Students name: Natalia Nikolova

Students level: Entry Level.

Students Background and Learning Experience
The assignment is focused on a Bulgarian girl, Natalia. She is a part time Cleaner. Also, she
is an entry level student at Bromley College. She has never studied English on a language
course before because when she started to study languages in high school, she wanted to
study English, but had no choice because all her fellow students were studying German.
Sometimes she tried to learn on her own but it was difficult for her because she never had
any support. She seems to have a really good attitude towards the language. She makes
her own opportunities for practice.
Natalia told me that she also experiences difficulty understanding native English speakers in
everyday situations but is motivated to improve her receptive and productive skills.
Students Learning and motivation to learn English
From a very young age Natalia wanted to learn English and had a desire to travel and study
abroad. Besides this she likes listening to English songs and watching films as well; actually
it is the only way she practises her English: through songs, movies and reading. She needs
to develop reading skills once she is applying for jobs here in UK. She has failed a test due
to lack of reading skills, which made her concerned and motivated her to start studying the
language on her own. According to Ryan& Deci (2000) motivation is distinguished in:
Intrinsic motivation, which refers to doing something because it is inherently interesting or
enjoyable and extrinsic motivation, which refers to doing something because it leads to
a separable outcome.
We can conclude that she has both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation patterns.
The activities which the student enjoys most and benefits from in class
Natalia has some aptitude to becoming a good English language user. In class, although she
is not fluent yet she is totally able to participate, express her opinions and answers the
teacher as well. According to what she told me, pair and group work activities are crucial but
as she is really working on her pronunciation. She thinks the activities in which the teacher
interacts to student on a one to one basis is more helpful. As in St St activities, its humanly
impossible for teacher to listen to each and every conversation students are having in class.
She thinks more T-St activities should be conducted, as at her level only the teacher knows
the correct pronunciation.
Language skill problem the student is facing
In my observations, I determined she has:
linguistic intelligence: She has ability to understand both spoken and written
language both inside and outside the classroom.
visual/spatial intelligence: She prefers tasks with visual props and written component.
interpersonal intelligence: She learns by hearing and speaking the language, and
working in groups with other students.
She has some good writing skills, she has no problems with word order and she can
organize her ideas coherently. Outside of regular language classes, Natalia does not
have much opportunity to practise conversational English; She has developed some skills by

studying at home. This lack of practice was evident during the classes. Though her phrases
were generally well-structured they often lacked correct use of present tense(simple and
continuous).
In assigned activities, Natalia constructed following sentences:

My friend, she stay here UK.

I improve my English.

The first sentence my friend, she stay here, I advised Natalia that the correct sentence is
My friend is staying here in UK as in this sentence the action verb stay is present and ongoing. Therefore, according to rule, present tense of the verb to be and the present
participle (-ing form) of a verb is used. Similarly, instead of saying I improve my English the
correct form is I am improving my English.
In speaking activity Natalia constructed:
I like listen music.
My mother like talk on phone.
The first sentence I like listen music is incorrect because whenever we talk about things we
like we use present simple tense. The correct sentence is I like to listen music Similarly,
instead of My mother like talk on phone the correct sentence is My mother likes talking on
phone or My mother likes to talk on phone.
After conducting her activities, I realised Natalia is struggling with both present simple and
present continuous tenses and she really needs to learn the correct use of both these
tenses. So I taught her the basic difference among the two tenses: When we talk about facts
such as our likes, dislikes, habits, daily events or something that often happens, we use
present simple and when we talk about action that is happening at the very moment plus the
action is also ongoing we use present continuous. Later, I verbally practiced some examples
with Natalia and she started constructing better quality sentences such as I dont like fast
food and It is always raining in England.
Suggestion for improving the students grammatical skills
As for almost all beginners, her problem with present simple and present continuous tense is
clear. I provided her with notes and exercises from the book English grammar in use, 4th
Edition by Raymond Murphy" (page 4-5 for present simple and pages and pages 2-3 for
present continuous tense).
She mentioned, she likes working on Computer and enjoys online chatting, so I have asked
her to listen to online short stories with subtitles available on Youtube which could help her to
get used to the correct order of words and use of tenses in English. For problems in
Pronunciation, I suggested some online dictionaries which have audio available.
I also recommended her website links: http://www.englishforeveryone.org/Topics/VerbTenses.htm and http://www.englishpage.com/, the links present on these websites are
distributed according to grammatical topics and are easily understandable.
Following are the notes and worksheets I provided for later practice as homework:

References
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions, Richard M. Ryan
and Edward L. Deci, pg 55 (online ref: https://mmrg.pbworks.com/f/Ryan,+Deci+00.pdf)
http://www.englishforeveryone.org/Topics/Verb-Tenses.htm
www.teachingenglish.org.uk