Christopher Clayton
CELTA Assignment 1
ISE Language LTD
Centre No. 56108
Assignment 1: Focus on the learner
Background
For this assignment I chose Fernando; a 25 year old Spanish male from Seville. Fernando is an upper intermediate student, and is currently preparing to undertake his First Certificate examination.
Fernando has been living in England for 6 months, since he graduated from university in Spain last year. He has been learning English since he was 11, but has only recently become his primary academic focus.
Fernando is currently unemployed, so I assumed his reasons for learning English would be to advance his career prospects. Whilst he did say that hopefully a proficient grasp of English would…show more content… When I quizzed Fernando on his plans for the weekend, he replied “I am going to try to play football”. Where ‘to’ is ‘’ instead of using the weak form ‘//’.
The ‘schwa’ sound is often overstressed by Spanish speakers, as weak forms are not used in the same way in Spanish, and they have difficulty perceiving it when listening.
A good resource for Spanish Speakers learning English is Ann Baker’s “Ship or Sheep”[4]. I would ask Fernando to read Unit 13 (camera), pp 48-51, and complete Dialogues a) and b) p51, this comprises both reading and listening exercises, the listening exercise in particular being ideal for Fernando’s learning style.
Additionally I would like to conduct the above exercises as a class lesson, utilising drilling. Repetition and practice hopefully minimising the problem for all our students, Spanish or otherwise.
Problem 4
When asked what he would do if he won £5 million on the lottery, without hesitation Fernando replied, “I would pay my Father’s loan for the house”.
While the intent and meaning were clear: he would like to pay off his father’s mortgage, Fernando lacked the necessary vocabulary to relate his sentiments as lucidly as he would have liked.
This is a relatively minor error, so I would only ask Fernando to give this some thought at home, and I don’t necessarily think it warrants the attention of a class lesson.
