Focus on the Learner
Submission date: July 16, 2013
Word count: 875 words
Learner profile
In order to complete this assignment I decided to observe one of the students from the elementary group. Her name is Diana. She is 21 years old. Her background is as follows: * Diana’s first language is Kazakh, but you can say that Russian is her first language as well, since at home she uses the first one, and for education – the second. She is fluent in both languages. * Diana still has one more year of university to go, she studies history and plans to continue her education with MA program. * Diana comes from a big family; she has 1 older brother and lots of male cousins. She is an active member of student body of her school. * In terms of culture, Diana is a bright example of blended and merged Kazakh and European cultures. * Her main motivation lies in continued education, since in Kazakhstan it is impossible to enter a MA program without a satisfactory grade in English exam. * Her aspirations are to be a professional historian, and in order to do that she needs English, since being used as a lingua franca it facilitates both travelling and professional development. * Diana is mostly visual and audial learner.
From this profile, we may say that Diana’s background strongly affects her leaning style. From her family she has learnt that communication is the key to surviving into a boys’ world, and she has learnt to speak their language. She has been a Vice-president of student body in her university, which means that she is an active listener, speaker and observer; therefore, the best way for her to learn is to observe real-life examples and learn via guided discovery with lots of practice.
As Scrivener mentions, it is essential to define student’s motivation, which can be intrinsic and extrinsic. In terms of motivation, I can say that her extrinsic motivation comes from necessity to enter an MA program in
Bibliography: 1. Learning Teaching, Schrivener, J. MacMillan Books for Teachers, 2011, p 84. 2. Learner English, Swan, M., Smith, B., OUP, 2001, pp 145-161 3. http://busyteacher.org/3687-how-to-teach-word-order.html 4. http://busyteacher.org/6532-to-be-worksheet.html 5. http://busyteacher.org/16041-word-order.html 6. http://busyteacher.org/15072-sentence-construction-sv-and-svo.html