CELTA Written Assignment 1:

Focus on the Learner

Part 1

The group of Elementary level consists of 12 students. All of them are Russian native
speakers, 4 men and 8 women, aged 20-47 (usually 6-10 students present). All students
have previous learning experience – most of them studied English at school and
universities. Some of them started learning English recently. The level of knowledge isn’t
equal. There are stronger and weaker students.

Students of the group represent the most active layer of the society: employed people
(managers, a doctor, an IT-specialist) and university students. The students’ interests are
varied (sport and fitness, travelling, reading, music). All of them have the integrative
motivation to learn English mainly with the purpose of work and travelling.

Speaking about students’ learning styles, they proved to be mainly visuals. They are more
successful during the activities if they have a visual support of the target language on the
board. Also they are usually not willing to change their places or move around the class for
mingling activities. There are also auditory students, thus it is important to cater for
people with different learning styles.

The interview showed that the first place among the preferred activities in the class
belongs to speaking (in groups, with a partner). The students are really active during all
speaking activities in the classroom, however there are some shy students. Of course, they
have problems with fluency and accuracy due to the lack of vocabulary and systematic
knowledge.

Students also like listening, writing and reading. Some of them don’t like games. Most of
the students don’t like grammar exercises, but all of them agree that they really need
grammar practice.
One more thing worth mentioning is that students come to classes after work and might be
really tired. That’s why all the activities must be active and involving.

Part 2

Analysing Sergey’s language abilities, I can say that he is a classic representative of

Russian high school approach to teaching English. He is 47 and he studied English at
school, at university and post-graduate studies. He knows a lot of items of English
vocabulary. He said during the interview that he didn’t have problems with translation.
But it is difficult for him to speak. He has problems with basic grammar and pronunciation.

Grammar

Successful language use

Sergey wrote:
Ella has been to English speaking countries.
(Sergey shows his awareness of Present Perfect tense: he doesn’t have problems with 3rd
person singular, uses correct preposition).

Error
CELTA Written Assignment 1:
Focus on the Learner

What the student said (wrote): “He don’t have lunch”.

What is wrong? Wrong negative form of 3rd person singular in

Present Simple.
Why did the student make the The student knows the third person form, but
mistake? made a slip while speaking. Since only the
third person is not formed with “doesn’t”, but
in general the auxiliary verb for Present
Simple is correct, the student has over-applied
the rule.

Vocabulary
Successful language use
Sergey said:

I’m a surgeon. (The student uses a special vocabulary item to speak about his profession.
Usually elementary students use the word “doctor”. Sergey also tried to explain the
meaning of this word to other students: I cut people with a special knife.)

What the student said (wrote): “Womans like buying clothes and mans like
buying cars”.
What is wrong? Wrong plural form of the nouns “woman” and
“man”, which are exceptions from the rule
Why did the student make the .
mistake? The student knows how to produce the plural
form of regular English nouns, he uses suffix -
s. The student has over-applied the rule.

Pronunciation
Successful language use
I work [wɜːk] as a doctor. I’m a surgeon ['sɜːʤ(ə)n] .
(The student doesn’t have problems with the sound [ɜː], “The sound [ɜː], which is not found in
Russian, causes Russian learners of English the greatest difficulty.” (“Learner English” by M. Swan and
B. Smith, CUP, 2001, page 146)

Error
What the student said (wrote): “They [zej] both [bəus] have stressful jobs”.

What is wrong? Student replaces sounds [θ] and [ð] by [s] and
[z].

Why did the student make the Sounds “[θ] and [ð] present major difficulties
mistake? and are often replaced by [s] and [z]”. (“Learner
English” by M. Swan and B. Smith, CUP, 2001, page
147).
CELTA Written Assignment 1:
Focus on the Learner

Part 3

I decided to focus on grammar and pronunciation mistakes, because they prevent the
student from accurate speaking. This is also the reason for choosing oral activities.

Grammar activity:
The main aim of the activity is to provide the student with additional oral practice of target
language. I designed the mingling activity, which contains vocabulary items familiar for the
student in order to concentrate his attention on grammar.
Procedure:
In the classroom I’d give the students a list of activities and ask them to interview as many
people as they can to find someone, who doesn’t do things from the list. After mingling
students report on the facts they have found.
Rationale:
The activity provides students with the possibility to mentally compare and analyse usage
of “do” and “does” in Present Simple. . The following report provides students with specific
practice of the form “doesn’t”:
Find someone, who doesn’t smoke. - Do you smoke? – No, I don’t. – He doesn’t smoke.

Pronunciation activity

Russian students often fail to produce the sounds that do not exist in the Russian language.
To explain to the students, how to produce the target sounds [θ] and [ð] and [s] and [z], I’d
use Adrian Underhill’s book “Sound foundation” (page 40). Moreover, I’d use minimal pairs
to help the students distinguish between the target sounds (Activity borrowed from Ann
Baker’s book “Pronunciation pairs”, pages 156, 160).
Aim: to provide students with practice of the pronunciation of the target sound and raise
student’s awareness of the fact, that pronunciation mistakes may change the meaning of
the word.
Procedure: students listen and repeat minimal pairs.
Rationale: “Ear-training: get students to listen to and distinguish words which have sounds
that seem to them very similar”. (Jim Scrivener, Learning Teaching, page 276).

Adult learners are often willing to have some training at home. For this purpose I’d use
tongue twister which target sounds:
Six thick thistle sticks
Aim: to provide student with additional practice of target sound articulation outside the
classroom.
Procedure: backchain drilling
Rationale: tongue twisters help to work on the particular sound.

Bibliography:

1. Learning Teaching, Third Edition. Jim Scrivener. Macmillan, 2011

2. Pronunciation pairs. Second Edition. Ann Baker, Sharon Goldstein. Cambridge
University Press
3. Sounds Foundation. Adrian Underhill. Macmillan Heinemann, 1994
4. Learner English, M. Swan and B. Smith, Cambridge University Press, 2001

Word Count: 1010 words