1- Age is the major factor in a teacher decision about how and what to teach.

According to the
age students have different needs, competences and cognitive skills. For a teacher is
extremely important to know about the different types of learners because theory is central
to have a basis to start. Teachers also have to know, or at least to have an approximation to
the approaches and methods to teach. We think there is no a perfect method, but there are
a wide range of methods which a teacher can apply. The teacher has to take into account
age basically, motivation, previous knowledge, intelligence (different kinds) and, of course,
context.
That knowledge can help the teacher to teach in more effective ways. Because there is no
a “right” way to teach. There are strategies and approaches that help teacher, also some
methods will be better than others, but all are tools to take advantage.

2-
Age Characteristics
They respond to meanings.
Very young learners They often learn indirectly.
10 – 11 years old Their understanding comes from
what they see and hear or have a
chance to touch or interact with.
They have limited attention span.
Young learners. They find abstract concepts such as
12 – 13 years old grammar rules difficult to grasp.
They are keen to talk about
themselves.
Adolescents Greater ability for abstract
thought.
Most of them understand the need
for learning.
They need to feel good about
themselves and valued.
Teenagers often have an acute
need for peer approval.
They are able to discuss abstract
issues
Possible activities
Games.
Puzzles.
Songs.
Drawings things.
Making things.
Physical movements.
Dialogues.
Question-and-answer activities.
Matching exercises.
Material has to involve topics
which they can react to.
They must be encouraged to
respond to texts and situations
with their own thoughts and
experiences.
Activities for contrasting ideas
and concepts.

Adults They can engage with abstract Games and songs can be
thought. appropriate for some students.
They have a whole range of life
experiences.
They have expectations about the
learning process.
They tend to be more disciplined
than other groups.
They often have a clear
understanding of why they are
 learning and what they want to get
out of it.
They can be critical of teaching
methods.

3-
Teachers need to teach to the group as a whole, but at the same time, they want to satisfy
the many different students in the class, taking into account their individual characteristics
in order to produce the best result.
It is important to recognize how different students are, so the teacher can choose the
appropriate methods or strategies to apply during teaching. That can be find out throughout
observation or by formal techniques. For example teachers can ask their students about
their learning preferences in questionnaires or try to find their tendencies by using specific
tests.
A worthy element to consider is the intelligence and the way it has been studied through
the theories. For example, if we go into Howard Gardner´s theory and realize there are many
different styles of thinking, we can take strategies that let us to teach all the class and, at
the same time, give opportunities to those who prefer visualization or physical movement.

4-
The individual needs and behavior profiles will change according to various factors like
age, motivation, context, etc.
We can mention motivation. There are different sources of motivation: external like the
society we live in and context, the people around, goals, etc, and internal factors.
If we consider age the motivation is not the same in an adult or a children. Most of adults
want to learn because their own reasons, while most of children are made to study.

5-
We consider aptitude tests are very useful because they are a first approximation to the
student´s reality. Of course, there are a lot of systems to measure the aptitude. According
to what we have read, an aptitude test is referring to natural abilities. But some critics think
that test only consider a specific abilities that can benefit some persons and harm others.
That is because they consider tests are focused only on grammar or other specific tasks that
not everybody are able to manage. Other critics say test may discriminate the “least”
intelligent students. Nevertheless, we consider tests a valuable tool to bring a previous idea
about the student, just like other elements a teacher can observe during the class or
watching student´s interaction. According to what we have said, those are elements that a
teacher will take to determine the way to follow in her/his labor.

6) _ We consider that a ‘good language learner’ should have the next characteristics:
 Is willing and accurate guesser
 Is willing to make mistakes and learn from them
 Practises as often as possible
  Analyses his or her own speech and the speech of others
 Attends to whether his or her performance meets the standards he or she has learned
 Tries to get a message across even without the complete language knowledge

These are the characteristics that we consider the ´good language learner’ should have but we also
consider that not all language learner will follow these characteristics to letter, and also than we
can consider like a ‘bad language learner’ to those who not have these characteristics because not
all students learn in the same way and of course in the same time.

7) _ a)
 Convergers: these are solitary students, prefer to avoid groups, they are analytic and can
impose their own structures on learning.
 Conformists: they tend to be dependent on those in authority, doing what they are told.
 Concreate learners: they are like conformist, but also enjoy the social aspect of learning.
They like language use in the communication rather than language as a system. They enjoy
work in groupwork in class.
 Communicative learners: they are mucho more interested in social interaction with other
speakers of language than are with analysis of how the language works. They are perfectly
happy to operate without of a teacher.

b) _ we consider us like ‘concreate learners’, because most of us are conformist, but we enjoy
the work in groups at the same time.

8) _some people are better to do something than others, that’s mean that people respond
differently to the same stimuli. All this suggests that exist an individual variation in the way that
every student learn. There are two models which have tried to account for such perceived individual
variation, and which teachers have attempt to use for the benefit of the learners. They are the
‘Neuro-Linguistic Programming’ and the ‘MI Theory’.

a) _ Neuro- Linguistic Programming: this models says that we use a number of ‘primary
representational systems’ to experience the world. These are the VAKOG (Visual, Auditory,
Kinaesthetic, Olfactory and Gustatory). All persons use these systems to experience the world,
nevertheless, have one ‘preferred primary system’, some people are stimulated by music
(preferred primary system is auditory) for example.
NLP gives the teachers the chance of offer student’s activities which suit their primary
preferred system. It shows how teachers can operate in the C-Zone (the zone o congruence)
where teachers and students interact affectively. NLP also use techniques such as ‘three-
position thinking’, to get teachers and students to see things from other people’s points of
view so they can be more effective communicators and interactors.

MI Theory: MI stands for Multiple Intelligences. Howard Gardner suggested that we don’t
possess a single intelligence, but a range of, at least, seven ‘intelligences’. These are:
 Musical/rhythmical
 Verbal/linguistic
  Visual/special
 Bodily/kinaesthetic
 Logical/mathematical
 Intrapersonal
 Interpersonal
Every person have all these intelligences, but in each person on or more of them is more
pronounced. For example, a scientist will have a strong Logical/ mathematical intelligence.
Gardner also has added an eighth intelligence called ‘Naturalistic’ (the ability to nurture and
relate information to one’s natural surrounding).
The theory of the MI suggested that the same learning task may not be appropriate for all
students. Teachers cannot teach to each individual students of a class at the same time, but
teachers could plan lessons around one or more intelligence.

b) There are many activities that a teacher could use in classroom in order to work successfully
with all the systems and intelligences of their students.
‘Storytelling and narration and writing stories’ could be used for verbal/linguistic intelligence. ‘Hear
and sing sons’ for musical intelligence, ‘describing pictures’ for visual/special, ‘working in groups
with practical works’ for interpersonal intelligence, ‘writing essays or autobiographies’

for intrapersonal intelligences, etc.

9) _ Realised about the individual differences of the students mentioned above, as teacher we want
to satisfy every student in our classroom with activities that satisfy all the individual differences and
produce the best results for each of them. Our tasks as teacher will be establish who are the
different students in our classroom and recognize how they are different, for this we use the
observation or in another formal devices like questionnaires with items, or some activities.
As results we will have information about individuals, then we will be in a position to try to
organise activities which provide maximal advantage to the many different people in the classroom.
These variety of activities will be given in different times and moments in the class (as we see in
answer 8-b, describing pictures, working in groups, storytelling, etc.), which means that not all
students ‘will be happy all of the time’. There will be some students that enjoys it and find more
useful than others. But if we are aware of this and act accordingly, will have the chance that most
of the class will be engaged with the learning process the most of the time.

10) _ The ‘Common European Framework’ (which is a document that setting out what students ‘can
do’ at various levels) and ALTE (Association of Language Testers in Europe) describe the different
levels sequence: A1 and A2: elementary, B1: pre-intermediate and intermediate, B2: upper-
intermediate and C1 and C2: advanced.
This ‘can do’ levels are being used by coursebook writers and curriculum designers, not only in
Europe but across much of the language-learning world.
It is important for the teachers to know about this ‘can do’ levels to avoid many problems with the
student’s learning. Students must learn certain goals according with their levels. So, teacher must
know this ‘can do’ levels to setting achievement goals, and organise the activities and exercises
according to the correct level that their students possess.
11) _ motivation is some kind of internal drive which pushes someone to do things in order to
achieve something. William and Burden suggest that motivation is a ‘state of cognitive arousal’
which there is ‘sustained intellectual and/or physical effort’ so that the person can achieve some
‘previously set goal’.
In discussions of motivation an accepted distinction is made between extrinsic and intrinsic
motivation. Extrinsic motivation is the result of any number of ‘outside’ factors, for example the
need of pass an exam. Intrinsic motivation comes from within the individual.