JUNE 25, 2014

INTERNATIONAL HOUSE LONDON

Marie Willoughby

ASSIGNMENT ONE
RE-SUBMIT
CELTA 5

Word Count: 988 words

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Assignment 1

This assignment will give a short introduction about the students

background and their learning styles and more. The following table
illustrates students names, nationalities and their reasons for studying
English:

Nationali What do you want to do in the What do you think you are
Name ty future? good doing in English?
Get a better job through learning
Alessandra Italian English Reading and Grammar

Work in the Office (Charity

Gerald German organization ) Reading
Dodo Congolese Do MA in politics Grammar
Open a studio design (Furniture ) in
Giuseppe Italian London Reading and Grammar
David Spanish Have a better job in the UK Grammar
Do a degree in UCL , UK in
Xuhui Chinese reproductive Reading
Medicine
Eliana Brazilian Work for Audit especially in ISO 2020 Reading
Ramona Rumanian To be a Social worker Writing
Do a degree in UCL , UK in cultural
Li Chinese heritage Reading and Grammar
Javier Bolivian Get a better job Listening
Learn English to get a better job and
Milena Peruvian do my BA Pronunciation
Ecuadoria
Patricio n Study my BA Listening
Become fluent in English to get a
Laetitia French better job Reading & Writing
Fernanda Brazilian Become good in English and find a job Nothing!
Alex Rumanian Find a job , stay in the UK forever Understanding what people sa

As for students ages, they range from their mid twenty to late thirties
and beginning forties.
As shown in the table above , most of them are doing the course in order to
get a better job or to continue their studies either back home or in the UK.

In order to identify students needs a survey has been conducted by five

teachers.
The survey included students period of learning English, language spoken,
interests, strengths and weaknesses in English and what they want to study

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in class and how long have they been learning English for.

Learning styles and preferences

In order to identify students learning styles and preference, I

conducted a survey, asking students how they learned best. Most of the
students were Auditory for example; eight students out of 15 wanted to learn
English through listening like Dodo, David , Ramona.etc. while the rest of
the class varied from visual to Kinaesthetic or tactile.

All learners liked to have a variety of methods to help them remember

language points eg. Seeing rules written on the board, having them explained
by teacher and taking home an explanatory sheet, as well as doing gap fill and
other activities in class. Since most of the learners expressed a preference for
working with a partner. Five said they like to learn both individually and in
groups.

Through observing the class for the last two weeks, I have come up with
some strengths and weaknesses that most of the students share in general.
Although the class is a mid-intermediate level, there are several students who
do well for their level such as li, Fernanda, Alessandra and Alex because they
are able to comprehend and communicate easily. Also, the students are
supportive of each other, they encourage each other to talk and correct one
another without any conflicts or sensitivities.

Where some of them find the course a bit challenging such as Javier,
Patricio and Milena as they are much shy then the rest of the class and it is
difficult for the teacher to identify their weaknesses. Their main strength is the
use of range of lexis. Although these students are mid-intermediate but they
know most of the vocabulary due to the fact that most of them are from
European countries and as a result the same lexis is used mainly or partly in the
English language. Since these languages (Italian, Spanish and French are an
Indo-European languages directly descended from Latin for example words like,;
my Family, ma familai, difficult difficle etc.

Also, in terms of the receptive skills which are (Reading and listening), a
number of students such as David, Alex, and Fernanda etc. were able to
comprehend most of what they read or listened too. According to the survey
seven students reported that they are good in reading such as Li, Eliana,
Giuseppe..etc.

As for weaknesses the main weakness that I would like to priorities is

mainly pronunciation as some of the students cannot make a difference
between / / and / / which most of the Italian, French, Spanish, German and
Chinese make in the classroom. For example, laetitia says* do you sink?*, Sun
says * I dont agree with this /sinks/ instead of things.

As a result, I am providing students with a listening task that will help

them tackle some of the pronunciation problems they have. It is from a
handbook of English pronunciation by Hooke and Rowell. In the worksheet, they
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Assignment 1
will listen in order to notice the different sounds and then I will visually show
them the sounds using the phonemics.

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Another weakness that I would like to shed light on is using the helping verb to
make the verbs positive and negative using (do, does and did ) for example
Ramona says* if not eat meat * and Alex says * Im not like football, , laetitia
says *no worry* , Alessandra says *it depend*. As a result, I am providing
students with a task that would help them in order to improve their fluency and
accuracy in speaking.

As a result, I am providing the students with a worksheet that offers

examples for each activity and after that I will role play some of the activities
in the worksheet which will provide them with ample practice to overcome
some of the mistakes. The task is from English Grammar in Use (a self- study
intermediate book) which is above their level but the activities will help
students digest the information in small chunks.

Conclusion:

In future I will give adequate time to different activities that will help students
concentrate on areas that they are specifically at. This will build student
confidence and learner autonomy.

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Bibliography

A handbook of English pronunciation by Robert Hooke and Judith Rowell (1982)

Edward Arnold (Publishers) LTd

English Grammar in Use a self-study reference and practical book for intermediate
students with answers by Raymond Murphy (1994) Cambridge University Press

Learner English by Michael Swan and Bernard Smith (2001) Cambridge University Press.