Coaching Experience

Saida Eazizayene

Department of Educational Psychology

March 23, 2023

My client is a Moroccan immigrant who became a permanent resident of the United States. She was in her first year of college in Morocco, majoring in biology. However, after earning her diverse lottery, she came to the United States to pursue her dreams, goals, and plans. This part of moving from your own country to another has a lot to unpack. The transition itself has its own emotional and financial costs. Especially if the host country has a language other than your native language and a new culture, values, rules, and hierarchies. My client is a 19-year-old female. 

At the beginning of this series of sessions, my client was experiencing a variety of different emotions altogether, along with trying to understand the new environment and trying to fit in if it would ever happen (her own words) or probably leave and go back to Morocco, that is her thoughts in the beginning due to fear of failure. My client’s emotional response was a good indication that she is unaware that emotions can be reframed, labeled, and perceived by the individual experiencing those emotions in a way that will help the process go smoother. For instance, telling yourself it is okay to feel those feelings: I am new to this environment, and the environment is new to me, but I will get to learn everything. 

My client has some levels of self-efficacy, but the sadness due to being away from family for the first time in her life, the suffering due to being new to a country other than her own, the feeling of inadequacy due to the limitation of English-speaking skills, and hopelessness due to knowing very few people if any in the community. All these factors lowered my client’s self-efficacy, self-confidence, and eagerness she usually feels back home. 

The other aspect I recognized while talking to my client was the construct of belongingness, an essential variable in the equation of psychological safety. My client stated that she feels like an outsider; she does not belong, and her being different makes her weird, and people will notice that from her poor English-speaking skills. 

Her questions amazed me during one of the first sessions, given that I am from the same background. My client was asking questions about the school systems in the area, what is required, and how to learn English quickly; it was clear that she is intrinsically motivated to learn English, an essential aspect of the transitioning process. However, I did ask what is most important to you while you are here. My client responded that education is her concern, whether she can continue the degree she started in Morocco, and that learning English is the only aspect she needs to master to move to the other steps. This indicates that my client values learning the language, which increases the likelihood of her achieving that. According to expectancy-value theory, the more internal value the individual has for a task or a skill they are trying to acquire, the more likely they are to achieve it.

My client and I agreed to start working by setting goals to frame the work plan. How this will work is simple, small, and straightforward in the beginning. Then, as she develops more skills and self-efficacy, we will move to bigger goals. The goals I am referring to while working with my client are weekly goals, small goals, specific, and the due date is every Sunday. 

The theoretical framework of my coaching plan will be built based on Achievement goal theory, and the aim is to help my client set goals and find ways to achieve them because the feeling of competency will increase her likelihood of setting more goals and achieving them until that process transitions into a habit or type of a mindset. Also, having a sense of competency, especially in language and English speaking, will help with her psychological safety by developing a sense of belonging to her new world. Attribution theory will also be used to increase my client’s awareness that there are aspects we and will have control over and others that are out of our control. Also, we must develop skills within us (internal), and we must learn from the environment by interacting with others (external). The social cognitive framework and expectancy-value also will be helpful in this plan as I will implement a few constructs while working with my client—for instance, Self-efficacy and its sources, The intrinsic value of a task, and the cost. 

The first three goals must be achieved one week before the next session. 

1- Go to a public area, sit down, and spend time. (My client will let me know how she feels in the next session) 

2- Learn ten new English vocabulary words and use them with me during the next session. 

3- Watch a movie in English without subtitles in her home language but with English subtitles, even if my client does not necessarily understand everything the actors are saying. 

The goals throughout the intervention will not always be that simple and small, but I see it very beneficial for my client to start with small steps that are convenient and doable for her. When my client gets comfortable going outside and interacting with others, uses English in her everyday life, and feels that she fits in her new community, I will start working on her academic and educational interests by setting bigger goals to get her to her ultimate desires. 

This coaching plan is adjustable due to how my client responds and how the weekly goals have been or have not been achieved.

While working by goal setting, I aim for my client to have that sense of capability and ability to make the change and learn regardless of language barriers and cultural differences. Her achieving those weekly goals achieved will increase her self-confidence and self-efficacy. 

My client and I will require assessments by video recording her self-speaking English every other week. The assessment that will take place will be based on the goals we set together and if my client was able to achieve them so that we can develop new objectives and emotional responses. What is the range of emotions she gets when she goes outside and interacts with new people? Her emotional responses will help me measure her emotional IQ, an essential factor in the learning process. 

My client successfully achieves all the small weekly goals we have been setting consistently. Her worry and fear of going to public places due to her limited English-speaking skills decreased based on what she shared in the last session. Her self-efficacy levels started to increase, and the client mentioned that the idea of breaking the process into small goals makes it doable compared to before when she used to think about the transition and learning the new language and fitting into a new culture as a big mountain stopping her from going forward, instead of a process that needs to be strategically planned. 

There was also a noticeable change in the emotional responses as my client mentioned that diversity is not a problem or that being from elsewhere does not make you less; she learned that as a result after being hired at a childcare facility with a great rate regardless of her being relatively a new immigrant. Also, a new type of optimism was noticed after sharing that it seems possible for her to return to school when she feels ready after a while. That is a good indication that my client is being able to move from that frustrating state to a state where she plans, sets goals, and able to learn. 

Personal reflections: 

The most important aspect I learned from this experience of coaching an individual is that skills are learnable regardless of barriers, challenges, and limited knowledge about the skill or task you are about to learn. I also learned that emotional intelligence is essential in the process of learning new skills because the individual who is being exposed to something new will be experiencing a variety of emotions; those emotions must be accepted, labeled, and formed in a way that will activate the person toward their goals and plans not to deactivate them and make them feel inadequate. 

To be more specific to my client’s case and experience, psychological safety is essential before working on any other aspect. For instance, if we do not feel we belong to a home, workplace, or classroom, we will not feel wanted and loved; therefore, we are unlikely to perform as we should compared to others in the same situation. 

Resources: 

Theories: Social Cognitive Theory, Self-determination theory, achievement goal theory, and attribution theory.