Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults Written

Assignment 1

Focus on the Learner

Rusiru Kalpagee Chitrasena

CELTA (Part-time) Trainee- The British Council, Colombo

4th May 2014

Contents
1. Learners Background
1.1. The Group
1.2. The Selected Learner

01

2. The Learners Strengths

02

3. The Learners Weaknesses

02

4. Meeting the Learners Needs

4.1. Grammar: like+ -ing form
4.2. Writing: Brainstorming and Planning to improve relevance in writing

03

5. Bibliography
04
Appendices
Appendix A: Sample Questionnaire
Appendix B: A Sample of the Learners Written English (Essay)
Appendix C:Selected Grammar Activity
Appendix D: Selected Writing Activity

05

1) Learners Backgrounds1
1 This section of the assignment is based on: 1) a questionnairesurvey(see
Appendix A) among the learners; 2) a subsequent interview with a selected learner
and 3) the teaching practice observations.
2

1.1.

The Group:

All the learners are elementary level young adults (between 16-21years) of Sri Lankan origin and
have Sinhala or Tamil as their first language. They are still in full-time secondary or postsecondary education. Though these learners have learnt English at school from an early age, their
past language learning experiences seem to have not helped them due to the lack of a languagerich learning environment with a communicative focus. At the same time, they have little
exposure to English outside the classroom and few opportunities to practice English in real-life
situations. Their reasons for learning English reveal that the majority is extrinsically motivated
by the dominant role of English as a language of education, employment, international
communication, opportunities and social status. The learners are different from each other in
terms of their intelligence-types but the majority has active or passive experiential learning
styles. In the questionnaire, many have mentioned their preference for games, oral
communication, pronunciation, and group/pair wok in English classes.As per my observations,
their strengths are grammar and reading, while many find listening tasks difficult. Although they
have a positive attitude towards learning, they still largely depend on the teacher due to low
levels of learner autonomy.
1.2.

The Selected Learner

Geeth, a 17 year old school student from Kottawa, is a native speaker of Sinhala. Like many
children from families with upward social mobility, he receives a great deal of support,
encouragement from his parents to improve English. While he shares most of the characteristics
stated in Section 1.1, it was felt that his intrinsic motivation is stronger than the extrinsic factors
of his motivation. Geeth is a kinaesthetic-interpersonal learner withan active-experiential
learning style. He activelyparticipates and frequently interacts during pair/group work. Though
he appears confident when he speaks, he still needs to work on his grammar and vocabulary.
However, his positive attitude will help him improve his English, if he receives sound
pedagogical support and opportunities to practice English regularly.
2. The Learners Strengths2:
2These sections are based on an analysis of the learners spoken and written
language.
3

Language
area
Grammar

Speaking

Pronunciation

Strength

Explanation

Using basic
conjunctions to
connect ideas.
Asking interesting
questions to
obtain personal
information.

Geeth has used but and because in his essay (See Appendix B) to
connect ideas.

Pronouncing the
weak form/ schwa
of an (/n/)

During the drilling session in Week 1, he grasped the weak form of an

before most of the other students. According to Scrivener (2005:292), a
common feature of student English is a failure to do this [the weak form]
giving each word in the sentence equal time in the rhythm.

After the first lesson, he had an interesting conversation with me. He tried
to keep the interaction going with his questions. His discourse
management skills were clearly above the elementary level.

2. The Learners Weaknesses2:

Language
Area
Grammar

Weakness

Explanation:

Use of the verb

like (i.e. like+
noun, like + -ing)
to talk about
preferences

He used the verb, like incorrectly a number of times:

e.g. I like to watching films. (Essay)
I like to English language. (Questionnaire)
I like speaking my family. (Questionnaire)
This seems to be caused by L1 syntactic interference which makes the
difference between gerunds, infinitives and transitivity of the verbin English
confusing to the learner.3

Writing

Pronunciation

Tendency to
deviate from the
topic given and
focus on
irrelevant content
Pronunciation of
some consonant
clusters e.g. /sn/
and /kl/

In his essay, instead of writing about watching films as a hobby, he talks

about two of his favourite films. This tendency, which is probably due to not
knowing and thinking about what to write4, could impede his ability to meet
the communicative requirements set out in writing tasks.
He omitted the initial [s] in [snek]. He inserted the short vowel [] to assist
the pronunciation of the initial word cluster, /kl/ in /kls/. According to
Schackle (2002:231), the narrow range of consonant clusters in native
languages leads many South Asian learners to simplify consonant clusters.

3. Meeting the Learners Needs:

3.1.
Grammar:
3 Although he once inaccurately uses the like+to-infinitive form in the questionnaire
(i.e. I like speak my family.), he uses it accurately at times (e.g. I like to
communicate with (Questionnaire) and I like to see Indian film. (Essay).
4Hedge (2001) considers it a classic stumbling block that can be solved by
brainstorming and planning before writing.
4

Source: Things you love and hate in Eales, F., Cunningham, S. & Moor, P. (2005). New Cutting Edge
Elementary- Teachers Resource Book. Essex: Pearson Longman, p.123 and 126.

This activity will address the learners issue with the verb, like. In this activity, the learner will
consolidate and practice like+noun and like + -ing forms to express likes and dislikes. The
context will be set by asking the learner/s three things they like/hate to do. The target language
will be presented using a marker sentence with focus on meaning, pronunciation and form. In the
practice stage, after distributing the worksheet, the learners will mingle to find others who
likes/dislikes the items in the worksheet. The learners will then work in pairs and tell each other
what they found about their colleagues. Finally, the learners willshare some of their findings
with the group using the target language in their sentences. This activity will help the selected
learner practise the use of the TL in a natural and communicative context. The activity is
appropriate for their level because it has been designed to supplement their course book. At the
same time, Geeth has a somewhat negative attitude towards grammar, and gamification will
make grammar a pleasurable experience for him (Kapp, 2012).
3.2.

Writing:

Source: My Country and Languages in Hannock, M. & McDonald, A. (2008). English Result
Elementary: Student's Book. Oxford: OUP. p.34

In this controlled writing activity, the learner will write a short paragraph about his country and
languages, after gatheringthe ideas and useful language for the task. Areading task will set the
context, and the learner willthen brainstorm information about his country and languages. After
completing two language-related tasks, the learner/s will then write a paragraph about their
country and languages. The learners will then review their passages individually at first for
punctuation and capitalization problems. Then, the passages will be peer-reviewed. Raimes
(1983) and Silva (1990) emphasise the usefulness of controlled writing in low-level EFL
contexts, mainly because they empower the learner in terms ofcontent and form to perform better
than they would have done on their own. Designed using controlled and process approaches to
writing, this activity will help the improve relevance in writing by manipulating a model as well

as by gathering language resources and ideas in the pre-writing stage. This activity is suitable for
elementary learners because it is from another recently published elementary course book.
Word count: 1018
Bibliography:
Books:

Eales, F., Cunningham, S., Moor, P. (2005). New Cutting Edge Elementary- Teachers Resource
Book. Essex: Pearson Longman.
Hannock, M., McDonald, A. (2008). English Result Elementary: Student's Book.1st.ed. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Harmer, J. (2004). How to Teach Writing. 1st. ed. Essex: Pearson Longman.
Hedge, T. (2001). Writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kapp, K. (2012). The Gamification of Learning and Instruction.1st.ed. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.
Raimes, A. (1983). Techniques in teaching writing. 1st. ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Scrivener, J. (2005). Learning Teaching. 2nd.ed. Oxford: Macmillan Education
Shackle, C. (2002). Speakers of South Asian Languages. In: M.Swan, (Ed). Learner English, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, pp227-243.
Silva, T. (1999). Second language composition instruction: Developments, issues, and directions in ESL.
In: B. Kroll, (Ed). Second language writing: Insights for the classroom, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, pp11-23.
Van Ek, J., Trim, J. (1998). Waystage 1990. 2nd. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.