CAMBRIDGE CELTA

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 2: FOCUS ON THE LEARNER

The profile should consist of the following:
Learning background you should talk to your learner to find out about their educational
and language learning background. Write one paragraph on this and comment on how
you think your learners background affects their learning. For example, you could say
that because X studied only grammar at school they have little confidence speaking.
Learner style Observe your learner in class and note their reaction to different activities
(open class, pair work, group work etc.) and different lesson types (grammar, speaking
reading etc.). Decide what learning style your subject has. (You can refer to pp. 42 to
44 of The Practice of English Language Teaching (3rd edition) by Jeremy Harmer for a
description of different learning styles. Please reference this material, if you use it e.g.
Hedge, T. 2000. Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. Oxford University
Press.)
Language and skills During the first 10 days, observe your learner in TP and collect
information on their English language learning weaknesses and needs. You should
listen for problems with
- grammar
- vocabulary
- pronunciation.
You should also consider your learners ability in the following areas:
- reading - listening
- speaking - writing
You need to discuss all of the above areas, backing up your claims with a specific
example/examples. For example, X only uses the simple present when talking about
the future e.g. I buy ticket tomorrow which could be confusing for people she talks to,
particularly if the time marker tomorrow is not included. Alternatively, X reads very
slowly and seems very dependent on her dictionary. She needs practice in learning to
skim read so she can gain confidence in having understood the gist of texts before
focusing on detail.
To help you collect more information, you can also ask your learner to write something
for you (some biographical information or a story from their childhood) and you could
also record your learner when you speak to her/him individually.
Materials Select an activity (or activities) that will help your learner by meeting some of
the language and/or skill needs identified in the section above. (NB It is highly unlikely
that you can find a piece of material that will meet all your learners needs, so you will
need to prioritise which are more urgent or critical and find appropriate material.) The
material should come from a course book at the same level as you are using in TP, but
not from the TP course book itself. Say why you think this material would help your
learner. Please attach a copy of the material.
Total of 1,000 words maximum
Learning background
This assignment is focused on a young, Korean English language learner. From here onwards this
learner shall be referred to as Student A. Her learning background includes time spent at a language
academy in Korea. She also attended free English language classes in Korea. After this she travelled

to a predominantly English speaking country (NZ) for an immersion experience.

Her background affects her learning in the following ways. Student A comes from a country where
education is taking very seriously. To pass exams you need certain skills and in Korea grammar is
prioritised. Pupils have few conversation sessions and learn rules by rote. They become good at
textbook English but this sadly doesnt always correspond to the language used by native speakers.
Byung-Eun Cho has examined these issues in depth and asserts, Not only do they have difficulty in
understanding and using individual words, idiomatic expressions, allusions and historical contexts,
but they also find it hard to adjust to the different teaching methods. 1 Additional to rote learning other
Korean teaching methods revolve around listening, reading, observing and imitating. 2
Learner style
Student A has the aptitude to become a proficient English language user. She has a very positive
approach to learning tasks. She also meets the following categories outlined by Naiman, ego
involvement . high aspirations, goal orientation, and perseverance. 3 She meets a further criterion
that Rubin and Thompson discuss. This is that a student with a strong aptitude to learning must be
able to, make their own opportunities for practice. 4 Student A does indeed do this.
Tony Wright argues that all the learners in a classroom can be placed in one of four different
categories. Student A is of the oracular category. That is, she is a student who focuses on the teacher
but is more orientated towards the satisfaction of personal goals. 5
Using Keith Willings categorisation of learner styles, Student A can also be referred to as a concrete
learner. That is she very much likes the social aspect of learning and is a person who is more
interested in language use and communication rather than language as a system. 6 She for example
told me that one of her principal interests in learning English is making new friends and better
understanding the nuance of western culture.
Observing her during TPs I have seen her enjoying the social aspect of learning English. She enjoys
games and activities that involve pairs and group work. However she doesnt engage as regularly
during Ss T time.
Language and skills
She has some strong knowledge of the English language but needs to improve her language skills to
become a proficient user.

1 Byung-Eun Cho, Issues Concerning Korean Learners of English: English Education in Korea and Some
Common Difficulties of Korean Students American students. The East Asian Learner Vol. 1 (2) Nov. 2004.

2 Cheng, L.L. (1998). Enhancing the communication skills of newly-arrived Asian

American students. Retrieved from http://eric-web.tc.columbia.edu/digests/dig136.html Oxford Dictionaries
Website.

3 J. Harmer, 2007. The Practice of English Language Teaching (4th edition) Pearson Longman, p. 41
4 Harmer, 42.
5 Harmer 42.
6 Harmer, 43.

Her grammar knowledge is also limited. She, for example, struggles with describing the past,
commenting to me at one point one other thing that help me learn English is. This is incorrect, one
way to say it correctly would be to use the present perfect and say one other thing that has helped me
to learn English.
Her vocabulary is also limited. During the interview I conducted with her, for example, she struggled
at times to find the correct word. This was in contrast to her sometimes using complex words like
nuance. This is often because she doesnt know a word well enough, or at all, and has to think of a
synonym.
She also regularly confuses nouns in the plural and singular, for example she commented I like to
hear different story about their life, stories is the noun she is looking for here.
She also sometimes drops critical words and fails to complete the sentence. For example talking about
coming to class she said it a good opportunity to English. The verb learn would have completed this
sentence.
When speaking I noticed that Student A doesnt produce the consonant /f/ correctly. Thanking me for
a coffee, the word coffee sounded more like copy.
She also needs to work on her stress. For example when she used the following statement, I like to
hear story of their life, different story from my life I noticed that she used a strong stress on the vowel
// whenever it appeared. This made the words sound unnatural and had a roll-on effect on sentence
stress. She also pronounces words how they are written instead of using the schwa sound and rarely
links words or contracts words.
She needs to improve her listening skills. She sometimes struggles with detail. For her to understand I
had to speak slowly and clarify things at times. Overall in the classroom however she has been
performing well in gist and detailed listening tasks.
Her writing skills also need work, in an email exchange she wrote, Im finding a job these days. It
would have been better to use Looking for instead of finding because it indicates that the process is
still on going.
I have found that reading is one of her stronger areas. This is an area which has featured as a strong
component in her past learning. In class she has been mostly getting the answers right in gist and
detailed reading practice.
Materials
The exercise I have chosen for Student A comes from a John Eastwood book, Oxford Practice
Grammar (2006). I have prioritised this because this issue is one of the most glaring I noticed when
speaking to her. The exercise aims to practice and clarify the present perfect. It is a difficult language
point because it is used to tells us about the past and the present.
Outside of this Student A would benefit from classes or exercises that clarified and practiced new
vocabulary and revised words that she has encountered before. She would also find reading novels
that are written in simplified English very useful in developing her vocabulary. I havent attached
materials but will personally make these suggestions to Student A.
Bibliography
Cheng, L.L. 1998. Enhancing the communication skills of newly-arrived Asian

American students. Retrieved from http://eric-web.tc.columbia.edu/digests/dig136.html Oxford

Dictionaries Website
Cho, Byung-Eun. 2004. Issues Concerning Korean Learners of English: English Education in Korea
and Some Common Difficulties of Korean Students American students. The East Asian Learner Vol. 1
(2) Nov.
Eastwood, John. 2006. Oxford Practice Grammar. Oxford University Press.
Harmer, J. 2007. The Practice of English Language Teaching (4th edition) Pearson Longman
http://oxforddictionaries.com/
Scrivener. J. 2005. Learning Teaching (Second Edition). Macmillan