TTO Students’ Personal Development Plan

Personal Development Aims and Procedure

Dear boys and girls,

This year, you will be working on your personal development for a mark. Please read the aims and procedure carefully and discuss the contents with your
teacher.

Aims

Personal development aims at helping you, as a student to take responsibilty for some aspects of your own learning. We hope that by identifying your areas
of weakness in the English language, you will zero in on specific skills and work hard at becoming competent language users. In time, you will be able to find
your own way, becoming an independent learner, who does not need to depend on your teacher to guide you through all learning tasks.

Procedure

1. Set a language goal: think about the skills: reading, writing, listening, speaking; and the sub-skills, grammar and vocabulary. Which of these skills
would you like to improve? Set SMART goals for yourself: S -specific; M -measurable; A -attainable; R -relevant; and T -time based.
2. Be Specific: within the skill, what is it you want to develop? For example do you want to improve your speed in reading or comprehension, etc.?
3. Decide how to measure your progress use the mark scheme to measure your progress: how would you like to be assessed? How much work will you
put in and what do you think you deserve for the effort? Will your teacher agree with you?
4. Set attainable targets: don’t set targets that are too big! While your personal development goal must show that you are willing to challenge yourself
and to exercise initiative in developing your language skills, be realistic.
5. Make sure it’s relevant: the idea is to work on your English language skills. What do you want to do? Think outside the box, but make sure there’s a
clear focus on the skills, as you will only get a mark for your personal development of the skills.
6. Work consistently on your goal: you have between September and 31 May to develop yourself and gather evidence to that effect. Although your
teacher will give you some time within the lesson for PD, create your own opportunities for practice.
7. Keep a log: monitor your progress by keeping a log for instance.
8. Ask for help: you must mail your PD goals to your teacher within the first two weeks of September. Please ask your teacher for feedback and
help.
9. Mark: the PD has a weight of one and the mark will be recorded in SOM at the end of the third term in June. Your teacher still has the final say as
to the mark you’ll receive.

Good luck!

pag. 1
 TTO Students’ Personal Development Plan

Your English teachers

Name __________________________________________________

Class ___________________________________________________

1. Personal Evaluation: In the following section, state the skill(s) you wish to develop and why:

Skill What do I need to develop?

1. Reading Which aspect(s) of reading do you wish to develop? (Highlight)
a) reading for pleasure and general language improvement.
b) reading to develop specific (receptive) skills e.g. general understanding of texts (skimming); reading for specific
information (scanning); reading for detailed understanding, reading for inference (what is implied).
c) reading for speed
d) other, please specify_____________________________________________________

Why?_________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

pag. 2
 TTO Students’ Personal Development Plan

How?
For a), you can keep a journal/log; write short reviews; write a letter to one of the characters; write an alternative ending to
the story; discuss facts and opinions about the book (audio recordings) etc. For b), you can read articles in quality
newspapers, on topics of interest to you (diversify the length of the articles); read articles with questions, answer the
questions and identify where you got the answer; notice connectives (e.g. although, however, but etc.) what do these refer
to in the text. For c) predict what the text is about; time your reading and answer questions; summarise text etc.

Specify how you want to develop your desired reading skills:

________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________

Resources: how will you acquire the resources? How many books/articles will you read?
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________

2. Writing Which aspects of writing are you weak at or do you wish to develop? (Highlight)
a) Structure of specific writing tasks
b) Punctuation and spelling
c) Vocab., grammar, connectives and sentence structure
d) Conventions of different kinds of writing
e) Other, specify ______________________________________________

Why?
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________

pag. 3
 TTO Students’ Personal Development Plan

___________________________________________________________________________________

How?
Creative writing: write about your childhood; use your imagination to write topics of interest: explore short stories, poems
and plays (have fun writing, but also improve b – d )
Non-fiction: essays, reports, articles, film reviews, diary entries, formal and informal letters are all writing genres you can take
up.
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
Resources:
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

3. Listening Which aspects of listening are do you wish to develop? (Highlight)

a) Extensive listening (takes place outside the classroom; you choose what to listen to)
b) Intensive listening (listening for comprehension)
c) Other, specify __________________________________________________________

Why?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

pag. 4
 TTO Students’ Personal Development Plan

How?
For a) listen to authentic materials; audiobooks, podcasts, news (for instance: www.bbc.co.uk/radio) keep a journal
containing all links, summarise key points, write down difficult words, repeat the broadcast, if possible. Interview people in
English (design your questions and ask follow-up questions.
For b) predict content of podcast, listen globally (generally) and then intensely to answer the questions, underline key words.
Watch video clips of varying length and subject matter
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Resources:
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

4. Speaking Which aspects of speaking are you weak at or do you wish to develop?
a) Fluency
b) Using appropriate stress and intonation (rises and falls in speaking)
c) Pronunciation
d) Accent

Why?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

How?
Participate in different speaking events (from always speaking English in class to giving speeches, presentations, role plays,

pag. 5
 TTO Students’ Personal Development Plan

conversations with teachers etc.). Combine planned and unplanned speaking tasks. Record yourself before you start your
training sessions. Go to (bbc.learningenglish.com or click on these two links https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=htmkbIboG9Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwDJnXt3ZVQ&list=RDCMUCHaHD477h-FeBbVh9Sh7syA&start_radio=1&t=9s

_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Resources:
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

5. Sub-skills Which sub-skill do you wish to develop?

(grammar & a) Grammar
vocab) b) Vocabulary

Why?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

pag. 6
 TTO Students’ Personal Development Plan

How?
For vocabulary, simply including word lists will not be accepted, you can use the words in some of the writing tasks
mentioned above, in which case you demonstrate that you can use the words correctly. Similarly, for grammar, simply
showing the websites you visited through screenshots of exercises done, will not be accepted. You must use a variety of
grammar items to show range and sophistication in written tasks. Both grammar and vocab should be at your level.
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Resources:
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

2. Personal Development Plan: In the following section, design a plan that will shape your course of action:

Planned action Number of times per week Goals achieved? Yes/No (specify)

September to December 2022

January to March 2023
April to 31 May 2023

3. Mark scheme

1–5 5.5 – 7 7.5 – 10

The Personal Development Plan was incomplete The Personal Development Plan was complete The Personal Development Plan was complete

pag. 7
 TTO Students’ Personal Development Plan

or poorly done with inconsistent degrees of success with wide range of success
Little evidence of seriousness, the evidence Evidence provided shows seriousness, the Evidence provided was impressive, credible and
submitted lacks credibility and does not show evidence submitted demonstrates varying with ample creative input
creative input degrees of credibility and creative input

pag. 8