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Language Learner Profile

English Methodology II

Students: Nidia Gil

Anna Luna

Teacher: Astrid Guerra

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INDEX

I. Language learning strategies framework .…………………... 3

II. Learner’s background …………………… 4

III. Interview ……………………………… 5

IV. Transcription ……………………………... 7

V. Phonetics analysis ……………………………… 7

VI. Grammatical analysis ……………………………... 9

VII. Lexis analysis …………………………….. 11

VIII. Lesson plan .………………………….... 13

IX. Lesson plan evaluation .…………………………… 16

X. Conclusion .…………………………… 17

XI. References .…………………………… 18

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Language Learning Strategies Framework

For many years researchers have tried to find the best alternative to learn the

English language and since it is a difficult language to teach in our country it becomes a

real challenge to choose the suitable strategies for each kind of learner. According to

O’Malley and Chamot (1990) the learner strategies affected in a positive manner when

they are used. These strategies help our studies to understand more easily what they

are learning, because they involve several techniques to understand the new content.

In this report we are going to analyze different aspects of the learning strategies

through an oral interview. Firstly we are going to set up the context of the learner: where

she lives, where she studies and her perceptions about English, basically to know more

about her background. Secondly, we do an interview about her likes and dislikes, daily

routines and food, from which we are going to take certain mistakes to analyze. Thirdly,

we select the principal errors of the interviewee and we analyze them grammatically,

phonetically and lexically.

We base our analysis on Chamot, Barnhardt, El-Dinary & Robbins (1999) and the

structure they propose, which contemplates five stages. Firstly, in the preparation phase

the teacher provides students with activities which will prepare them to develop the

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following task. Secondly in the presentation stage the teacher presents the new content

and provides examples to clarify doubts that can emerge during the lesson. Thirdly,

students practice what they have just learned through meaningful activities and

exercises. Fourthly, in the evaluation stage the teacher asses what the students did in

the previous stage, this can be done in many ways either self-evaluation or co-

evaluation. Finally, the expansion is a stage designed for activities that can be done in

future lessons related to the main topic.

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Learner’s Background

Melanie Torres is sixteen years old and she lives with her parents and siblings.

She is in her second year of high school in Aurora de Chile College. She lives and

studies in Chiguayante. She has been learning English since elementary school, where

she was taught the basic English.

Her English level is strongly influenced by many factors, either inside the

classroom or outside. Currently she has 3 hours of English per week (3 modules of 45

minutes). She considers herself very interested in this language, particularly because

she usually listens to music and watches movies in English. In addition to this, she

spends a lot of time in the computer, being exposed to a wide variety of English sources

from social media.

She is one of the outstanding students and it is remarkable to say that when

hearing spoken English she explains that she can get the main idea of the message

without knowing every word. She has very good marks in the subject, even though she

has never taken a course of English.

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Testing

Taped Interview

I: interviewer

S: student

1 I: Hello

2 S: Hello

3 I: What’s your name?

4 S: My name is Melanie

5 I: Can you spell your name?

6 S: Yes, M, E, L, A, N, I, E

7 I: Ok, How old are you?

8 S: I’m sixteen years old

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9 I: And where do you live?

10 S: I live in Concepción, Chiguayante

11 I: Ok, How many brothers and sisters do you have?

12 S: I have two brothers and one sister

13 I: What does your father do?

14 S: My father is (an) electrician

15 I: What does your mother do?

16 S: My mom work at home

17 I: Ok, now we are going to talk about daily routines, What time do you get up in the

morning?

18 S: I get up at seven o’clock

19 I: What time do you go to school?

20 S: I go to school at seven thirty

21 I: Ok, do you walk to school?

22 S: Yes, I walk

23 I: And what do you do at the weekends?

24 S: I listening to music and go out with my friends…eehm cooking and

checking my facebook

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25 I: Ok, how many hours do you spend on facebook?

26 S: I spend six hours …on facebook

27 I: Ok, now we’re going to talk about food, what’s your favorite meal?

28 S: My favorite meal is chocolate and French fries.

29 I: And what do you usually have for breakfast?

30 S: eeehm bread eehm bread and butter and milk

31 I: Ok, now we’re going to talk about likes and dislikes, what is your favorite subject at

school?

32 S: My favorite subject is biology

33 I: Why?

34 S: Because is very important for my future studies

35 I: Ok, you like music, right?

36 S: Yes

37 I: And what type of music do you like?

38 S: Ehhm Pop, bachatas

39 I: Why?

40 S: Because I dancing with…with those

41 I: Ok, do you like movies?

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42 S: Yes

43 I: And what kind of movies do you like?

44 S: I like comedy movies

45 I: Why?

46 S: Because is very fun

47 I: Ok, what are your favorite computer games?

48 S: Ehhm… The Sims... is my favorite

49 I: Ok, Thank you

Transcription

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//a l sn ŋ tə mju z k ənd gə a t w ð ma frendz (eehm) k k ŋ ənd ek ŋ maɪ ˈ ɪ ɪ ˈ ː ɪ ʊ ʊ ɪ ɪ ˈ ʊ ɪ ˈʧ ɪ ɪ

fe sv k//a spend s ks a rs n fe sv k//ma fe v r t m l z kəle t ənd fren fra z//ɪ ʊ ɪ ɪ ˈ ʊ ɒ ɪ ʊ ɪ ˈ ɪ ɒ ɪ ɪ ɪ ˈʧɒ ɪ ʃ ˈ ɪ

(eeehm) bred (eehm) bred ənd b rər ənd m lk//ˈ ʌ ɪ

Analysis

Phonetics analysis

Commonly, high school students do not deepen on phonetics and we found that

this is crucial if we want them to acquire a better pronunciation and understanding of

spoken English. Melanie’s pronunciation is good according to her level of English. It is

very easy to understand her due to her simple vocabulary and her clear pronunciation.

However she mispronounces some vowel sounds basically because in Spanish we have

5 vowels and all of them are strong, while in English there are 6 strong and 6 weak

vowel sounds. She as a Spanish speaker is not familiarised with this wide variety of

sounds. This is clearly seen in the following samples.

In line 20 we can see the use of the vowel sound / / instead of the vowelsɪ

sound / /.ɜː

Word Student’s Pronunciation Correct Pronunciation

Thirty θ rtˈ ɪ ɪ θ tˈ ɜː ɪ

In line 28 she uses the diphthong /e / instead of the short vowel / /, making theɪ ɪ

last syllable of the word longer.

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Word Student’s Pronunciation Correct Pronunciation

Chocolate kəle tˈʧɒ ɪ kəl tˈʧɒ ɪ

In line 32, biology is pronounced almost like the Spanish word by joining the

vowels sounds / / and / / instead of the diphthong /a / and / /.ɪ ɒ ɪ ɒ

Word Student’s Pronunciation Correct Pronunciation

Biology b ləɪˈɒ ʤɪ /ba lə /ɪˈɒ ʤɪ

Line 34 shows a typical mispronunciation, where the short vowels sound / / isʊ

used instead of / /. These cases are just a confusion of sounds that can be easilyʌ

corrected making use of drilling exercises.

Word Student’s Pronunciation Correct Pronunciation

Studies st d zˈ ʊ ɪ / st d z/ˈ ʌ ɪ

In line 24 we can notice that the consonant /b/ is replaced by /v/. This case

commonly happens to ESL students because of the speed and fluency of the speech.

Students tend to shorten words and change elaborated sounds for simple ones.

Word Student’s Pronunciation Correct Pronunciation

Facebook fe sv kɪ ʊ fe sb kɪ ʊ

Grammatical analysis

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Generally speaking, Melanie does not show lots of grammatical and syntactical

mistakes. For producing answers she tends to rely a lot on her Spanish structure, which

is very different from the English one, causing the following mistakes.

Use of tenses

Firstly we focus on the incorrect usage of tenses during the interview. In the first

case there is an inaccurate use of the verb “work”.

“My mom work at home.”

This is because she uses the plural form instead of the 3 rd singular of the verb

work. The correct answer would be “My mom works at home”.

Another mistake that she committed is the use of the present continuous form of

a verb to talk about a certain activity.

“I listening to music and go out with my friends.”

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In this case, the correct answer would be “I listen to music and go out with my

friends” because we are talking about an activity that she likes to do, not about

something that is currently happening.

Another case that calls our attention is a sentence which also has a problem with

tenses

“Because I dancing with... with those”

Firstly there is a problem with the verb dancing because it is expressing a

continuous action happening at the moment of speaking. The correct answer would be

“Because I dance with that music”. She confuses the continuous tense with the present

simple tense to talk about her likes and dislikes.

Missing words and Pronouns

Another issue that we noticed is the omission of certain words and pronouns.

Another central point that we analyzed in relation to grammar errors, was the

omission of some words, especially pronouns.

The first problem that we found was the omission of the article an before a noun.

“My father is electrician”

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The correct answer would be “My father is an electrician”. This mistake is caused

by the interference of Spanish in English. Normally in Spanish we don’t use pronouns

before nouns as in English. For Example if we say this in Spanish it would be “Mi padre

es electricista”. We can notice that there is no need of an article.

Another mistake that we found is the omission of the pronoun it before the verb to

be.

“Because is very fun.”

The correct answer would be “Because it is very fun”. This answer is not

grammatically correct because there is no subject. She is talking about something fun

but she doesn’t mention what it is. This mistake is also caused by the interference of

Spanish in English. In spoken Spanish we can omit the subject and it would sound

correct whereas in English it sounds wrong.

Lexis analysis

Melanie made herself clear, however sometimes her answers are not according

to the question given. She answered what we ask but in some cases her answers were

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not what we were expecting because they were not appropriate for the context of the

question.

“My favorite meal is chocolate and French fries”

In this sentence the word chocolate is out of context since it is not exactly a meal.

Perhaps, she thought that we were asking for food in general. Basically the problem lies

on a vocabulary issue since Melanie didn’t know the meaning of the word meal.

Lesson Plan

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Content area: Vocabulary Topic: Food and Traditions

Grade: 10th grade High School

Objectives

Content knowledge skills: Learn specific English vocabulary related to food and drinks

Learning strategy: Using grouping/deducing to facilitate learning and knowing the

meaning of new vocabulary.

Procedures

Preparation

Provide Students with a strategies questionnaire and that asks them which one of

those is suitable for them in order to learn vocabulary and meaning.

‘‘Today we are going to talk about food and traditions from different places in the

world. For a start, we are going to focus on how we can learn new words related to

food and traditions and their correct meaning. Complete this questionnaire by

numbering from the one you like the most to the one you like less (1 to 5). If you

have other strategies for learning vocabulary write them down. Share your answers

with a classmate when you are finished. ’’

Presentation

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Present the strategy grouping and explain what it is consisting of.

‘‘Today you are going to learn about the strategy grouping, which is helpful for

remembering and understanding new vocabulary since it makes it more organized.

Using schedules and all sorts of charts and notes will help you classifying items like

the types of traditions and foods that we are going to learn today.’’

Draw a chart in the whiteboard demonstrating how to use grouping.

‘‘For instance we can classify food in salty, sweet and acid food.’’

Practice

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Divide the class into two groups. Provide one group with a list of words related to

traditions and the other group with the list of words about food. (These words are

unknown for them but their meaning can be easily deducted). Make each group work

in pairs and ask them to make categories with those words (national traditions and

international traditions; Breakfast food, Lunch food and dinner food).

‘‘Make two groups, one is going to be the Food’s group and the other one is going to

be the Traditions’ group. Between your groups work in pairs and classify the given

words in the category you think is the most suitable for each list’’

Evaluation

When students are finished ask each couple from the food’s group to join another

couple from the traditions’ group and ask them to compare and explain the new

words the classified.

‘‘ When you finish, each couple from the food’s group has to find another couple

from the traditions’ group to compare and explain the meaning of the new words

appearing in the classification you did.’’

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Expansion

Lesson Plan analysis

We considered the lexis mistake made by the student for creating the lesson. It

was very difficult to choose the correct type of activity and the objective of the lesson.

When choosing strategies we tended to deepen on wrong factors which were not

certainly useful for the type of mistake we were dealing with. In addition to this, we have

never worked with this type of lesson before, its different stages and procedures made

our work complicated but not in a considerable way, however, we took the risk because

according to Chamot (1999), this is the most appropriate type of lesson to teach learning

Give students time to study those new words at home or in the lab. After a certain

amount of time, give them a quiz on the new vocabulary they learnt.

Make student to look for more specific words for each category presented in class

and explain that you will include those words in future quizzes so every student

learns them.

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strategies. Chamot’s book was useful for developing the activities, working as a guide in

order to face the exact mistake. We believe this lesson, even modified, is helpful for

many other learning problems and mistakes which will appear during our future duty as

teachers.

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Conclusion

To sum up briefly this assignment was very challenging for us since it involved a

new kind of structure for creating lessons. Moreover, it was very complete assignment

because we analyzed deeply certain features of language. It is remarkable to say that

there are many factors that can influence the student’s performance at the moment of

producing English. Principally, the phonetics and grammar mistakes that we found were

caused by the interference between English and Spanish, where Melanie replaced

English structures by Spanish ones. Secondly, lexis mistakes were mainly caused

because of the lack of vocabulary. These facts are common in high school students;

they can make themselves clear by using a reduced amount of words. This is not a bad

feature; however, when it comes to develop specific tasks this reduced amount of

vocabulary becomes insufficient.

Influences outside school are also important for developing knowledge not only of

vocabulary but also of structures and pronunciation. Melanie has a considerable

exposure to English outside the classroom. When listening to music in English and

repeating the lyrics, she acquires certain patterns of pronunciation innately. The same

happens with structure and lexis. For further studies it would be good to analyze all the

aspects of language, not only in speaking but also in writing, reading and listening.

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References

Chamot, A. U., Barnhardt, S., El-Dinary, P. B., & Robbins, J. (1999). The Learning

Strategies Handbook. White Plains, NY: Addison Wesley Longman.

O'Malley, J.M. & Chamot, A.U. (1990). Learning Strategies in Second Language

Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Smith, B., Swan, M. (2001). Learner English: A Teacher's Guide to Interference and

other Problems: A teacher’s guide to interference and other problems. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

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