Celta Focus On The Learner Assignment Pdf

[Armonia Bunda]

Ofthe four assignments that you need to write for CELTA, the focus on the learner assignment tends to require the most planning. Typically, this assignment consists of finding out about the background and needs of one or more students, identifying problems they have and suggesting relevant activities to help these students. As with other CELTA assignments, the exact details of the assignment will depend on the course provider.

The reason for picking a student who speaks a major international language is that the problems these speakers have in English are well-documented. I am however assuming that your students are not a monolingual group. It is not necessary you know their first language, and actually if it is obvious you have picked a learner because you know their language, the CELTA tutors may take a dim view of this.

You should also aim to get a writing sample from the student at the interview. You could ask them to do it ahead of the interview by asking them to write a letter telling you about their experience of learning English and what they would like to do with English in the future.

As well as interviewing the learner, you can also make notes when you are observing the group and when you are teaching. Note anything you hear them say wrongly (you can always analyse what the mistake is later) and difficulties they have with skills.

As with focusing on one learner, if you have a choice, try to choose students with major international first languages. You still want to set up your interview as soon as possible and prepare your list of questions.

In lessons, you still need to note the errors you hear them make and issues that they have with skills. Remember, you are also comparing the students, so you should consider whether these issues are common to both.

It is fairly easy to phrase questions to get answers to these questions in an interview or on a survey. However, remember that if the student is low level you may need to word questions in a way that they can respond easily. With higher level students, you may want to ask these questions in a more open ended way to get them to talk more. You may want to script your questions to save time rephrasing them in an interview.

The book Learner English (Smith & Swan) is invaluable here. This book looks at the problems that speakers of certain languages have when learning English. Reading the section that relates to your student(s) therefore will give you plenty of issues to write about.

Your centre will tell you how many issues you need to write about. It may specify that you need to write about issues related to each of the three knowledge areas (grammar, lexis and pronunciation) and the four skills (reading, listening, speaking and writing). Alternatively, it might tell you to pick two key problems that the student should work on. Obviously, the more areas you are required to provide problems for, the less you are required to write for each problem.

Solution: A list of minimum pairs containing /b/ and /p/ is included in the appendix, e.g. beach and peach. I would use these to test if the student can actually hear the difference between these sounds. Through regular testing, the student should get better at hearing the difference. When the student can do this, I would use these words to drill the student in producing these sounds.

Having to learn about a completely new language may seem a bit scary but it is good training for your future career as an English teacher, and a great way to learn new things about languages around the world.However, not everyone will have to do this as it is not always logistically possible.

Some key questions to consider here are:Are they learning English for the first time as an adult or have they been learning English right through from school?If you are asked to focus on a group of learners (Type 3), try focusing on students who show difference or contrast to the majority, while also describing the main group of learners.

In terms of referencing, you should refer to texts and books at relevant points, but not all the time; just a couple of clear and consistent references or citations should be enough here.If you are not sure about referencing, I have written more on this in the following posts about the writing style for the CELTA assignments and also on saving time on your CELTA assignments.

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... Well, after a 9-hour bus trip I am in Tbilisi to do my CELTA. Tomorrow (6th June) is the first day of the training, which is going to take place in International House Tbilisi, 5 minutes' walk from the flat we rented with one of the trainees. After a short city walk and "khingali party", I need to take a good sleep before the first day.

After a 15-minute break, we have been taught Welsh (10:30 - 11:45) in order to experience how the learners feel when they are being taught a new language. I found it very informative and horizon-broadening.

Having had lunch, we observed one of the tutors teaching and got a chance to interview few students (13:00 - 15:00) to get general idea about them: how they feel, why they learn English, likes and dislikes etc.

In the next stage, after a feedback session, we started to plan our lesson for tomorrow under assistance of the tutor - Manana (15:30 - 17:00). I am going to teach "regular and irregular verbs" in 40 minutes on Tuesday.

Sorry all, I couldn't manage to update daily. As the course is really intennsive. Not that no time for anything else, but you should live with that - thinking about lesson plans, assignments. It is already end of week 1, I learned a lot. Spent all the weekend to write Assignment 1 and plan the lesson for the next week. For those who are willing to take the CELTA, do not hesitate, you will never regret. Thank you all, I'll try to keep updating in followin days/weeks.

We have already delivered 3 successful lessons (TP - Teaching Practice). On each lessons we receive a list of feedback containing "well done!" points and "action points" to work on. The course is very educative, everyone feels that considerable change in their teaching skills and knowledge.

We had to write a 750-1000-word assignment on Language Analysis by Monday, 13 June. It turned out most of us have to resubmit the assignment with particular changes. The 2nd assignment is focused on a chosen learner (learning background, styles, motivation etc.) and we have to submit it by next Monday, 20 June.

Week 2 is over. I taught my TP4 on Thursday, that was definitely the best one out of 4; nice to see the progress ! For next Monday we write Assignment2 (Focus on the Learner) analyzing a learner and suggesting solution to improve. I also have to plan my TP5 for Monday, so another "nice" weekend. Tonight we might taste some Georgian wine with friends and charge batteries for next week.

Another strong (grammar) lesson (TP6) today ! Although I finished 5 minutes early, it went smoothly. Assignment 2 (Focus on the Learner) should be resubmitted with slight changes and additions. 2 more TPs and 2 more assignments ahead.. Everyone seems tired and stressed with a lot of work, but it's enjoyable as well.

Week 3 is over. I taught a successful listening lesson on Friday, and we wrote Assignment 4 (self-reflection) in the classroom within 2.5 hours. The weekend is again dedicated to an assignment (Assignment 3) and lesson plan for those who teach on Monday. My last lesson is on Wednesday, 29 June. The stress has gone and been replaced by sadness of reaching the end of an amazing experience.

PART A

Learning Background

Hamza has attended the English training facility for six months. Hamza is currently attending the ITI Institute. He knows Arabic and French as his native language, L1 and L2. Hamza has never travelled, studied or lived abroad, but aims to visit the USA or UK to expand his business after becoming affluent in English.

The student wants to learn English because he understands the importance of communication and considers English as the main source of communication. He believes that globalization has provided him with the opportunity to expand his family business in the global context and hence, he is inclined towards the acquisition of the English language. The reason that account for the business expansion in the global market is the example of extrinsic motivation due to its adherence towards the long-term monetary benefits, whereas, the reason related to the expansion of familial business in order to support family and contribute in the strengthening of the familial business accounts for the extrinsic motivation (Benabou and Jean 492).

The students is focused on the business opportunities and is considered to be highly motivated due to his focus on his future development. The observation during the communication activities indicated that he tends to share his information about the prevailing opportunities related to the business and talks about his future business objectives, which eventually indicates his firm motivation to understand the international language to achieve his business related objectives.

The kinesthetic learning style is considered as the dominant style to facilitate learning within the group due to the fact that it enhances the learning ability by providing the students with the activities in which they can communicate, reminisce and enhance their working memory. The kinesthetic learning style incorporates the learning activities in which drama, role-play and debate are conducted in groups due to which students become highly involved in the activities and learn the expressions and feelings behind the sentences and words. In this way, the students gain confidence and become adept at remembering the sentence structure and vocabulary (Reid 97). The variations amongst the individual members is not observed because the student is found to be engaged in the learning activities with his respective partners due to which his communication skills enhance and he develops confidence during the personal communication. The student is found satisfied with the current learning style due to the extent of involvement and practice with peers which eventually provides the learning and supportive environment to the learner.

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