Written Assignment One: Focus on the Learner

Include this page with your assignment when you submit it.

Name: Le Thuy Van Word Count: 993 words

Checklist:
 profile of the class  analysis of learner strengths and weaknesses
 suggested activities & rationale  materials attached
This is wholly my own work. I understand that plagiarism may result in a range of penalties, from loss of
marks to disqualification from the CELTA award and a ban on re-entry of up to three years.

Signature: Le Thuy Van Date: 24 September 2021

Pass Resubmit:
Pass on Resubmission: Fail:
Resubmission Requirements:

Assessment criteria: Successful candidates can Overall Tutor Comments:

demonstrate their learning by:

- showing awareness of how a

learner’s/learners’ background(s), previous learning
experience and learning preference(s) affect learning

- identifying the learner’s/learners’

language/skills needs

- correctly using terminology relating to the

description of language systems and language skills

- selecting appropriate material and/or

resources to the learner’s/learners’ language
development (by enclosing or attaching it)

- providing a rationale for using specific

activities with a learner/learners

- finding, selecting and referencing

information from one or more sources using written
language that is clear, accurate and appropriate to
the task.

Tutor’s signature: Double Marked: Yes/No

Date: Tutor’s signature:

Please note: be concise and answer the questions clearly

Minimum: 750 words - Maximum 1000
Part One: The class profile (100 - 200 words)

Write a profile of your current teaching practice group, identifying their needs and interests. Comment
on the range of ages and nationalities and their motivations for learning English.

Part Two: Individual learner (500 - 600 words)

Choose one student from your TP group. Use the following ideas to get information about your learner in
order to answer the points A, B and C below
o arrange a short interview with your learner outside class time (attach a transcript as an appendix
– this is not part of your word count)
o get your learner to do a piece of writing (attach the written work as an appendix – this is not part
of your word count)
o observe your learner during lessons
o (optional) ask your learner to complete some language tasks, e.g. practice activities

A) Comment on your learner’s:

o background
o prior learning experiences
o apparent classroom & learning preferences
Give rationale for your ideas based on your observations and discussion with your learner.

B) Comment on your learner’s abilities in each of the four skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking)
and give rationale for your ideas.
E.g.
Reading
Phuong can read quite complicated texts quickly to extract the main idea. This may be because she enjoys
current affairs and reads the newspaper every day… etc.
Speaking
Shamma is able to speak fluently about topics such as family and work, as she feels comfortable using
vocabulary and fixed phrases related to those familiar topics. When she tried to speak about more abstract
topics, such as her opinions on life in Egypt, she spoke hesitatingly and struggled to find appropriate vocabulary
to express her opinion. This may be because…etc.

C) Give examples of consistent errors that your learner makes in each of the following areas:
o grammar OR vocabulary
o pronunciation - use phonemic script when commenting on pronunciation

Provide two examples of each error (i.e. what the student said or wrote) from your observations of the
learners in the classroom and/or from your interview or sample of writing. Identify each error and say
why you think the student makes the error. Use the chapter from Learner English to help you gain an
understanding of your learner’s language background to help back up your ideas.

E.g. Grammar
1. Thanh makes frequent mistakes with the definite, indefinite and zero articles. This is because ‘English
definite and indefinite articles, ‘the’, ‘a’, and ‘an’ have no direct parallels in Vietnamese’ (Honey, 1987: 246).
E.g. “I hope that you will have a good news.”/ “I am studying to become doctor.”

E.g. Pronunciation
2. Mariam struggles to either recognize or produce the sounds /p/ and /b/ accurately which can lead to
communication breakdowns. As outlined in Swan (2001: 152) ‘Arabic has one sound which is equivalent to and
falls somewhere in between the sounds /p/ and /b/ in English, which leads to receptive as well as productive
errors ’.
Part Three: Choosing resources for the learner (150 - 200 words)

o For each problem which you have analysed in part two choose one activity from a resource or
supplementary book (not your coursebook) that could help the learner address the problem.
o Explain your rationale for choosing these two activities.

E.g. Grammar
This activity would be useful to use as a controlled practice activity. It will help Thanh because before he
has to produce the articles orally he will have a chance to think about whether he needs to use the three
articles and complete the phrases about himself. Personalization will make the activity more memorable
and then when he tells his partner his statements in the oral practice they have to find any similarities
which will make it more meaningful. This group of students enjoy speaking in pairs so it is suitable for
Thanh and his classmates.

E.g. Pronunciation
This activity will really help Mariam with this problem area. First of all, learners have to listen and identify
which of the minimal pairs they here by circling – e.g. bin / pin – then they listen to the two sounds
separately so learners can start to identify the sounds before they do some drilling of the /b/ and /p/
words separately. Then they practice identifying the minimal pairs again with the teacher providing a
model. Finally, they get into pairs to do the minimal pairs activity again. This will help Mariam to
recognize and then produce the sounds more accurately.

Attach referenced copies of the activities you have chosen as appendices.

Include a list of references.

Assignment:

Part One: The class profile

The group that I’m currently working with is an elementary one. There are ten of them in total, all of
whom are Vietnamese. Their ages range from 18 to 42, but the majority are in their 20s.
It is intriguing to note that almost all students share a mutual interest in music, as 90 percent of them
reported being able to make sense of English lyrics as a learning goal. Some other common aims are
talking to friends and reading books in English. On the other hand, no student wishes to study overseas.
It is also surprising that even though reading English books is the target of most students, nearly none of
them is keen on learning via reading. Tasks such as picking up grammar or writing about favourite
characters in books are very unpopular among the group.
The skills that most students think they need help with are writing and listening. Many of them also
struggle with grammar and vocabulary.

Part Two: Individual learner

A) Learner’s background, prior learning experiences, classroom & learning preferences

Hai is a 42-year-old Vietnamese architect from Ho Chi Minh City. He is married with two sons. He gave up
learning English around 20 years ago after he left school, but recently he has attended several courses at
Apollo English center with the aim of communicating with his foreign partners and encouraging his sons
in their English learning.
Hai didn’t enjoy English classes when he was still in school, because his teachers mainly focused on just
grammar and writing. They didn’t include many interactive activities either, which rendered the lessons
boring and forgettable, according to Hai. He now loves learning English at Apollo. He particularly likes
games and group/pair work.
Hai prefers offline classrooms to online ones, as in physical classes, he can meet and communicate with
other students while participating in more fun activities.

B) Learner’s abilities

Reading
With short and simple texts, Hai can read and pick out the information quite fast to answer the questions
given. This may be because he has familiarized himself with a range of vocabulary at elementary level.
However, when it comes to more complicated reading tasks containing more advanced vocabulary, he
often takes quite long to locate the information, and usually needs the help of a dictionary to make sense
of the texts.

Writing
Hai can write at length. He can produce compound and complex sentences which are generally
grammatically correct. He also has a good sense of word order. He can put sentence components, such as
adverbs and auxiliary verbs, in their correct positions. He’s also well-aware of contraction forms, for
example “I’m” and “My name’s”. However, there’s one systematic spelling mistake that he makes. He
repeatedly spelt “and” as “anh”, a Vietnamese word, in his writing. This may be because the two are
homophones, and he’s more familiar with the latter one as it’s in his mother tongue.

Listening
Hai can understand and follow teachers’ instructions with ease, even with long and complicated ones. He
can also comprehend teachers’ and classmates’ questions without having to ask for them to repeat or
rephrase. Nonetheless, he doesn’t always excel at listening tasks. This may be because he is not good at
pronunciation. He mispronounces numerous words, including simple ones like “paper”, “stamp” or
“police”, which makes it difficult for him to recognize the words in the audio.

Speaking
Hai has good reflex, can respond without much hesitation and extend his answers without being
prompted. He is also quite good at finding ways to explain himself when he doesn’t know the exact
terms. However, his pronunciation isn’t as superb. He mispronounces a lot of simple words. This may be
because long ago when he was still in school, he picked up the wrong pronunciations, which have been
imprinted in his mind and are difficult to change. This can affect his communicative effectiveness.

C) Learner’s consistent errors

Grammar
Hai tends to use present participle instead of present simple verb form when talking about his daily
routine. E.g. “Sometimes I listening to video.” / “Sometimes I gardening with my wife at the weekend.”
Honey (1987: 244) states: “Vietnamese find English tenses difficult to understand, and this is the area in
which they make most mistakes of all.”

Pronunciation
Hai struggles to produce /ʃ/ and he often pronounces it the same way as /s/, which can result in
miscommunication. E.g. He pronounces ‘she’ as /si/; ‘English’ as /ˈɪŋɡlɪs/. As mentioned in Honey
(1987: 240), Vietnamese learners are likely to experience difficulties producing /ʃ/ sound, this is
because “The Vietnamese consonant system is very different from that of English, and there is
considerable variation between dialects.”
Part Three: Choosing resources for learner

Grammar
Activity: Worksheet 11: Daily Routine – “Reward Elementary: Resource Pack” by Susan Kay, published by
Macmillan Education

This activity will help Hai because he has to figure out which verb form he needs to use in present simple
sentences when talking about daily routine. Besides, it is a pair-work activity with a purpose of finding out
about each other, so it will keep the students engaged and build rapport between them. Also, Hai really
enjoys practicing his speaking skills, so this interactive activity will motivate him very much.

Pronunciation
Activity: Unit 32 Exercise 2 – “Ship or Sheep” by Ann Baker, published by Cambridge University Press

This activity will help Hai with the issue he’s having. First, students listen to a list of minimal pairs, such as
sip / ship or C / she, so they will become aware of the difference between /ʃ/ and /s/. Then they’ll do
some drilling of the /ʃ/ and /s/ words separately with the teacher providing models. After that, they will
practice identifying the minimal pairs again by listening to 5 words of each pairs and writing number 1 for
/s/ or 2 for /ʃ/ after each word they hear. This activity will help Hai recognize the two sounds and
pronounce them accurately.

References:

1. Learners – Vietnamese Speakers, page 240 & 244, by P.J Honey, published in 1987

2. Reward Elementary: Resource Pack (first edition), by Susan Kay, published by Macmillan Education in
1997

3. Ship or Sheep (third edition), page 114 & 115, by Ann Baker, published by Cambridge University Press
in 2006
Student’s writing:

“My name’s Hai, I’m an architect. I live in District 7 in Ho Chi Minh City. My wife is a
teacher. We have two Sons, they are students in VFIS school. They have a lovely dog with
white hair, she often goes out with them anh very exciting with it. I’m Learning English for
my job and for my Sons. You know, I have alot of projects that I have to do with foreigners
so I want to be better in my speaking, listening, anh writing. I hope that The Covid-19 early
to end for me to go to the Apollo Center and learn an offline class, where I can meet the
teachers.
I like playing tennis with my friends, playing football with my Sons and playing chess with
them. Sometimes I listen to music anh gardening with my wife at the weekend. We love our
garden very much. Sometimes We go to the beach for relax.”

Activities:

Worksheet 11: Daily Routine – “Reward Elementary: Resource Pack” by Susan Kay, published by Macmillan
Education:
Unit 32 Exercise 2 – “Ship or Sheep” by Ann Baker, published by Cambridge University Press: