Read these learners' profiles. Identify their reasons for learning English and answer the questions.

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 494.

Specific vocabulary and speaking

Pronunciation. Practice.

1. Choose any extract from a film, an interview, a TV show etc. (3-4 minutes long). Listen to it carefully and analyse the major tones and intonations there. Write it down and mark rising and falling tones.

2. Overdub the chosen extract imitating the intonation of the speakers as close to the original as possible. You can do it either alone or in groups .Record your overdubbing (http://vocaroo.com/ ) of the chosen extract. Share your recording with other learners. Analyse it. In order to do this, you might want to try out some software that will analyse your intonation for you – look at http://rachelsenglish.com/voice-analysis-software/

Students' purposes for learning English and their expectations

The majority of students who start learning a language expect good results and hope that they will be able to master the language. Those who do not expect the best results (knowing a foreign language is not their ultimate purpose) want to enjoy the process and to feel good about themselves.

· Ning Wang is a Chinese Mandarin speaker who is at a further education college in Manchester, UK, doing a course as preparation for the IELTS examination, a requirement for entry into a British university.

· Lucia is a 16-year-old Italian speaker who is studying English as one of her school subjects in Bologna. She also attends an English class twice a week in a local language school.

· Kazankiran is an asylum-seeker in Canada. She speaks Kurdish and Arabic and is attending English classes with a view to settling in Canada permanently.

· Maxim (45) is of Russian origin. He lives and works in Australia and is learning English through contact with his workmates.

· Soni Kim is from South Korea. She is enrolled on an online course in order to prepare for a trip to the USA with her husband in the near future.

· Carmen, who is Brazilian, is the head of marketing in a large exporting company. She attends a one-to-one English class in Sao Paulo to help her in her business dealings, which are mainly with Middle Eastern clients.

· Mies is a Dutch student of economics. Nearly all of his classes at Utrecht University are conducted in English, a language he started learning when he was six.

1. What are their reasons for learning English? Use these abbreviations:

EFL= English as a foreign language

ESL = English as a second language

EIL = English as an international language

ESP = English for special (or specific) purposes

EAP = English for academic purposes

2. Which of the above learners is probably bilingual in English and another language? Who is -or may one day be - multilingual?

3. Whose first language is likely to contribute positively to their learning of English? Whose is not? Why?

4.Who is learning English, as opposed to simply picking it up (or acquiring it)? What is the

difference?

5.Who is probably getting the most exposure to English, and who is getting the least? Who are already users of English, as opposed to simply learners?

6. Who is likely to be the most motivated? Who the least?

7. Which of the above learners (if any) most closely fits the profile of the kind of learner you are expecting to teach, and the kind of situation you are expecting to teach in?

[S. Thornbury and P. Watkins. The CELTA Course. Cambridge University Press in collaboration with Cambridge ESOL, 2007]

Discussion and sharing:Learners' difficulties and expectations

Read what Ning Wang and Lucia said about their English classes, and answer the questions.