Language Learner Profile

Authors: Javiera Barrueto. Scarlett Espinoza.

Teacher: Gabriela Sanhueza.

Course: EFL Methodology

November 17th, 2014.

Introduction

The following language learner profile is about analyzing different sort of

problems that can affect beginners when they are in the process of acquiring a

new language. In this research, we have decided to apply to a first year student

a short dialogue within the context of a restaurant. Consequently, we will be able

to detect which errors could be more frequent in first year students, and

afterwards how they can be overcome. From the interview we decided to take

into account some grammatical and phonetics issues in order to analyze them

deeper.

Theoretical framework: the importance of language learning strategies in the learning of an L2.

Nowadays, learning a new language is very important in order to be able to

communicate when you meet new people or simply to interact with other

cultures. According to this, the complexity in the process of learning a new

language can be related to the strategies that learners and teachers can manage

with the purpose of providing an easier procedure that can make this moment

significant.

According to McDonough (2006), learners are the users of strategies, the ones

who decide which and they are going to learn. Learners are the ones who decide

which strategy they would use in relation to the context and the situation that

they are facing. Students and teachers need to be conscious about what they

can do, in this way both teachers and learners would be able to have an

umbrella of options when they need to decide what to teach and, in the case of

students, what they have to learn.

Moreover, Ellis (1994) points out that the study of learning strategies holds

considerable promise, both for language pedagogy and for explaining individual

differences in second language learning. Nonetheless, the discussions about

learning strategies typically go to the conclusion that the difficulties to make

decisions at the moment of teaching learners are probably the hardest part. Ellis

states that choosing appropriate learning strategies is essential for learners;

otherwise, one mistake can make a lot of difference in the process of learning a

new language. Strategies are tools provided for those who are dealing permanently

with new situations, and if learners do not know how to use these strategies in

order to face those contexts, it could be a huge problem becoming an obstacle for

them in their process of acquiring a new language.

In the other side, Rebecca Oxford (2003), explains that a foreign language is a

language studied in an environment where it is not the primary vehicle for daily

interaction and where input in that language is restricted. In other words, Oxford

claims that the use of strategies is completely necessary, because the process of

learning a new language is quite difficult. Besides, the new language could be

provided in different contexts, thus these strategies would be chosen by students

for those moments in which they can be receiving input in different ways.

In consequence, it has been said for several authors that students need to use and

select different techniques in order to conduct the process of learning more fluent,

and strategies have to be taught by teachers. Strategies act as bridges in the

acquisition of a new language, as well as teachers, who have to act as facilitators

in the teaching of those. The appropriate combination of strategies depending on

the linguistic components that have to be reached by students would mean the

success in their process of training. Besides, it is very important to keep students

constantly motivated and engaged in order to make learning more enjoyable and

effective.

Learner’s Background

The learner’s name is Alexa Reichelt Barraza, she is 22 years old and lives in

Hualpén. At the present time, she is studying her first year of English Pedagogy at

Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción. Her high school was in Centro

Educacional Evangélico de Hualpén (CEDEPH), and afterwards she decided to

study translation as her first option. Nevertheless, she realized then that she would

feel more helpful if she studies a major which allows her to make that people could

learn a new language; consequently, she replaced her first option by studying

pedagogy, because it permits her to combine the two things that she loves more:

languages and teaching.

When she was 10, she went to France for two years, which gave her the

opportunity to learn French. Subsequently, when Alexa came back to Chile five

years after, she learnt English.

English studies

She was studying English Pedagogy at Universidad de Las Américas during two

years; nonetheless, when she was in the road of acquiring more courses in her

third year, the major had lost its accreditation. Before long, she decided to move to

another university with prestige and high renown, in order to continue studying the

same major.

At long last, the learner had pointed out after finishing the interview that ‘vocation’

was the most valuable feeling if anybody wanted to teach to the future generations

of students and get better the education of our all society.

Oral diagnostic performance

The girl was asked to act out role play task. She had to perform the character of

a customer in a restaurant where she was supposed to request what she wanted

to eat. The idea of the task was to test her oral abilities, both pronunciation and

the correct use of grammatical rules of the English language. Moreover, another

aspect such as her attitude in terms of being exposed to the language in a

spoken way was taken into account in our evaluation as well. We assumed that

this role play situation not only provided her the space to show off all the

knowledge that she has been acquiring until now, but also let us notice in which

features of the language she would have to work deeper in order to polish up

them.

In order to make this role play more appropriate, we acted out as a waitress,

thus our learner performed the role of a customer. Besides, it is important to say

that the interview was copied exactly as it was said by our interviewee.

Interview

(Context: In a restaurant)

W: WaitressC: Customer (our learner)

W: Hello! Welcome to Pollos Hermanos, what can I do for you?

C: Mmmmm I would like an enchilada please.

W: Ok, would you like some drink?

C: Mmmmm, I can have some water?

W: Yes, you can. Ok, I will back with your order in a minute.

C: Oh wait! I want my main dish.

W: Oh excuse me, what do you want?

C: Mmmmm I want French fries with meat.

W: Ok, do you want something else?

C: I want a desert.

W: Ok, what kind of dessert do you want?

C: I want eat a ice cream, thank you!

Identification and analysis of linguistic needs

In the following lines, we are going to analyze different issues taken by Alexa’s

performance, in terms of grammatical structure, and phonetics mistakes. As a

general entry to our analysis, we have noticed that our leaner’s difficulties about

grammar were such as the misuse of translation from our L1, or the incorrect use

of the grammatical order in questions with modal verbs. On the other hand, there

were mistakes in pronunciation because of the lack of practice in certain words.

Grammar issues

1. Our learner did not say the correct grammatical order when she used the

modal verb “can”.

“C: Mmmmm, I can have some waiter?”…

Alexa seems to have a very common elementary mistake, which is the incorrect

use of word order. This issue is very important to be taken into consideration in

order to be able to ask a proficient question. As it is known, when we ask any

question, the subject has to be placed in a different position which is not the first

one as in any statement. Following the correct order of a sentence using a modal

verb: Modal verb + Subject + Verb, she should have formulated that question

naming the modal verb ‘can’ first.

That is to say:

“C: Mmmmm, can I have some waiter?”…

2. Another mistake taken from our learner’s interview was about the misuse

of prepositions, in this case the use of the preposition “with”. Look at the

following statement said by our interviewee:

C: Mmmmm I want French fries with meat.

As we know, if we translate this sentence into our L1 it would be correct the use

of “with” to say: “Quiero papas fritas con carne”. However, its translation

changes into the English language. Our interviewee should have used the

conjunction “and”. Thus, to enumerate two or more types of food in a sentence it

is correct to use the conjunction “and” instead of “with”. In consequence, we

could say that our L1 has interfered.

That is to say:

C: Mmmm I want French fries and meat.

3. Furthermore, there is no agreement in the following example:

C: I want eat a ice cream, thank you!

Here, we have two issues. The first one is the misuse of these two base verbs, in

this case “want” and “eat”. As it is known, we cannot join two verbs without either

using the infinitive form of the second verb which is “eat”, adding the preposition

“to”, or using its gerund for which is “eating”. Our learner should have used any

of these two options in order to say a proficient statement. The second issue

corresponds to the misuse of the article “a”. In the English language, when we

use both “a” and “an”, it will be determined for the noun that they are going to

precede. If the noun starts with a vowel, it is correct to use the article “an”,

otherwise; if the noun starts with any consonant, it must be preceded by the

article “a”. In this case, our interviewee had a misuse of the article, because

Alexa used the article “a” to precede the noun “ice cream”, which starts with a

vowel.

Taking these two issues into consideration, our leaner should have said:

C: I want to eat an ice cream, than you!

C: I want eating an ice cream, thank you!

Phonological issues

1. During the interview, we noticed that our learner made some mistakes in

pronunciation. The following one corresponds to the word “meat”. The

interviewee mispronounced this word, changing completely its correct

phonetic translation:

Alexa said:

Meat /meat/

Alexa should have pronounced this word using the long vowel “/iː/”.

That is to say:

Meat / miːt /

2. Another mistake made by our learner was the confusion between the

word “desert” and “dessert”. Despite the fact that these words may look

very similar in their spelling, both are pronounced in different ways in

terms of vowels and stress. Our interviewee pronounced this word:

Dessert / ‘dezert /

She should have said:

Dessert / dɪˈzɜːrt /

As it can be seen, the appropriate word that our learner was asked to say has

the stress in its second syllable.

LLS lesson

We designed a LLS lesson in order to help our learner to overcome her mistakes, either grammatical or phonetic issues, highlighting the use of strategies.

Content area: English

Grade: Elementary level

Topic: Food

Content objectives

Student will be able to identify new vocabulary about food.

Student will be able to use new vocabulary in order to name what he/she would like to eat in the context of a restaurant.

Language Objective

Student will be able to watch a video about performances in a restaurant and understand what the speakers are saying

Student will be able to perform a role play about the information contained in the video.

Learning strategies

Strategies objective: Using background knowledge and realia.

Materials: real food and a video about performances in a restaurant.

Procedures

Preparation

T elicits prior knowledge by showing a video of performances in a restaurant.

T asks students what they think that the next activity will be about T asks students about their experiences when they have gone to a

restaurant

Presentation

T shows real food and asks students to predict the name of each food that T shows.

T asks students how they think that making predictions can be useful to them in order to identify new vocabulary

T explains students how to make predictions through their own experiences

Practice

T explains the role play activity

Students can use real objects in order to make it more real.

Evaluation

T asks students to reflect on their own experiences in performing different situations that they can see in a restaurant every day.

T tells students how good they did the task in order to improve it.

T shares with the students what it is important to have in mind in this context in a real situation.

Expansion

T asks students to explain orally what they think about the activity. T teaches students other expressions such as “could you bring me the

bill, please?”, among others. T asks students to think in which other situations they can use strategies

Discussion and conclusions (general evaluation of the case)

This research was the English learner profile of a first year student of Universidad

Católica de la Santísima Concepción. We decided to focus our analysis on one of

the productive skills, which is speaking, and how proficient our leaner was in order

to formulate either a statement or question with a correct use of grammar.

Accordingly, we could get from our research grammatical and phonological issues

in order to be analyzed. To our minds, the mistakes that Alexa made were very

elementary; nevertheless, necessary to be fixed. Moreover, in terms of confidence,

we have concluded that our learner could have been affected because she was

exposed to perform a role play orally. For this reason, we agree that she could

have presented those problems because of her affective filter. According to

Krashen (1982), the affective filter can interfere when someone is producing a

product in the language. In the case of our interviewee, her affective filter could

have been high.

On the other hand, the correct use of word order and prepositions goes with

practice, as well as the correct pronunciation of words. It is related to how much

time our learner is exposed to the language that she is learning.

Taking everything into consideration, this analysis permits us to think of how our

future students can be closer and more conscious about the use of strategies when

they learn a new language. Strategies are made for learners in order to provide

them security in every case that they have to face problems related to the new

language. In the case of Alexa, she had problems in pronunciation and use of

English. To resolve this, we decided to add realia in our LLS lesson as a strategy.

We strongly believe that it would support her to improve her vocabulary about the

content that we covered on the role play (food), because she would practice with

real objects making everything more reliable.

References

Ellis, R. (1994). The study of second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. California: Pergamon Press Inc.

Naiman, N., Frohlich, M., Stern, H. H. & Todesco, A. (1976). The good language learner. Research in Education Series No. 7. Toronto: The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

Oxford, R. L. (1990). Language learning strategies: What every teacher should know. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.

Oxford. R. L. (2003). Language learning styles and strategies: an overview. Oxford.