Celta Assignment 1 Focus on the Learner Vincenza Russo is a twenty six year old from a small island, Ischia,

which is part of Italy. She recently graduated from university, November 2012, with a degree in architecture. Her first language is Italian, but she has also studied both English and French. She has studied French for two years while completing her degree in architecture, and studied English in both primary and secondary school. She recently moved to the UK in order to study English, as she views it as necessary for gaining employment in the field of architecture. She would like to find a job in either England or China as, in her opinion, there are no jobs available in Italy. While she is currently enjoying the English course that she is attending there isnt any one aspect of English that she finds particularly easy. Activities that she enjoys during class are listening to texts, participating in discussions with the other students, and writing. However, she does find listening to the teacher a little difficult, which she admits is caused by the teacher talking a little too quickly. Her learner style appears to be a mixture of auditory and kinaesthetic, with perhaps a little more leaning towards auditory learning. When she is away from class she practises English by watching news and documentaries on the television, and also by talking to her landlord, who is an English teacher. An auditory learner likes the teacher to provide verbal instructions as well as participating in dialogues, discussions and plays (http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articles/learning-stylesteaching) (originates from the work of Dr's Bandler, R. and Grinder, J. in the Field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming). During class, this can be supported by including whole class and peer discussions which would support Vincenza since she will have the opportunity to hear the target language used not only by her peers but also by herself. As well as using audio texts, we can add this auditory aspect into every task through asking students to discuss their answers with each other after a task and prior to whole class feedback. Outside the class, Vincenza is already participating in activities that naturally lend themselves to her learning style, as has been mentioned above. She can also be supported by listening to podcasts that are available from radio stations such as the BBC. An example is that the BBC runs a series of podcasts dedicated to learning such as 6 Minute English and English At Work (http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/genre/learning). There are also news and documentary podcasts available (http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/genre/news), which should be enjoyable for Vincenza since they are programmes that she finds interesting. Writing is an aspect of the kinaesthetic learning style, and since Vincenza has expressed that she likes writing tasks in class, it will also be important to support this aspect of her learning style. To stimulate this kinaesthetic aspect, we would look at tasks such as writing and playing games. So, to help her become a more successful learner, we could some writing tasks such as postcards and emails and then move on towards more formal letters, which might be required for her career as an architect. With these writing tasks, we can also incorporate auditory support such as peer discussion and also brainstorming which would stimulate both aspects of her learning style. To support her outside the class it might be possible to get her to practise writing by pairing her up with one of her classmates and encouraging them to send emails to each other to practise their English. If someone from within the class cannot be found to take part in such an activity with her then she could look for a fellow Italian expat to communicate with from a website such as InterNations (http://www.internations.org/london-expats/italians).

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