really do it. But you
can search thsi form for collection of question asked.





For English reading and writing the following are very common

Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves.
Alaska is the largest U.S. state.
California has largest population in the United States.
California has the most people.
Canada is north of the United States.
Citizens can vote.
Columbus Day is in October.
George Washington was the first president.
I live in the United States.
I love to live in America.
Independence Day is in July.
Lincoln was the President during the Civil War.
New York City was the first capital.
People vote for the President in November.

People want to vote.
Thanksgiving is in November.

The American flag has stars and stripes.
The American Indians lived here.
The President lives in the White House.
The President of the United States is elected by the people.
The people elect Congress.
The White House is in Washington D.C.

There are 100 senators (Better write 100 as one hundred).
There are 100 senators in the US Senate (Better write 100 as one hundred).
Washington is on the dollar bill.
Washington is the capital.
Washington is the father of our Nation.
We have one hundred senators.
We pay taxes.
 
India_2013 said:
I haven't applied for her yet. Planning to apply in mid Feb 2013. She has started making an attempt to read the Civics test questions.
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It's not just the civics questions she has to worry about in terms of speaking English. The interviewer will ask various related to the information she provided on the N-400, and if she struggles too much to understand or answer the question the interviewer may conclude that her English isn't good enough (however she should not feel afraid to ask the interviewer to repeat questions).

So make sure to keep a copy of the filled-out N-400 so she can carry it to the interview and look at it when answering questions, instead of trying to answer everything from memory. Do a couple of mock interviews with her (all in English!), asking questions related to the N-400 information and her situation (for example, if she has a long overseas trip, ask her what she did on that trip).
 
Jackolantern said:
It's not just the civics questions she has to worry about in terms of speaking English.
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And keep in mind that testing of English will not be over until the oath is taken. There are examples of people passing the interview
but still getting pulled out from oath on oath day. I heard one example is an applicant answered Yes again to some qustion
on oath letter even they are menat for period after interview and before oath. The USCIS tried to clear the matter and realized
the Yes was intended for pre-interview period but the they foudn it is either impossible to explain to the applicant or impossible
for teh applicant to explain so they canceled teh oath for him based on his lack of English profieincy
 
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