My Mom took the US citizenship interview this morning. She passed the interview in about 10 minutes. All her study and practice in the last month paid off. I am glad I helped her too.
Now I have an American mom, a wife and two kids. I guess I should follow their footsteps.
The date is near for my Mom to take the citizenship test. She still goes to classes to practices with several volunteer teachers. My brother and I occasionally call her to do some impromptu tests. She becomes so good with routine questions that her answers are automatic. Even with some random free formed questions, Mom begins to pick up the keyword in these questions and answers them. My prediction is that she has 60% probability to pass, as long as she is not intimidated by the process and interviewer. If she can answer the questions from phone without looking at the questioner, then she should be able to answer them face to face.
My Mom is scheduled to take the citizenship interview/exam in about a month. English is not her native language and she is 64 years old. We are all helping her these days in many ways. Dad and she have some materials from the library. She is also attending some classes in San Jose.
I talked to her tonight. She had a tough time today in the class. One of the two teachers doesn’t speak Chinese. He had some 1-on-1 tutoring time with her. She didn’t understand his words most of the times. Mom taped the class and went to home and studied with Dad; just like what I didn’t when I was taking some difficult classes in college.
Wei stopped by her house this evening and did a mock interview with her. Then, I spent some time going over the interview questions on the phone at 9. It must be a very intense day for her, facing 4 different people asking her Citizenship exam questions. Mom is doing quite well. She understood about 80% of my questions and can answer them clearly, slow sometimes. I think that she has a good chance to pass the exam.
It will be interesting for the next month. I, Wei, and others will continue to help her. Her English will be much improved as a result. I will have to go through the same process in one or two year. This experience will be good for me later on.
When I call Mom every evening, Oliver usually interprets our conversation. Many times he just hogs the phone. Sometimes he gets really angry if Mom takes away the phone. Last night Mom and I want go over some exam questions. We barely got started, and then he started to cry. He cried so loud that we have to stop. Babies have their ways most times.
