Celta Focus on the Learner
CELTA – Assignment 3
Learner Profile
I interviewed ******** an Iranian 31 year old female student in the Level I class. ****’s native language is Persian (Farsi). **** came to England a year ago to join her Iranian husband who has been living and working in England for the past 5 years. At present they have no children. She has only been attending class at college for a few weeks where she is also taking a class in mathematics in order to learn the correct English terminology.
**** is an enthusiastic and highly motivated student who arrives at class early and contributes throughout the lesson. Her main motivation for learning English is that she wishes to go to University to study for a degree in mathematics. Currently in her personal life she feels she has little need or opportunity to use English. She and her husband speak Persian exclusively at home and they also confine their television viewing to watching Persian language films. She has made friends with a fellow Iranian student and outside of lessons, and occasionally in the lesson, they communicate in Persian.
**** attended English classes in Iran for one year before coming to England. She describes the classes as large, with 30 or more students, and that the focus was on grammar rules, reading and writing. Dolati and Seliman (2011)1 have highlighted that this focus accounts for a general weakness of spoken English amongst Iranians.
**** feels that the focus on reading and writing was necessary due to the difficulty of changing from Arabic to Latin script and also changing the direction of the text to left to right. Only occasionally did the class get the opportunity to watch a video and hear spoken English and then have the opportunity to discuss in English what they had seen. There were no opportunities to hear or speak English outside of the classroom.
Due to this lack of practice she particularly struggles with listening exercises. She feels more confident when listening to the teacher when
Learner Profile
I interviewed ******** an Iranian 31 year old female student in the Level I class. ****’s native language is Persian (Farsi). **** came to England a year ago to join her Iranian husband who has been living and working in England for the past 5 years. At present they have no children. She has only been attending class at college for a few weeks where she is also taking a class in mathematics in order to learn the correct English terminology.
**** is an enthusiastic and highly motivated student who arrives at class early and contributes throughout the lesson. Her main motivation for learning English is that she wishes to go to University to study for a degree in mathematics. Currently in her personal life she feels she has little need or opportunity to use English. She and her husband speak Persian exclusively at home and they also confine their television viewing to watching Persian language films. She has made friends with a fellow Iranian student and outside of lessons, and occasionally in the lesson, they communicate in Persian.
**** attended English classes in Iran for one year before coming to England. She describes the classes as large, with 30 or more students, and that the focus was on grammar rules, reading and writing. Dolati and Seliman (2011)1 have highlighted that this focus accounts for a general weakness of spoken English amongst Iranians.
**** feels that the focus on reading and writing was necessary due to the difficulty of changing from Arabic to Latin script and also changing the direction of the text to left to right. Only occasionally did the class get the opportunity to watch a video and hear spoken English and then have the opportunity to discuss in English what they had seen. There were no opportunities to hear or speak English outside of the classroom.
Due to this lack of practice she particularly struggles with listening exercises. She feels more confident when listening to the teacher when
References: 1. Dolati, I & Seliman, S. (2011, September), An Investigation On Iranian Students’ Weaknesses In Spoken English, Journal of Edupres, Pages 94-99. Retrieved 28th October 2012, from http://eprints.utm.my/15930/1/JOE-1-2011-013.pdf 2. Aliakbari, M