Vicki Jade Stevenson

Learner Profile Background of the learner This assignment will investigate the areas of difficulty and needs of a learner of the English language. It will follow on to suggest some activities that the learner could use to improve these areas. The learner chosen for this study is Mara Jos Ramos from Cartagena, Spain. Mara is in her early thirties and has come to Swansea for 3 months to accompany her husband for work purposes. She has been in Swansea for three weeks and informs me of her sadness when she arrived in Swansea and realised she could not understand anyone. Mara studied English through primary and secondary school and has spent the last two years attending an English language school. When she returns to Spain she will enter the intermediate class at this school. Mara describes herself as shy and explains that she gains confidence when she gets on with someone; these traits are prevalent in her learning. In Maras writing task she tells us that she should speak to more English people. It would appear that her shyness prevents her from starting a conversation, however in her group at the moment Mara appears to have quickly gained confidence and when observing her at the end of week two in class, she was very involved with the class and one of the first to offer answers to questions. One of the reasons for Maras motivation on this course, could be a change in learning styles, up to the present almost all of her teachers have been Spanish and Spain still predominantly uses traditional teaching methods where grammar is given most of the focus, this would have especially been the case throughout Maras compulsory education. Mara states in her interview that she finds grammar boring and in her piece of writing she states that she started studying English because her parents wanted her to. It appears that when young Mara was not offered enough motivation to learn English, this might explain why her level of English does not match the level of someone that has been learning English for so many years. In conversation on various occasions I have heard Mara make simple mistakes like confusing his and her.

Analysis of specific language For this analysis I conducted a recorded interview with the Mara and asked her to complete a written task for me without the use of a dictionary or the internet. I also observed Mara in one of her classes.

Vicki Jade Stevenson

Pronunciation:

European Spanish speakers ... probably find English pronunciation harder than speakers of any other European language (Swan and Smith 1987: 73) Maras speech is very comprehensible; however her pronunciation has many errors that are common for the native Spanish speaker. The mere fact that nearly all of Maras teachers have been Spanish would inevitably also hinder her pronunciation. Most common pronunciation errors include o Confusion of /i/ and //. In Marias interview she pronounces beach as bitch, been as bin and repeat as repit. o Confusion of /b/ and /v/ Errors include pronunciation of very as bery and level as lebel. This error is due to the Spanish language only having one sound for /v/ and /b/. o Problems with the pronunciation of /s/ plus another consonant at the beginning of a word. Maras interview shows lots of occurrences of this error. The most common occurrences are Spain pronounced as Espain and studying as estudying. Speaking Marias speech is very hesitant and she takes time and thinks carefully about what she says. Maria appears to be translating from Spanish to English sometimes between the gaps in her speech. In her writing Maria explains that she tries not to translate from the Spanish language but in her interview we can pick up some of the literal translation from Spanish to English. She uses phrases such as I made an exam (hacer un examen), in Spanish you make an exam instead of taking one. She also gets very confused with giving her year of birth I was born in one thousand seven hundred this is also an interference from her L1. Other examples include studying English not exactly (estudiando ingles no exactamente) this is also a word from word translation from Spanish to English.

Vicki Jade Stevenson

Understanding spoken English Throughout my interview on a few occasions Mara did not understand the question I was asking. This was mainly my own fault as I pitched some of the questions at a higher level. When I simplified the questions Mara was easily able to answer them. Mara expressed that she is finding it difficult to understand the English accent but in class she appears to understand instructions without and major difficulties. Vocabulary Maras vocabulary is appropriate for her level and she shows no need for any correction in this area. During my interview with Mara her vocabulary was varied and appropriate to the situation. Mara however does have a problem confusing the prepositions to / at / in, her errors include but in this moment and Ive been to Swansea for almost 3 weeks. Grammar Mara demonstrates a good command of present and past tenses making no major errors and also manages to express herself correctly in the future, it is evident that Mara has studied a lot of grammar in the past and her sentence structure represents a good understanding of the structure of the English language. My only real concern in this area, is that during the interview Mara tended to leave out modal verbs when needed producing sentences such as o I like to meet more people (she misses out the would) o I like to be corrected (she misses out the would) Coe points out why modals are difficult for Spanish speakers Spanish and Catalan have only one category of verbs, and they all show the normal range of tenses... There is thus no separate category of modal auxiliaries... and learners find the concept... difficult to grasp (Swan and Smith 1987: 81). Using specific activities with the learner Pronunciation o Pronunciation is Maras biggest problem area. If I was her teacher I would focus a short period of every lesson on pronunciation. For the confusion of pronunciation of vowels like /i/ and // I would use a same activity like activity 3 in appendix a. This would enable Mria to be able to differentiate

Vicki Jade Stevenson

between the two vowels before progressing to practising them through lots of repetitions and drills. A similar activity could be devised for differentiating /b/ and /v/. A sentence construction activity like activity 18 in appendix one would be a good follow up activity to practice pronunciation after the difference has been recognised. Mara could also benefit from some lessons on phonetic,s so she could really understand the difference in speech sounds and be able to recognise which sound to use when with the help of a dictionary. Fluency, vocabulary and understanding spoken English Mara has already made the first step in improving these areas through coming to the UK and coming to our lessons. Suddenly she is surrounded by native English speakers and her hearing is getting used to all the new sounds that her former Spanish teachers have not presented her with. Picking up vocabulary has now become inevitable as she finds herself surrounded by labels in supermarkets, junk mail and free newspapers. If Mara keeps up tis motivation her fluency will inevitably improve on its own over time. I just hope that Maras shyness will not stop her from engaging with as many people as possible during her stay in Swansea. Mara could improve her English even more if she joined a social club, did some volunteer work or joined English corner. Going to the cinema, theatre or even listening to English music could improve her understanding of the language. Grammar As discussed Mara needs to realise where to use modals, and start to incorporate them in her speech. The problem with modals is that once you start to unravel them the ambiguity of the meanings itself is very complex. A fun way to start understanding and using modals is through storytelling. Celce-Murcia and Hiles (1988-55) give a good example of how to teach modals through storytelling. They give an example of teaching the modal must. To teach must you might tell a story about one of your students, Jose: Usually hes a very good student today he is gazing out the window with a silly grin on his facewhen I walk past his chair, I see Jos and Maria with little hearts, written all over his textbook. What can we conclude? Here let the class volunteer . Then continue: Obviously Jos must be in love. Write the sentence on the board, then tell another story which will elicit the inferential use of must. When you have sentences with which to work, draw attention to the relevant points .

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Story telling is a good way of keeping students engaged in class after this exercise students could be given sentences with must (or the modal you are teaching) in different contexts (You must go now, He must of got there by now) and ask them to deduct their meaning (Strong obligation, Strong Deduction). After this activity the teacher could get the child to write their own story using the modal concerned.

Bibliography Celce-Murcia, M. & Hilles, S. (1998) Techniques and Resources in Teaching Grammar. Oxford, Oxford University press. Swan Michael (1987) Learner English, CUP Dikerson, L. How can I improve my pronunciation skills? Available at http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/icct

Vicki Jade Stevenson