Sei sulla pagina 1di 3

Assignment 1

Name of the learner: Anas Mogbal

Focus on the Learner

A-Background, motivation and learning style The student I have chosen to focus on is one of the slow learners in our class. Saudi by nationality, twenty years of age, he is going to leave for Hungry after summer vacation since he has got admission to one of the medical colleges there. This is quite challenging for him with so weak an English background. However, one thing I have found very encouraging about him - he is motivated both intrinsically and extrinsically. Not only does he know the global importance of English language, but is also very mindful of its need for his medical profession. So, while talking about his perso nal goals with English, he told that he wants to be a good listener, fluent speaker, quick reader, and impressive writer. During the interview he mentioned that his father has been to different European counties and he speaks English and Spanish very well and he gives him every support to attain proficiency in communicative skills. As a student, he started learning English at elementary level and continued up to secondary school. During this time he also took help from a private tutor. When he was aske d why he was not so good at English even after studying for so long a time, he pointed out that all teachers who taught him English were those whose mother tongue was Arabic. As for his strengths and weakness, he claimed to be good at listening and readin g. However, speaking and writing are the areas where he needs a lot of improvement. And this is why he is studying at British Council. While expressing his feelings about learning English and English-language culture, he was very happy at British Council because for so long as he remains there, he finds himself in an English speaking environment. Paradoxically, he said that he enjoys English culture at British Council or outside Saudi Ara bia, but he would not like to see it in Saudi society. Finally, he told that outside the classroom, he does not find ample opportunities to speak English. Occasionally, he has an English talk with his father or with people at some restaurant. However, he spends some times watching English news channels, like BBW and CNN, but he is not able to make much out of them. He also uses internet to practice English skills, but he does not know the specific English websites. From his interview, I have assessed that this learner is neither too introvert or too extrovert. He is too submissive and polite to ask for clarification even when he is not clear about something. Judging on the criteria as given in one the of input sessions, the learner b elongs more to the kinaesthetic style because he does the activities on the paper very well. While doing visual and audio activities, he feels a little bit confused and embarrassed.

B- Language Competence and recommendations for improvement During his interview and in his written assignment, Mr. Anas, my focussed learner, committed a lot of mistakes involving pronunciation and grammar. As required in the guideline, two areas from his identified problems have been chosen /p/ and /b/ sounds for Pronunciation, and Subject -Verb Agreement for grammar. Pronunciation
A joke: Once an Arab in the US wanted to park his car. He asked one of the Sergeants, Can I bark here ? What? , said the Sergeant. The Arab said again, Can I bark here? Baffled, the Sergeant said, Yes, you can if you want to .

The learner had problem with /p/ and /b/ sounds that is very common in Arabic speaking community. Actually, there is no alphabet for /p/ in Arabic language and, therefore, the learner confused it with /b/ sound. In his interview, he pronounced passport as bassbort Even in his written assignment, he wrote Park as bark . (Extract provided by Mr. Taufique in the input session) Bernard Smith, in his article Arabic speakers , specifically alludes to this problem by saying /p/ and /b/ are allophonic and tend to be used rather randomly . (Learner English, Edited by Michael Swan & Bernard Smith pp 144). In order to address this problem, I myself designed an activity having two par ts. In first part the focus was on the distinction between /p/ and /b/ sound. The learner was asked to complete the words with p or b letters in the sentences so that he should have some context to do this activity. The second part focussed more on /p/ sound. The learner was asked to press the lips and push the air out to pronounce P correctly. Grammar In his written assignment, Mr. Anas wrote, The capital have more barks and British Council Riyadh . This indicated that he has a problem with subject-verb agreement. This is also a common problem at elementary level with the Arab students. To help the learner to overcome of this problem in various situations, an exercise in agreement of subject and verb was selected from Junior English Revised by Hayden Richard (OUP) pp.76. In this activity, the learner had to complete the sentence by choosing the correct word from the pairs given in parenthesis to agree with the subject. After going through this activity, the learner had an awareness of singular and plural subjects, and to use verb accordingly. As for verbs, he was to choose is or are, verb with s and without s, was or were and has or have, and does or doesn t. There were a few sentences which were challenging to the learner such as in Either Or and Neither Nor. After this activity, I asked the learner what was the problem with British Council Riyadh . This

time he identified the problem that is was missing in this sentence. So indirectly, he got awareness that after the Subject, Verb should be there. I would frankly admit that I have never done a diagnostic activity like this ever before in such a systematic way. This would not have been possible had we not received guidance in the input sessions. This is definitely a stepping stone and it tends to go a long way in our teaching career. It is here the power of CELTA lies in. Books consulted: 1. Learner English edited by Michael Swan and Bernard Smith (CUP) 2. Learning Teaching by Jim Scrivener (Machmillan Books for Teachers) 3. Junior English Revised by Hayden Richard (OUP) Websites: 1. Howjsay.com 2. Scribd.com

Potrebbero piacerti anche