Assignment 1: Focus on the Learner

Part A: Learner Profile

For the assignment 1, I decided to interview one of the students from the Kadikoy class. Bahar Bahlik is a 32-year-old
Turkish student in Elementary level. Her mother tongue is Persian. She is currently unemployed.

She studied English mostly at high school and at the university. She learned English at school from grade 1 to 3
(elementary)and concentrated mostly on learning the grammar and as a result communicative skills such as speaking,
language function and fluency haven't been emphasized. When her family decided to immigrate to Turkey, she started
participating in English courses in Iran. However, moving to Turkey and being unemployed, didn't give her the chance to
use things which she had studied via her experience in English.
During my teaching practice, I saw her enjoying the public aspect of learning English. Bahar has the competence to become
a proficient English language user. She has a very positive and potent approach to learning tasks. Bahar wants to learn
English language at International Training Institute with the purpose to promote her job opportunities in Istanbul and work
at a private elementary school. At her new workplace, she would communicate with non-Turkish speakers mainly as
colleagues, parents and support staff. Moreover, Bahar has one younger sister who is studying medical science in Istanbul
Medical University. Her motivation to improve her language skills, especially her speaking and fluency, originates from
not being able to communicate efficiently with other people. She also mentioned that she has to help her sister with her
lessons, as she has enrolled in Medical Science in university.
Her reason to enhance her level of English specifically her grammar and speaking is that she cannot communicate effectively
with other people and she has decided to work at a private elementary school. She knows that English is the most common
language around and if she learns English correctly, she can improve her position not only in her professional job but also
in her personal life. Thus, Bahar believes that it is indispensable to promote her proficiency in English language “A
constructivist view of motivation places prime emphasis on social context as well as individual personal choices. Our
choices to expend effort are always carried out within a cultural and social milieu. “Maslow’s (1970) hierarchy of needs
included community, belonging and social status. Motivation, in a constructivist view, is derived as much from out
interactions with others as it is from our self-determination.” (Douglas, B, 2014, page159)

Bahar is a committed learner. She inclines interactive speaking lessons working in pairs or smaller groups at tables. This
was likely intrinsic to the fact that the wide majority of students wished to obtain a general increase in their conversational
ability in English.

In the following, there is a discussion about her skills in English.

1- She has some potential problems in properly using the simple past and the present perfect. It seems she has difficulty
differentiating these two tenses. For example, in one part of the interview I had with her she produced the sentence: “ I
learned English for 2 year”. As can be seen in this example she has used the simple past instead of the present perfect.
Because of her level, it’s obvious that she’s not able to use present perfect properly but we can help her understand that
“for” is not the sign for past simple, so she will be able to make more accurate sentences using the grammar she already
knows.
Moreover, she has left the plural ‘s’ out of the word “year” because of L1 interference. In persian, the word year is
uncountable (year,/jɪə/U.N, Farhang Moaser Living-dictionary).

According to Khoshsima(2017) "As the results represented in the diagram 1 shows Iranian young adult EFL learners
struggle with sentence making and structures because their knowledge of Persian hinders their learning in this area. It was
found that using plural S was problematic in two senses; one when learners pluralized the uncountable nouns and the other
one when the plurals were missed singular. The typical Persian interference was where the nouns in Persian were countable
and in English non-count.(Khoshsima,H,2017,p.7)

2- Her speaking is so weak that she speaks with a lot of delay. Moreover, she has an L1 interference error with some vowels.
Bahar pronounced (classmate) as /klɑːsmiːt/ instead of /ˈklɑːs.meɪt/ and according to Aghai and Sayer (2016), “(Sadeghi
(2009) asserted that lower level students tend to transfer L1 habits into L2 more frequently as a result of their lack of
knowledge in the target language. This seemed to be especially true with vowel sounds. However, students’ vowel errors
decreased as their proficiency level increased.

(+) indicates students’ generally made the correct pronunciation and

(-) indicates the problematic areas among different proficiency levels.”
3- Her reading is so slow that she constantly check the meaning of the words through an electronic
dictionary.
Part B: Identifying language problems and providing suitable activities to address these

Grammar
What the student said Error Why error was made?

1- She used “year” as an L1 interference.According to

I learned English for 2 year. uncountable noun. Khoshsima(2017).(Mentioned above)
 Pronunciation

What the student said. Error Why this error was made?

I work with a The learner has a problem with the

sound /eɪ/ L1 interference.according to Aghai and Sayer
classmate.
/ ˈklɑːs miːt/ (2016)

Selected activities to help my learner

1. Grammar Task: As observed, Bahar has an L1 interference with some countable nouns.
Handout 1 will help the learner overcome her problem with English countable nouns that are
uncountable in Persian. In this exercise the following words are uncountable in Persian
(year,potato,child,....)(handout 1)

2. Pronunciation task: Pronunciation Practice Handout

The practice handout (2)will directly deal with the learner’s pronunciation issues. The learner
will rehearse practicing the correct sounds of meɪt/eɪ//. The hanout 2 will straight tackle the
learner’s pronunciation problem. The learner can practice the sound /eɪ/ .

Sources Cited
European Journal of English Language Teaching.Khoshsima,H & Banaruee,H.Vol. 2. Issue 4. 2017.

Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, H Douglas Brown, Pearson Education, Inc.
(2014)-page 159;

LearnEnglish-Turkish speakers. Thompson,I,2001,pg.2,17.

Grammar Handout:
Elementary language practice,Vince,M.3Ed.2010, p.50

Pronunciation Handout:
Ship or sheep.Baker,A.2006,p.g55

MEXTESOL Journal,Aghai,L&Sayer,P. 2016 Vol. 40, No. 2.

Farhang Moaser Living-dictionary,2006,Farhang Publication.

Appendix 1

Appendix 2