Focus on the Learner Essay Sample

For this assignment. I interviewed Maya. a 23 twelvemonth old Syrian pupil who had obtained her English Literature grade from the University of Damascus in Syria. She is presently in an Upper-Intermediate degree English category at the Higher College of Technology in the United Arab Emirates. As she is from Middle-Eastern beginning her female parent lingua is Arabic.

Turning up in Syria she was introduced to the English linguistic communication in primary school at the age of six. As schools merely focused on the lingual parts of English. they didn’t acquire to pattern much talking. Talking English came easier for her than reading and authorship after that reading became her new passion.

Maya moved to the U. A. E in 2010 where she was employed as a instructor. although her major was in English Literature. She mentioned that she likes learning and interacting with the kids. She loves watching films and listening to English music. She besides enjoys reading modern literature. Maya is diffident. but revealed that working as a Teacher helped her develop her societal abilities which gave her more assurance in bend. She informed me that she had ne’er travelled to an English speech production state before. but would wish to travel to England someday.

Maya’s motives for larning English are a combination of extrinsic and intrinsic 1s. She wants to better her proficiency in the lingual country for her professional development and sweetening as her calling directed towards Education. Her other passion being. reading English novels and watching English films. actuate her to better her linguistic communication accomplishments. Maya enjoys larning with ocular AIDSs and feels that she remembers things more this manner. She besides enjoys larning in a group and loves making research based authorship and synergistic activities. She prefers listening exercisings but is still more than able to get by with other manners of larning such as authorship. She feels that when she reads and writes she has more freedom as appose to the lingual portion of English where she is confined to the regulations of the linguistic communication.

Though Mayas’ phrases were by and large grammatical they were frequently halted and lacked eloquence and truth. she stated: “I don’t like things related to linguistics. I try to come on these failing points. because I don’t like them. ” Maya has good communicating accomplishments and a existent passion for larning and utilizing the English linguistic communication. She has good hearing accomplishments and she understood all my inquiries and answered them instantly. therefore she is more than capable of holding a conversation with a native English talker. Due to holding non-native English speech production Teachers in University. there were lexical. syntactical and phonological mistakes of the manner she spoke the linguistic communication. she said: “ Thus ( alternatively of this ) films mighd ( alternatively of might ) looks dull for some. but for me it is an inspirational and makes me dreamy of many things” . In general Maya had good vocabulary use but it seemed to me that she didn’t cognize how to utilize certain lexis in the right context. Her pronunciation was reasonably good. whereas her grammar use lacked apprehension of the verb tenses which is a common error with Arabic pupils. Her authorship lacked methodological analysis and eloquence and she found it hard to show herself.

Designation and Analysis of one chief linguistic communication trouble ( Grammar ) “When learning English to talkers of other linguistic communications. it is imperative that the instructor knows every bit much as possible about each student’s female parent lingua. This allows the instructor to derive an penetration into possible jobs that the pupils are likely to come across as a consequence of differences between English and other native linguistic communications. Arabic is from the Semitic linguistic communication household. hence its grammar is really different from English. There is a big potency for mistakes of intervention when Arab learners produce written or spoken English. Arabic has a three harmonic root as its footing. All words ( parts of address ) are formed by uniting the three-root consonants with fixed vowel forms and. sometimes. an affix. Arab scholars may be confused by the deficiency of forms in English that would let them to separate nouns from verbs or adjectives. etc. ” ( Teaching English to Arabic Talking Students: World Wide Web. usingenglish. com )

Area of Difficulty and Rationale for chosen activity

Maya has trouble with collocations. She uses phrases such as. “That thing it was progressed these twosome of years” alternatively of “… . it made me progress…” and “…puts me out of my shell” alternatively of “drawing me out of my shell. ” Having said that she is a ocular scholar and loves synergistic activities. I hence provided her with collocation exercisings from ecenglish. com where she can pattern finishing the phrases with the appropriate adverb. This will assist her become more natural and more easy understood. She will hold alternate and richer ways of showing herself.

Maya was asked to speak about her favorite film. she said: “two sisters that were old life in their house own by the sea…” Alternatively of stating. “ two old sisters populating by themselves in a house by the sea…” Maya enjoys ocular and custodies on activities. hence. I recommend an exercising from “How English Works” page 73 where she can pattern composing the adjectives before the topic. Maya besides makes a few verb tense errors. alternatively of utilizing the past tense she uses the present tense ( “it force me to see people…” alternatively of “it forced me to…” ) . She merely needs to revise her verb tenses. as a consequence I recommend her to utilize a verb tense tabular array where all the verb tenses with illustrations and when to utilize them are present. This will be easier for her to mention to and won’t overwhelm her with all the lingual regulations she dislikes.

Reasons for inaccuracy
Maya’s mistakes of utilizing the wrong order of adjectives and the topic are. accordingly in Arabic the topic is first so the adjective. There is a individual present tense in Arabic. as compared to English. which has the simple and uninterrupted signifiers. Arabic does non do the differentiation between actions completed in the past with and without a connexion to the present. ( “The differences between English and Arabic” by Paul Shoebottom – World Wide Web. hypertext transfer protocol: //esl. fis. edu/grammar/langdiff/ )

Designation and Analysis of one skill country of specific demand ( Writing ) Area of Difficulty and Rationale for chosen activity
Maya was given a composing undertaking and she chose to compose about her favorite film. “Ladies in Lavender” . The content was clear although she made some spelling mistakes such as. mighd and nothig. While Maya was composing down she confessed and admitted she found it hard to show herself on paper. It showed in her concluding piece where she lacked organisation in her ideas and composing methodological analysis ( composing schemes ) . Thus. I think she will profit greatly from a composing workbook. “Write Right: Transitions” which is an English authorship course of study designed for ESL/EFL pupils. This workbook contains composing exercisings including how to compose a formal paragraph. how to utilize punctuation and concurrences. and how to utilize passages and connections. As Maya is a instructor. it is necessary for her to utilize the methods of composing to learn her pupils in the schoolroom. Completing these composing activities will assist her discover connexions. discern procedures. raise inquiries. discover solutions and assist show herself more proficiently.

Reasons for inaccuracy
Mukattash presented an article at “The First Conference on the Problems of Teaching English Language and Literature at Arab Universities” which stated that: “First. university pupils continue to do some basic and frustrating mistakes in pronunciation. spelling. morphology and sentence structure. Second. they can non show themselves “comfortably and expeditiously either when covering with ‘academic topics’ or ‘common mundane topics’ ( 1983:169 ) . The students’ major trouble arises from the fact that they can non utilize English right and suitably either in the schoolroom or outside it when they are required to make so. This means that the trouble is related to the students’ lacks in communicative competency and self-expression. The students’ failure in utilizing English as a tool of self-expression to accomplish their communicative ends is due to the survey programs and methods of instruction ( 1983:169 ) . ”