James Brooks

Assignment One: Focus on the Learner

Due Date: 21 July 2017

Assignment One

James Brooks

Due Date: 21 July

2017 at 10.00

Page 1 of 12
James Brooks
Assignment One: Focus on the Learner
Due Date: 21 July 2017

Table of Contents
Assignment One: Focus on the Learner ........................................................................................................ 3
Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 3
Strengths ................................................................................................................................................... 3
Weaknesses .............................................................................................................................................. 4
Selected Materials for Learner’s Use for Improvement ........................................................................... 4
References .................................................................................................................................................... 5
Grammar: Attributive Nouns (Noun Modifier/Noun Adjuncts).................................................................... 7
Grammar: Attributive Nouns (with answers) ............................................................................................... 8
Pronunciation: T-, D-, T-to-D tongue twisters .............................................................................................. 9
Punctuation (Explanation) .......................................................................................................................... 10
Punctuation (Practice) ................................................................................................................................ 11
Punctuation (Practice – answers in bold) ................................................................................................... 12

Page 2 of 12
James Brooks
Assignment One: Focus on the Learner
Due Date: 21 July 2017

Assignment One: Focus on the Learner

Introduction

José Miguel García Navarro, or José for short, is a 31-year old Spanish-speaking, monolingual pre-
intermediate student who is interested in entering the fields of programming/IT. José started learning
English in school for the last six years that he was there but had not used his knowledge of English
except during the class. The exception (which still holds valid) is his television watching habits, which
include American TV shows (such as Walking Dead) with Spanish subtitles. As José has not studied at a
university, he has never been on Erasmus or an extended period abroad and so has not used English
extensively. The closest he has come is visiting his sister in London twice, each for a two-week span.

José main interests in learning English are two-fold: primarily, for its own sake. Secondly, as many terms
relating to computers, networks, and the internet (of both personal and professional interest) are in
English, he is interested in learning technical vocabulary relating to technology. José has demonstrated
his interest in learning by always attending class and has yet to be late to a lesson. For a pre-
intermediate level, José is generally quite proficient in listening, speaking, writing, and reading. His
confidence level is such that he is not hesitant to share answers or what he is thinking, especially during
more tactile activities, which plays to his kinesthetic learning preferences.

Strengths
Vocabulary
José’s vocabulary, especially in terms of telecommunications, programming, computing, and gaming,
seems to be quite high. As José is interested in these fields, he is exposed to vocabulary from these
fields much more than the average pre-intermediate student. His studies included programming and
telecommunications classes, and his use of vocabulary, such as ‘television antennas,’ ‘receive,’
‘configure,’ ‘modifications,’ and ‘armor … weapons … quests…’ shows an elevated level of comfort when
speaking in a non-technical context about computing.

Grammar
Overall, José’s writing level is quite high for his level (pre-intermediate). José is able to write long texts
with very high accuracy and fluency in relatively short periods of time. While he makes occasional
mistakes, there are sometimes longer, complex sentences that exceed what is expected for pre-
intermediate students. For example, ‘I needed more time than the other students to do the programs
because I liked to write the lines of code ordered, since if you were wrong, it was a quite difficult to find
the error at the end and lots of times you needed to start again.’ This level of complexity, with the use of
connector words and the second conditional, is not expected for pre-intermediate (A2/B1) students.

Reading
Through his demonstration of understanding in class, a shortage of errors during reading
comprehension tasks, and his level of writing, one can infer that José’s reading level is also more
advanced than that of his peers. José has mentioned that he does not usually have problems with
reading and listening, especially the prepared texts that the students are given in class. My direct
experience with José’s reading skills was during a gist task which I set to the class to put a story in order,

Page 3 of 12
James Brooks
Assignment One: Focus on the Learner
Due Date: 21 July 2017
which he performed quickly and perfectly. Colleagues have also noted how fast José reads compared to
his peers and how accurate his answers usually are.

Weaknesses
Grammar
José’s writing in English has many influences from Spanish (his native language). A prominent example is
the use of the pronoun ‘of’ when using a noun-pronoun collocation (used in Spanish) rather than the
more natural attributive noun (noun modifier) construction in English, which is ‘a noun that modifies
another noun’ (McArthur, 1998). For example, José writes ‘course of programming’ rather than
‘programming course.’ Another example of the avoidance of the attributive noun is ‘...course of high
level…’.

Pronunciation
José’s pronunciation is something that he would like to work on as he feels he has an extra disadvantage
being Andalusian. While I do not notice much difference, that may be the case. However, what is
noticeable about José’s pronunciation is his addition of a weak vowel sound between a word that ends
with a consonant followed by another which begins with a consonant, especially with harder /t/ or /d/
sounds. This is more pronounced when he is not thinking about how he is saying something, but rather
what he would like to say, such as responding to a more complex interview question.

Punctuation
José also is heavily influenced by Spanish when it comes to punctuation, especially with the Spanish
tendency for long sentences that allow for several independent clauses to be joined by little more than a
comma. This carries over into his writing in English: ‘There are a lot of people that make modifications
for the same and they upload it to the network and you can download the as files, and install them in
your game and you can add new armors, weapons, new quests and a lot of things.’ This naturally sounds
ungainly in English which favours shorter, more concise sentences.

Selected Materials for Learner’s Use for Improvement

Grammar
Since José tends to shy away from attributive nouns when a descriptive noun-pronoun collocation is
possible (‘course of programming’ in his writing instead of ‘programming course’), I have prepared a
worksheet for José which forces him to use attributive nouns with nouns rather than noun-pronoun
collocations. Firstly, he is restricted to reorganise sentences that I have constructed for him in the
computing field.

Pronunciation
As José is a tactile learner, it is a good idea to have him practice physically when it comes to
pronunciation. Rather than writing a phonemic spelling of a word/sentence, repetition after the
teacher/an audio/etc. is more in line with his learning style. Therefore, I believe that the drilling of
tongue twisters would be beneficial for his pronunciation to remove this weak vowel sound. I have
prepared an exercise using a compilation of common tongue twisters that contain t’s, d’s, and groups of
words that begin/end with /d/ and /t/ sounds.

Page 4 of 12
James Brooks
Assignment One: Focus on the Learner
Due Date: 21 July 2017
Punctuation
To cut down José sentences from a Spanish length to a typical English length, I would give him an
explanation from Towson University (Maryland, USA) of typical sentence structures in English (simple,
compound, complex, compound-complex) which show a maximum of two independent clauses joined
together. Afterwards, José would have to add punctuation (commas and full stops) to individual
sentences and then to a short text.

Word Count: approx. 1,050

References
McArthur, T. (1998). Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Oxenden, C., & Latham-Koenig, C. (2011). New English File. Oxford: Oxford Univerity Press.
Redston, C., & Cunningham, G. (2013). face2face. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Smith, B., & Swan, M. (2001). Learner English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Swan, M. (2005). Practical English Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Page 5 of 12
James Brooks
Assignment One: Focus on the Learner
Due Date: 21 July 2017

Page 6 of 12
James Brooks
Assignment One: Focus on the Learner
Due Date: 21 July 2017
Grammar: Attributive Nouns (Noun Modifier/Noun Adjuncts)
1. Each sentence has been scrambled. Arrange the words so that they are in the correct order. Do
not add or remove any words.
a. Enjoy / role playing games / I
.
b. I / in Granada / a programming class / taking / am
.
c. digital communications / in / am / interested / I
.
d. you / for tomorrow / read / the gaming competition schedule / have
?
e. It / of / the “Elder Scrolls” saga / the fifth game / is
.

2. Identify attributive nouns in the following text:

In the programming department, you can find the printer in the break room next to the
computer room. Beware, the printer toner has often run out. If you need to replace it, go to the
supply room, which is on the floor above us, and you will see several industrial printer cartridges
lined up along the back wall. We are in an arms race with the human resources department to
see who can use the least amount of toner possible. It is a way of promoting company policy to
use as little paper as possible.

3. Pair work: You are a programmer who works for a programming company and a new person
who has been employed to be a member of your team has just arrived. Your boss has asked you
to give her a tour of the company, including the software, hardware, and human resources
departments. Tour guide: make sure to include information that she will need while she works
(server room, testing centre, break room, etc). New Employee: make sure to ask questions
related to human resources (documents that you need to sign [confidentiality agreement, tax
information, residency permit documents]) and questions about what is contained in each room
as necessary.

Reference: Self-Made. 2017.

Page 7 of 12
James Brooks
Assignment One: Focus on the Learner
Due Date: 21 July 2017
Grammar: Attributive Nouns (with answers)
4. Each sentence has been scrambled. Arrange the words so that they are in the correct order. Do
not add or remove any words.
a. Enjoy / role playing games / I.
I enjoy role playing games.
b. I / in Granada / a programming class / taking / am.
I am taking a programming class in Granada.
c. digital communications / in / am / interested / I.
I am interested in digital communications.
d. you / for tomorrow / read / the competition schedule / have / ?
Have you read the competition schedule for tomorrow?
e. It / of / the “Elder Scrolls” saga / the fifth game / is.
It is the fifth game of the “Elder Scrolls” saga.

5. Identify attributive nouns in the following text:

In the programming department, you can find the printer in the break room next to the
computer room. Beware, the printer toner has often run out. If you need to replace it, go to the
supply room, which is on the floor above us, and you will see several industrial printer cartridges
lined up along the back wall. We are in an arms race with the human resources department to
see who can use the least amount of toner possible. It is a way of promoting company policy to
use as little paper as possible.

6. Pair work: You are a programmer who works for a programming company and a new person
who has been employed to be a member of your team has just arrived. Your boss has asked you
to give her a tour of the company, including the software, hardware, and human resources
departments. Tour guide: make sure to include information that she will need while she works
(server room, testing centre, break room, etc). New Employee: make sure to ask questions
related to human resources (documents that you need to sign [confidentiality agreement, tax
information, residency permit documents]) and questions about what is contained in each room
as necessary.

Feedback given during monitoring

Reference: Self-Made. 2017.

Page 8 of 12
James Brooks
Assignment One: Focus on the Learner
Due Date: 21 July 2017

Pronunciation: T-, D-, T-to-D tongue twisters

Instructions: Repeat the following tongue twisters after the teacher. Then practice each tongue twister
with a partner five times. Make sure not to add or remove any sounds (such as vowel sounds between
consonants) that do not occur naturally.
1. A big bug bit a bold bald bear and the bold bald bear bled blood badly.
2. Mr Tongue Twister tried to train his tongue to twist and turn, and twit and twat to learn the
letter T.
3. He says that a two twice-twisted twine twisted twice twists twice as tight as a one once-twisted
twine twisted twice. But I say that a two twice-twisted twine twisted twice does not twist as
tight as a one once-twisted twine twisted twice.
4. A tree-toad loved a she-toad who lived up in a tree. He was a two-toed tree-toad, but a three-
toed toad was she. The two-toed tree-toad tried to win the three-toed she-toad’s heart, for the
two-toed tree-toad loved the ground that the three-toed tree-toad trod. But the two-toed tree-
toad tried in vain; he couldn’t please her whim. From her tree-toad bower, with her three-toed
power, the she-toad vetoed him.

Reference: Self-Made. 2017.

Page 9 of 12
James Brooks
Assignment One: Focus on the Learner
Due Date: 21 July 2017
Punctuation (Explanation)
1. A SIMPLE SENTENCE has one independent clause.

2. A COMPOUND SENTENCE has two

independent clauses joined by
A. a coordinating conjunction (for,
and, nor, but, or, yet, so)
B. a conjunctive
adverb (e.g. however, therefore)
C. a semicolon alone.
Punctuation patterns
A. Independent clause, coordinating conjunction independent clause.
B. Independent clause; conjunctive adverb, independent clause.
C. Independent clause; independent clause.

3. A COMPLEX SENTENCE has one dependent clause (headed by a subordinating

conjunction or a relative pronoun ) joined to an independent clause.
Punctuation patterns
A. Dependent clause,
independent clause
B. Independent
clause dependent clause

C. Independent, nonessential dependent clause, clause.

D. Independent essential dependent clause clause.

4. A COMPOUND-COMPLEX
SENTENCE has two
independent clauses joined to
one or more dependent
clauses.

Punctuation Patterns follow

the rules given above for
compound and complex
sentences (mixture of both).

Adapted from Towson University

Online Writing Support 2017. https://webapps.towson.edu/ows/sentences.htm

Page 10 of 12
James Brooks
Assignment One: Focus on the Learner
Due Date: 21 July 2017
Punctuation (Practice)
1. In this exercise, you will be given a number of sentences, only one of which is correctly
punctuated with commas. Select the correct sentence.

1 a) I really don't like blancmange, so I never eat the stuff.

b) I really don't like blancmange so, I never eat the stuff.
c) I really don't like blancmange so I never eat the stuff.

2 a) Once, the storm was over we were able to set sail for the lost island.
b) Once the storm was over, we were able to set sail for the lost island.
c) Once the storm was over we were able to set sail for the lost island.

3 a) Jill, a talented woman in the world of business decided to run for president.
b) Jill, a talented woman in the world of business, decided to run for president.
c) Jill a talented woman in the world of business, decided to run for president.

4 a) Given the terrible weather conditions it is surprising that the holiday was so enjoyable.
b) Given the terrible weather conditions, it is surprising, that the holiday was so enjoyable.
c) Given the terrible weather conditions, it is surprising that the holiday was so enjoyable.

5 a) India, a truly beautiful interesting and exotic country, is now a popular holiday destination.
b) India, a truly beautiful, interesting and exotic country, is now a popular holiday destination.
c) India a truly beautiful, interesting and exotic country is now a popular holiday destination.

2. Add commas and full stops to the following sentences.

a. The thief was wearing impractical high heels so she could not run fast.
b. We go to Blackpool for the cuisine not the weather.
c. Steven his head still spinning walked out of the office for the last time.

Adapted from Bristol University Faculty of Arts 2015.

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/grammar/grammar_tutorial/page_41.htm

3. Add correct punctuation and capitalisation to the following text:

winston is one of the most laid-back people i know he is tall and slim with black hair and he always
wears a t-shirt and black jeans his jeans have holes in them and his baseball boots are scruffy too he
usually sits at the back of the class and he often seems to be asleep however when the exam results are
given out he always gets an "A" i don't think hes as lazy as he appears to be

Adapted from University of Victoria 2004. http://web.uvic.ca/lancenrd/martin/weblang/weblang15.htm

Page 11 of 12
James Brooks
Assignment One: Focus on the Learner
Due Date: 21 July 2017
Punctuation (Practice – answers in bold)
4. In this exercise, you will be given a number of sentences, only one of which is correctly
punctuated with commas. Select the correct sentence.

1 a) I really don't like blancmange, so I never eat the stuff.

b) I really don't like blancmange so, I never eat the stuff.
c) I really don't like blancmange so I never eat the stuff.

2 a) Once, the storm was over we were able to set sail for the lost island.
b) Once the storm was over, we were able to set sail for the lost island.
c) Once the storm was over we were able to set sail for the lost island.

3 a) Jill, a talented woman in the world of business decided to run for president.
b) Jill, a talented woman in the world of business, decided to run for president.
c) Jill a talented woman in the world of business, decided to run for president.

4 a) Given the terrible weather conditions it is surprising that the holiday was so enjoyable.
b) Given the terrible weather conditions, it is surprising, that the holiday was so enjoyable.
c) Given the terrible weather conditions, it is surprising that the holiday was so enjoyable.

5 a) India, a truly beautiful interesting and exotic country, is now a popular holiday destination.
b) India, a truly beautiful, interesting and exotic country, is now a popular holiday destination.
c) India a truly beautiful, interesting and exotic country is now a popular holiday destination.

5. Add commas and full stops to the following sentences.

a. The thief was wearing impractical high heels, so she could not run fast.
b. We go to Blackpool for the cuisine, not the weather.
c. Steven, his head still spinning, walked out of the office for the last time.

Adapted from Bristol University Faculty of Arts 2015.

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/grammar/grammar_tutorial/page_41.htm

6. Add correct punctuation and capitalisation to the following text:

Answer: Winston is one of the most laid-back people I know. He is tall and slim with black hair, and he
always wears a t-shirt and black jeans. His jeans have holes in them, and his baseball boots are scruffy,
too. He usually sits at the back of the class, and he often seems to be asleep. However, when the exam
results are given out he always gets an "A". I don't think he's as lazy as he appears to be.

Adapted from University of Victoria 2004. http://web.uvic.ca/lancenrd/martin/weblang/weblang15.htm

Page 12 of 12