CELTA: Assignment Focus on The Learner

Cambridge CELTA Written Assignment Assessment

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Focus on the Learner  Karina H. R. Kopp

hand in date: 12/09/16

Learner: Dmitriy Bondarenko 1: Learner’s background and learning experience of English and their effects on learning Dmitriy is 21 years old and came to Barcelona in April 2016. He is originally from Ukraine, his mother tongue is Russian. He did his first English course here in April 2016. He studied English in school but he didn't take it seriously. He is also studying Spanish for two hours a day, which leaves him with 4 hours of language input everyday, which has to be considered when teaching him. Often, he is tired in class and appears to be lazy, but he might just not have much energy left at 7PM. He is young and extremely cheeky, which makes him difficult to handle. He needs lots of attention so that he doesn't get bored. It's hard to get a serious answer from him, he will try too hard to be funny with everything he says. His morals and world views might differ significantly with the rest of the class, including the teacher. His view on women and their rights (which is probably part of his education) influence the way he respects (or disrespects) female teachers. Sexual references aren't a rare thing with him.

2: Learner’s reasons/motivation/needs for learning English Dmitriy wants to stay in Spain for the next couple of years. He would love to travel and visit the United States (to meet some of his favourite celebrities, such as Rihanna and Meagan Fox). He understands the need for learning the English language as a lingua franca; in his words: “People used to learn French, then Russian and German, English is now. It is a necessity.” He doesn't seem to be quite sure about his future job, so right now he studies English for personal and communicative reasons.

3: Learning styles and strategies/ suggestions for classroom He really enjoys speaking activities. He is aware of his pronunciation issues and likes to practice speaking a lot, because it makes him more confident in the real world. He prefers language exercises to skill tasks. Listening is really hard for him, and he can only understand very little when he has to listen to a CD. When I talk to him in person however, I feel like he understands instructions or just normal chats with no difficulty whatsoever, so I am guessing he needs a lot of visual clues for understanding. What's interesting about him is that he genuinely enjoys difficult activities and challenges.In fact, he finds learning languages the most challenging in life, which is exactly why he likes studying them. For the classroom, I suggest a healthy balance of receptive and productive skill training. He needs some grammar practice especially when it comes to correct tense forms. (See 5 for more detailed suggestions.)

Cambridge CELTA Written Assignment Assessment

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Focus on the Learner  Karina H. R. Kopp

4: Learner’s strengths and weaknesses with language and skills Language: Grammar: He struggles with grammar in general, compared to his other skills and language. His weaknesses are especially tenses and questions. Because of his mother tongue Russian, which is fundamentally different in its grammar, he very likely leaves out important words, such as auxiliaries, verb endings, and especially pronouns. In Russian there are only 3 tenses, so the logic and necessity behind it must be confusing for him.  At this level, he makes the most mistakes with continuous tenses. Furthermore, to build full sentences is difficult for him, which often seems rude to other people, but this is a L1 grammar interference. The use of the to-infinitive is difficult for him, he uses it a lot when he doesn't need to and vice versa. Sometimes, however, he uses complex structures correctly, such as ‘have to do something’, ‘something does not relate to something’. Two examples of errors: 1. Listen! The baby ____crying______ . (to cry) 2. Why do you want to learn English? - Was a question this. (Was this a question? What kind of question is that?) Lexis His mental lexicon is impressive. He knows a lot of really advanced vocabulary that learners at his level normally don’t, he will use words like ‘it's a necessity’, ‘to accompany someone to do something’, ‘this does not relate to…’. As we see here, he seems to be able to remember phrasal verbs, collocations and common expressions very well. I haven't observed him using any of the common Russian-English false friends, but he tends to use wrong expressions when he experiments with language. Two examples: 1. - Fotball. Childhood Love. -> Here he tried to tell me that he has loved it since he

was a kid. 2. - Hardly one -> He does know at least 3 languages, so he can't have meant hardly. Pronunciation  Again, his L1 explains his difficulties here. For example, he has problems with differentiating between short and long vowels, which often leads to misunderstandings. I think he would benefit from a lot of drilling and phoneme work. He improved his voiced work endings a lot, which also used to be a problem. His intonation, rhythm and stress however are surprisingly good, considering his L1. Most of his mispronunciations don't effect his effective communication. Two examples: /w!t ka"nd #v $kwes%#nz "z &"s/ when he says it it sounds more like: /w!at a kve#s%'(n "#s d"as/ -> He diphtongizes his vowels, mostly to match the written word better, and finds it hard to pronounce a voiced and voiceless ‘th’. He produces phonemes that aren't part of the English Phonetic Alphabet.

Cambridge CELTA Written Assignment Assessment

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Focus on the Learner  Karina H. R. Kopp Skills: Reading: He is good at silent reading but it's hard for him to concentrate on a lengthier task. He enjoys it, but he like to talk about it afterwards. His reading out loud could be bit more fluent. Listening: He doesn't enjoy listening because he doesn't understand people with different accents so well, which is normal at his level. I think it lacks instant gratification for him. Speaking: He is very keen on speaking. He processes very quickly what is said to him in person and he is very sharp-witted. His answers are hardly ever appropriate, he tries to make fun of everything and everyone, which makes it harder for everyone in class. Writing He makes about the same amount of errors writing as speaking, which indicates that he is not aware of his mistakes. He accepts and needs a lot of correcting here. He isn't someone to use two words when one is enough. Therefore, I would suggest an activity that targets his ability to write full sentences, preferably about someone/something else than himself, because he does seem reluctant to share private information, but he definitely needs the practice.

5: Activities to help the learner with their weak areas

 Attached are some materials that could help this learner to further develop his language. I chose Grammar: Tenses and Questions as a language activity, and an activity for writing which he could benefit from.

Cambridge CELTA Written Assignment Assessment

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Focus on the Learner  Karina H. R. Kopp

References: Felder, R. M., and Soloman, B. A. (n.d.). LEARNING STYLES AND STRATEGIES (Thesis, North Carolina State University). North Carolina State University. Swan, M., and Smith, B. (2001). Learner English: A teacher's guide to interference and other problems (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tenses test: http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/download/test_tenses_en.pdf  access date: 08.09.2016

Suggested material: http://www.autoenglish.org/writing/w.famous.pdf Gairns, R., and Redman, S. (1995). True to life: English for adult learners, preintermediate: Personal study workbook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.