LLP English Methodology II

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Language Learner Profile

English Methodology II

Students: José Miguel Casanueva

Gary Torres

Teacher: Roxanna Correa

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INDEX

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

II. Learner’s background ……………………………… 4

III. Testing ……………………………… 5

IV. Transcription ……………………………... 7

V. Phonetics analysis ……………………………… 7

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

VII. Lexis analysis …………………………….. 11

VIII. Writing Sample .……………………………. 12

IX. Grammatical analysis .……………………………. 12

X. Lexis analysis .…………………………… 12

XI. Lesson plan .………………………….... 13

XII. Lesson plan evaluation .…………………………… 16

XIII. Conclusion .…………………………… 17

XIV. References .…………………………… 18

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Language Learning 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 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

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?

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

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Transcription

//aɪ ˈlɪsnɪŋ tə ˈmjuːzɪk ənd gəʊ aʊt wɪð maɪ frendz (eehm) ˈkʊkɪŋ ənd ˈʧekɪŋ maɪ feɪsvʊk//aɪ spend sɪks ˈaʊrs ɒn feɪsvʊk//maɪ ˈfeɪvɒrɪt mɪl ɪz ˈʧɒkəleɪt ənd frenʃ ˈfraɪz//(eeehm) bred (eehm) bred ənd ˈbʌrər ənd mɪlk//

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 /ɪ/ instead of the vowels sound /ɜː/.

Word Student’s Pronunciation Correct Pronunciation

Thirty ˈθɪrtɪ ˈθɜːtɪ

In line 28 she uses the diphthong /eɪ/ instead of the short vowel /ɪ/, making the last

syllable of the word longer.


Chocolate ˈʧɒkəleɪt ˈʧɒkəlɪt

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

sounds /ɪ/ and /ɒ/ instead of the diphthong /aɪ/ and /ɒ/.

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Biology bɪˈɒləʤɪ /baɪˈɒləʤɪ/

Line 34 shows a typical mispronunciation, where the short vowels sound /ʊ/ is used

instead of /ʌ/. These cases are just a confusion of sounds that can be easily corrected

making use of drilling exercises.


Studies ˈstʊdɪz /ˈstʌdɪz/

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.


Facebook feɪsvʊk feɪsbʊk

Grammatical analysis

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.

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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 3rd 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.”

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.

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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”

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 not what

we were expecting because they were not appropriate for the context of the question.

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“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.

Writing Sample

Write a short paragraph about your last vacation.

1. My last vacation I went to Villarrica in the south of Chile. I went with the family and my dog.

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2. Also I visiting Pucón, Lican Ray and Coñaripe that were really beautifull places. I stayed in

3. the house of my grandmother and it was really big. I played tennis and volleyball with all my

4. cousins and my little nephews. I was in a very relax place and it was really calm for me. I had

5. a lot of fun in my last vacation because I visited many places and I want to go again.

Grammatical analysis

Use of tenses

As seen before, in line 2, there is a mistake with the use of the present continuous form

of a verb to talk about an activity that happened in the past. The correct form would be:

``I visited Pucón and Lican Ray (…)’’.

Missing words

In line 1, there is a preposition missing. The correct answer would be: ‘’On my last

vacation (…)’’.

In line 2, Melanie used the determiner the instead of the possessive adjective my to talk

about her family.

In line 3, we can notice that there is a genitive case which Melanie did not use. The

correct form would be: ‘’I stayed at my grandmother’s house (…)’’

Lexis analysis

In line 4, there is a vocabulary mistake with the word relax, whre the word is used as a

verb instead of an adjective. In this case the correct form would be: ``I was in a very

relaxing place (…)’’

Lesson Plan

Content area: Vocabulary Topic: Food and Traditions

Grade: 2nd grade High School

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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

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’’

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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.’’

Expansion

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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Lesson Plan Evaluation

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. 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.

Conclusion

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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, whether spoken or written. 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.

References

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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.

LLP English Methodology II

Education

Transcript of LLP English Methodology II