Focus On The Learner

Focus on the Learner

Part A

To complete this assignment , I decided to interview Denise Caitano, a 25 year old Brazilian student in the Elementary English class. Denise moved to England 1 month ago to get married to her Albanian boyfriend who she met on the Internet 3 years ago. She is learning English because she wants to be able to live in an English - speaking country and moreover to communicate effectively with her boyfriend who doesn`t speak Portuguese.

Denise`s first language is Portuguese and she started studying English only 6 months before moving to England, however she was familiar with the written language, used on the daily basis to talk to her boyfriend online. To express her words in English and establish a connection with her future husband she used to utilise the "Google translator".

Denise said she likes to learn English by speaking, listening to music and working with friends, that indicates she is predominately an auditory learner. Auditory learners can remember quite accurately details of information they hear during conversations, enjoy talking to others and enjoy music.

Talking to Denise I noticed that she mispronounces many words e.g. "mind" as /mɪnd/ rather than /maɪnd/ or "buying" as /bu:ɪÅ

She often pronounces the vowels in reduced syllables fully when these vowels should have a schwa vowel sound e.g. /mÊOðer/ rather than /mÊOðÉTr/. That`s because Brazilian/Portuguese doesn`t have a reduced vowel sound such the schwa that is prevalent in spoken English.

Her productive skills are lacking in several ways. She has a very limited vocabulary . She often refers to her Portuguese - English dictionary during the lesson. During our conversation, her boyfriend answered to my questions in more than one occasion because she wasn`t able to verbalise and she was visibly getting frustrated.

Denise omits auxiliary verbs in negative forms. She said "I no more like Brazil" . Moreover the quality of her written grammar doesn`t surpass that of her spoken grammar. I asked her to write a short composition about her country, however I suspect she used the "Google translator" to construct the majority of the sentences. She started the composition with this sentence: " Brazil to me is and the country alive more because of its overwhelming effect at a profound and moving contact , to be treated like a human being to be opened".

Part B

Grammar activities

Denise has trouble with the correct sentence construction and syntactic arrangement of words in a sentence and phrase. She has difficulty understanding and using the basic word order.

e.g. " Brazil to me is and the country alive more"

I would use the attached activity from the book, The New English File by Clive Oxenden, to give Denise practice in using the sentence construction by putting the words in the correct order. This activity is suitable for Denise because she needs to get familiar with the correct words position in a sentence.

While checking the answers, I would write the form on the board highlighting subject, verb, object and preposition , to give the student the information she needs to understand the correct structure of the sentence.

After that , I would ask Denise to talk to her partner using the phrases formed in the previous activity. This activity is appropriate for Denise because involves constructing the basic word order of a sentence (Subject - verb - object) . In addition it suits her learning style, auditory learners enjoy talking to others and remember information heard during a conversation.

In addition she is very confused about present simple negative structure.

e.g. : " I no more like Brazil"

To help her to comprehend the usage of present simple and its negative structure, I would use the attached activity from the book, The New English File by Clive Oxenden, to give Denise practice in using simple present tenses and their negative forms.

While checking the answers, I would highlight the positive and negative form on the board, underlining and drilling the relevant features e.g. " I speak Italian well, I don`t speak Italian well " etc.

To reinforce the target language, I would ask Denise to work with her partner and change all the positive sentences ,found in the previous exercise, into negative sentences and vice versa.

Pronunciation activities

Denise has difficulty pronouncing a large number of words. That`s mainly because she tends to pronounce the words the way they are spelled. When a person learns to speak a second language some aspects of their native language interfere with the pronunciation of the new language. The influence of Portuguese phonological system interferes with Denise`s production of sound in English.

Denise`s main issue is the mispronunciation of the /aɪ/ phoneme produced as /I/ in words like child, kind, buying ect. Denise would pronounce the letter i as /I/ either in words where the /ai/ phoneme is required. This mispronunciation can be seen as a result of speaker using the rules that she uses in her native tongue to convert from written string of letters into spoken string of sounds that make up the words.

To improve Denise`s pronunciation of the /aɪ/ phoneme and make her to compare and comprehend the difference between the /ai/ and /I/ phonemes I would use the attached activity from the book Ship or Sheep by Ann Baker . I would set up this activity by playing from a CD a list of words including both sounds /aɪ/ and /I/ e.g. like, kind, hill, him, mind, his ect . I would ask students to listen to the words from the list played from the CD and write them down. After they have finished, students can compare in pairs what they have written and afterwards I will give students the correct answer and I would write the words on the board , highlight the difference between the /ai/ and /I/ phonemes and drill them.

I chose this activity because its aim is to make a clear distinction between /aɪ/ and /I/ sounds in English words containing the letter /i/ in their spelling. This activity is relevant for Denise because it suits her auditory learning style by listening to the correct words pronunciation and comparing and discussing her answers with her partner.

Another pronunciation issue for Denise is the schwa vowel sound.

e.g. /fÉ':ðer/ instead of /fÉ':ðÉTr/

To understand the concept of word or sentence stress, student also needs to be aware of the characteristics of unstress, which include the occurrence of the schwa. Helping Denise to notice the schwa won`t necessarily lead to an immediate improvement in speaking skills or natural sounding pronunciation, but it will raise her awareness of an important feature of spoken English. In addition if the learner expects to hear the full pronunciation of all vowel sounds, she may fail to recognise known language especially when listening to native speakers.

To introduce the schwa in context I would use the fast dictation activity. I would tell the students to write what they hear, then I would play from a CD some sentences including language recently studied in the class. After playing the sentences students can compare in pairs what they have written. Then I would play again, while students make changes and additions, before a final comparison with their partner. Next I would invite individual students to write the sentences on the board, while others offer correction. At this point I would say the sentences again naturally, then point to the schwa on the phonemic chart and get them to repeat the schwa sound.

I chose this activity because auditory learners like Denise learn best by hearing information and like working with other people during a task. In addition, by providing listening material that uses the voice of native speakers auditory learners can develop a very good accent being more sensitive to pronunciation and intonation than others.