Language learner profile

‘’Language Learner Profile’’
By: Tania Contreras Novoa.
Katherine Jofre Novoa.
Teacher: Iris Roa.
Course: Learning and Acquisition of English as a Foreign Language.

Table of contents
Learner’s background........................................................................................... 3
Interview................................................................................................................. 4
Phonetic transcription .......................................................................................... 5
Identification of Linguistic needs ........................................................................ 6
1.1. General analysis ........................................................................................ 6
1.2. Phonetics ................................................................................................... 6
Final‘s’............................................................................................................... 6
Influence of spelling on pronunciation............................................................... 7
1.3. Grammar.................................................................................................... 8
Proposal............................................................................................................... 10
Conclusion........................................................................................................... 11
References........................................................................................................... 12

Language Learner Profile 3
Learner’s background
The learner’s name is Javiera Olivares, who is a first year student of English
pedagogy at the UCSC. She is nineteen years old and she lives with her father and
her sister in Talcahuano.
When she was asking about her future she mentioned that after this major she
would like to study a master degree at the UCSC, because she wants to continue
improving her level of proficiency in the language. Moreover, she does not show
only an interest for the English itself, because she also enjoy to teach. She wants
to be a good professional and she really likes the pedagogical part of her career.
Besides, Javiera mentioned that her interests are related to listen to music, to sing
and to play piano.
English studies
Javiera Olivares studied during her entirely primary education at a private
school subsidized by the government called Inmaculada Concepción School.
Besides, she mentioned that in her school she had the opportunity to learn a lot
and to practice English most of the time during her English lessons, because her
school very good teachers of English.
Furthermore, when she was eleven years old she decided to study English
at Britain Institute during three years; however she did not finish it. During that
year she realizes that she was good at English; thus, when she was sixteen years
old she studied at North American Institute during two years and she obtained her
first English certificate with distinction.
As a result she started to study English pedagogy and she really enjoys her
career. She also appreciates the good level of English that her teachers have.
Finally, Javiera is a brilliant student who wants to develop her English skills and
after this major she wants to do a master degree and she wish to travel to another
country.

Interview
T: interviewer
S: interviewee
1. T: Why are you studying English Pedagogy?
2. S: I’m studying this career because I think I have the talent and aptitude for
3. this career because I like teach to kids or any person who needs study
4. English and I think is very important to everyone
5. T: When and why did you decide to study English?
6. S: I decide study this career the last year like in August because I came here to
7. this university and I like very much the major of this career and I think is very
8. cool and important study English.
9. T: Which is the most difficult skill for you to develop? Why?
10. S: The most difficult to me is writing because of the grammar part. I need to study more
11. emphasize more than the grammar and that I think is the most difficult part for me.
12. T: Why did you decide to study in this university?
13. S: I decided study here because it have a lot of technology and the people are very
14. nice and the teachers are very professionals.
15. T: What do you expect from this major?
16. S: I expect to this major have the object the clear I hope that all the objectives make
17. the good
18. T: Do you feel comfortable with the number of students in your English classes
19. or you feel that they have to be more personalized? Explain why
20. S: I think is ok because we are three section and is very personal we have a English
21. a Teacher of Britain and is very personal we have a class with her we are three
22. persons with her and we can speak English all the time and in the class is very
23. personalize too with the teacher and with the classmate too.
24. T: Do you want to make a change in Chilean Education? What kind of change?
25. S: The quality and the quality of the education are bad and I think that is going to
26. change soon I hope and we need a lot of recourse in the classrooms in the schools
27. for study English specify and more teachers of calid of qualit and the excellence it have
28. to be better.
29. T: What is your opinion in relation with the technological resources for studying
30. English in this University? Are they enough for you?
31. S: Yes, I think is ok everything the labs for example or the project too the projectors are
32. very cool and the teacher uses them a lot and I think that is a good opportunity for us.

Phonetic transcription
Text selected
We are three section and is very personal we have a English a Teacher of Britain
she is Britain and is very personal we have a class with her we are three persons
with her and we can speak English all the time and in the class is very personalize
too with the teacher and with the classmate too.
/wiː ɑː(r) θriːˈsekʃn ənd ɪz ˈveri ˈpɜːsənəl wi həv ə ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ ə ˈtiːtʃə(r) əv ˈbrɪtn ʃi ɪz ˈbrɪtn ənd
ɪz ˈveri ˈpɜːsənl wiː həv ə klɑːs wɪð hə(r) ənd wiː kən spiːk ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ ɔːl ðə taɪm ənd ɪn ðə klɑːs
ɪz ˈveri ˈpɜːsənəlaɪz tuː wɪð ðə ˈtiːtʃə(r) ənd wɪð ðə ˈklɑːsmeɪt tuː/

Identification of Linguistic needs
1.1. General analysis
During the interview Javiera presented several problems regarding to
pronunciation and grammar, due to the fact that the learner tends to have an
interference with her native language.
1.2. Phonetics
The learner has phonological problems related to final‘s’, and the influence of
spelling on pronunciation.
Final‘s’
The learner tended to omit the final‘s’ in some words, this situation occurs because
of the interference of Spanish language in her pronunciation, due to the fact that
Chilean speakers tend to omit or ignore the final's'.
This interference can be appreciate in line 20 with the word 'sections' and in line 23
with the word 'classmates' from the interview.
Word RP Student
Sections /ˈsekʃns/ /ˈsekʃn/
Word RP Student
Classmates /ˈklɑːsmeɪts/ /klɑsmeɪt/
Javiera should have said: /ˈsekʃns/ and /ˈklɑːsmeɪts/, however due to the Spanish
influence she omits the final‘s’ and she tends to speak with a singular form.

Influence of spelling on pronunciation
Spanish speakers have to read letter by letter in order to pronounce a complete
word; thus, spelling and pronunciation are closely related (Swan & Smith, 2001).
For that reason Javiera pronounces the word 'Britain' as if she was reading word
by word, and pronounced the word 'personalize' with the same articulation as in
Spanish language, due to the fact that she follows the pattern used in Spanish;
where pronunciation is exactly the same than in the written form of the language.
These situations are audible from the interview in line 21 with the word ‘Britain’,
and in line 23 with the word ‘personalize’ from the interview.
Word RP Student
Britain /ˈbrɪtn/ /brɪtaɪn/
According to this explanation, Javiera should have pronounced /ˈbrɪtn/ instead of
pronounce the word in its written form /brɪtaɪn/. Besides, the word ‘personalize’
was pronounced as /personalaɪs/ instead of /ˈpɜːsənəlaɪz/.
Word RP Student
Personalize /ˈpɜːsənəlaɪz/ /personalaɪs/

1.3. Grammar
The piece of writing presented very common grammatical problems. They are
related to the omission of the ing, when the interviewee uses the present continue,
the omission of the article “the” when she is talking about specific issues.
Moreover, she also omits the infinitive article “to”, in order to construct infinitive
forms. On the other hand, she also made an important mistake which is the
omission of the subject in a sentence.
Text selected
Why are you studying English Pedagogy? (line 1)
I’m study this career, because I think I have the talent and aptitude for this career
because I like teach to kids or any person who needs study English and I think is
very important to everyone.
Javiera should have said:
I’m studying this career, because I think I have the talent and the aptitude for this
career, because I like to teach to kids or any person who needs to study English
and I think that to learn English is very important to everyone.
Omission of the” ing” in the present continuous tense.
The present continuous tense requires to add the “ing” at the end of the verb, in
order to construct the tense in the right way.
Omission of the article “the”.
When someone talks about one specific issue the “the” article has to be used. In
this case, she is referring to a specific aptitude, which is the aptitude to learn
English.

Omission of the infinitive particle “to” in the infinitive forms
In this case she has to use the infinitive form and she has to add the infinitive
particle “to”, in order to construct the infinitive form. In this case, she is using those
sentences to express purpose. She is trying to explain why she is studying English
pedagogy. Therefore, she must say “because I like to teach to kids or any person
who needs to study English”.
Omission of the subject.
In the English language all sentences have to follow the subject+verb+complement
basic pattern; thus, the subject cannot be omitted. In this case, she said “I think is
very important to everyone”, but she forgot to put the subject in this sentence; thus,
if we read this sentence in isolation we do not know what is important to everyone.
Consequently, we have to add the subject in this sentence and we suggest
inserting a noun phrase in this sentence. The sentence would be “I think that to
learn English is very important to everyone”.
Text selected
Why did you decide to study in this university? (Line 12)
I decided study here because it have a lot of technology and the people are very
nice and the teachers are very professionals.
Javiera should have said
I decided study here because it has a lot of technology and the people are very
nice and the teachers are very professionals.
Misused of the verb “have”
When the verb “have” is used after a pronoun we have to pay attention to what
type of pronoun it is, because if we are talking about a third person (he/she/it) we
have to change it and put “has”, instead of have.

Proposal
The recommendations proposed toward this student are related to
pronunciation and grammar. First of all, the interviewee has some problems related
to vocabulary and pronunciation, because of the negative interference of her native
language. For that reason, it is necessary to employ strategies in order to solve this
problem, because the learner needs to improve her accuracy, which includes the
correct use of grammar and pronunciation.
Regarding to this, the teacher should encourage the student to speak during
the class, because is the best way to correct errors in order to improve and avoid
the process of fossilization, because the interviewee mentioned that she always
pronounces the word Britain as /britain/ because she had never had a teacher that
corrected that mistake.
Related to the improvement of her grammar, we could said that as Brown
(2001) suggests the teacher should embed grammatical techniques into her
general language course, because the student should understand the use of the
grammatical structures and acquire them. However, we also recommend that in the
future the student should take a separate grammar course, because she is going to
be a teacher of English. Therefore, this grammar course is going to be very useful
to her, because as future teacher she must know how the use grammar
appropriately and she must know the order of acquisition of certain structures, in
order to teach them later.

Conclusion
The present assignment contemplated a deep analysis about the productive skill of
a second language learner, and exhibits some phonological and grammatical
problems that an English language student has in order to give a possible solution.
Furthermore, this language learner profile was an interesting task that provided us
the opportunity to identify the weakness and needs of the learner, who studies in
our same institution.
Moreover, what called our attention were the elementary mistakes that this student
made, because she has been taken excellent English courses during more than
five years. She has a very good level of proficiency in the language and she
speaks very fluently. Notwithstanding, she made very basic mistakes what in our
opinion is due to the fact that most of her learning was focused on fluency more
than accuracy; thus, we could said that probably her teacher never corrected her
grammatical mistakes, because she/he was more concerned about their students
speech production rather than their correct use of grammatical structures.
Finally, it can be concluded that the L1 interference plays an important role in the
acquisition of the L2, due to the fact that most students do not learn pronunciation
in a formal way and do not receive any strategy training. This indicates that the
students are dependent on the teacher and that formal classroom practice is not
enough to acquire and to learn pronunciation appropriately.

References
Brown, H. D. (2001). Retrieved Junio 14, 2014, from
http://let590.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/teaching-by-principles-douglas-
brown.pdf
Swan, M., & Smith, B. (2001). Learner English: a teacher's guide to interference
and other problems. Cambridge: University Press.

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