The student I chose to observe and interview is Krasimira. She lives and works in Sofia. Krasi is 50, and has Master Degree in “Radio and Television”. She used to work in BNT as Head of the Technical Department. Nowadays, she works in her own company of advertising, marketing and publishing.
PREVIOUS LANGUAGE EXPERIENCES
She had been studying English since she was 14. She was taught the basics of the English language. She had been studying English by herself and had taken different language courses intensively. She joined the CELTA English classes at AVO-Bell School of English in Sofia on the 9th March, 2012 for first time. She attended all the classes, joining her 10 classmates five times a week. Krasi said: “Each of the previous language experiences gave me some sort of knowledge and more opportunities to use the language.”
NEEDS AND MOTIVATION
Krasi’s motivation has both INTEGRATIVE (I love it) and INSTRUMENTAL aspects (I need it) – [Harmer, 8]. Krasi is considered that English language helps to her professional communication with her partners. She said: “It’s a pleasure to understand and to speak English when I’m abroad.”
ATTITUDES TO LEARNING AND TO THE LANGUAGE
Krasi had an outgoing personality. She was always willing to take part in the activities that the teachers prepared for the CELTA English lesson. The materials used by the teachers during the lessons varied, ranging from visual aids to worksheets, tape recorders and books. Each lesson she took part in different writing, reading, listening, or speaking activities. She felt that the foreign teachers were friendly and that they all had interesting personalities, which were reflected in their teaching styles. She noticed that the teachers have different accents too. In her opinion, a good teacher should pay more attention to the students and have in mind the fact that Bulgarian students are shy and don’t like to express their personal feelings. She thought it was a good idea for the teachers to “force them (the students) to speak” if they (the students) were reluctant to speak up in English. She prefers those class activities where she can improve her speaking and listening skills. Krasi feels that she needs to work on her grammar and vocabulary. Outside the classroom she reads some adapted books, magazines and she watches films without any subtitle.
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English as all know is the international communication language which plays a great role in many important aspects of a society. In Malaysia, English as a second language after Malay language, is not only used in terms of education system, but is extensively used in inter-cultural communication and professions such as law, medicine, engineering and of course business. In this era of increasing ...
FACTORS THAT MAY AFFECT THE STUDENT’S LEARNING
One of the main reasons why Krasi was so outspoken was the fact that she had the chance to speak English outside the classroom with other foreigners too. Her educational background and her motivation were also important factors that built up her confidence.
THE STUDENT’S LANGUAGE LEVEL
EFFECTIVENESS OF ORAL COMMUNICATION (SPEAKING AND LISTENING)
Krasimira’s English is entirely and perfectly understandable. Her active vocabulary corresponds to an Upper-Intermediate level of language proficiency.
She masters the skills of working out the meanings from contexts. There isn’t special need for grading the language when speaking to her.
STRUCTURAL ACCURACY
Krasi skillfully masters all the “vital” grammar structures. However, there are some problematic areas that are definitely worth being focused on:
Pronunciation:
Complex CONDITIONALS: “I promised that I would finished my work at home”.
GRAMMATICAL WEAKNESS (incorrect word order): “I called my boss again to ask for 2 days off more”.
GRAMMATICAL WEAKNESS: “I hope when I come and leave in Pittsburg more time. Between native speakers I will improve my English.”
IRREGULAR VERBS: “I feeled very confused”. “They toled…”
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English has become an international language that use in daily communication almost country in the world. because of that almost all of country in the world study about english, when we began to study english there are four skill such as listening, reading,writing and speaking. speaking is one of skill that must be master if we want speak english very well. But in fact that a lot of students in ...
(APPENDIX 1&2, E.G. 2,3)
Anyway, the mentioned inaccuracies don’t impede understanding.
APPROPRIACY AND SURVIVAL ENGLISH
Krasi’s English will definitely help her survive in critical situations. There still seems to be some areas for improvement of her functional language. E.g. “My Dear Vania”, “The best regards.” (ending a letter).
PRONUNCIATION
Krasi’s pronunciation has some features of the Southern Slavic accent (Typical Bulgarian accent).
confusion between /t/ and /θ/ sounds e.g.: “You can say it BOTH /bout/ ways.” – instead of /bouθ/
Anyway, it doesn’t impede understanding and meets the received standard.
WRITING
The purpose has been achieved. Krasi’s writing skills are enough effective. She understands the given task and tries to generate the content that wouldbe relevant to the presented situation. I give her 5 out of 5.
Well organized. The letter has been written in a chronological order. The letter has an introduction, the body, and a conclusion. I give her 4 out of 5.
There are a few grammar errors which I’ve mentioned above. There’s also incorrect word order of some sentences, but it doesn’t change the meaning. As well as -ED form instead of the 2nd form of the irregular verbs. I give her 4 out of 5.
Punctuation is very poor, especially use of comma in complex sentence. I give her 4 out of 5.
Total score is 17 out of 20.
CONCLUSIONS
First of all, “Cambridge CELTA Teaching Practice” provides solid inputs where all the skills and aspects are taken in account. Varied practice in writing aimed to develop students’ skills in different type such as: formal/informal letters, etc. Students are encouraged to express they own opinion through discussions or essays. Each of the branches is well presented, taught and practiced. Second, the course provides solid number of vocabulary as well as focus on grammar accuracy. Finally, I think that “Cambridge CELTA Teaching Practice” is great opportunity in many aspects for both sides – teachers & students.
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Krasi shall gain access to the British Council Library [www.britishcouncil.org/Bulgaria] or as well as National Library in Sofia [http://www.nationallibrary.bg/]. There she will have great opportunity to find a lot of materials, such as: numerous reference books on English Grammar, vocabulary, etc. which could be useful to her.
Here are books, which I could recommend her. I believe that these books are real treasure for each language learner’s library:
A Practical English Grammar – Thomson Martinet – 4th Edition
Practical English Usage 3rd Edition – Michael Swan – Oxford
Oxford Basic English Usage – Michael Swan
Oxford Collocations Dictionary for students of English. OUP
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 7th Edition.
Another way of effective vocabulary study is keeping a personal vocabulary notebook at the back side of the daily notebook. Where she could always write down new vocabulary, phrases and idioms that she thinks are really necessary to enrich her dictionary. It’s better if words/phrases contain transcriptions and definitions: English-English. It would be excellent if there are even some examples. So she could know how to use then in the right content. Also Krasi should take any possible opportunity for using English more intensive in real life. I would recommend her to communicate more with native speakers (of course, if she has that chance), or a pen pal. Nowadays, Internet is a great resource which provides us with a lot of good web-sites, such as: news, teaching programmes, etc.
References
Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 3rd Edition.
‘How to Teach Grammar’ – Thornbury Scott
The Practice of English Language Teaching 4th Edition – Jeremy Harmer
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