Universidad Catlica de la Santsima Concepcin

Facultad de Educacin
Pedagoga Media en Ingls




LANGUAGE LEARNER PROFILE









Author (s): Diego Garrido Rubilar
Isidora Herrera Cordero
Teachers Name: Roxanna Correa P.
Subject: Learning and Acquisition of
English as a Foreign Language
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INDEX
1. LEARNER BACKGROUND . 3
2. INTERVIEW .. 3 4
3. PHONETICS TRANSCRIPTION .. 4
4. ANALYSIS AND EXAMPLES.
4.1 GENERAL ANALYSIS.................................................................................................
4.1 PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY ..
4.2 GRAMMAR/ SYNTAX ANALYSIS (FORM, MEANING, USE)
4
4
5
5 - 7
5. PROPOSAL............. 7
6. CONCLUSION 8
7. REFERENCES 9













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1. - LEARNER BACKGROUND

The interview we made was applied to a woman of 21 years old. She is studying a bachelors
degree in humanities since 2012 in Universidad de Concepcin. Her background in English started
when she was in fifth year of elementary school. Then she had the English subject until the last
year in high school. After that she studies English Pedagogy for one year at Universidad Catolica de
la Santisima Concepcion.

2. - INTERVIEW

(1)Learner: Hello.
(2) Our first question is, why did you decide to study English pedagogy?
(3)Learner: Well, I decide to study English pedagogy because its ah wonderful degree when
(4) you know other peoples and to help their questions.
(5) Do you think English is an important subject in school or university?
(6)Learner: Yes, I think the English is a very important subject in nowadays, because open
(7) otherother doors and and alou to to know other culture.
(8) How do you think English can help you in the future, in your future work?
(9)Learner: Eehm I think the English eh can help me in a the future, eh because
(10) eh is a one to one language to eh alou to eh keep contact with the others.
(11)And between listening, reading, speaking and writing which do you think is the hardest ability
(12) to develop?
(13)Learner: Well I think the hardest eeeeee ability? For me is the the oral ability eh
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(14)because eh I lost practice to to speak in English.
(15) Okay, thank you and thats all.

3. - PHONETICS TRANSCRIPTION
3. | wel | a dsad t stdi l peddi bkz s wndfl dri wen ju n pipl z
4. nd tu hel er kwestnz |
9.| e | a e l e kn help mi n e: fur | e bkz e z wn t wn lwd
10. tu e alou tu t kip e kntkt w e rz |
13.| wel | a k hrdst e blti | fr mi z e <> e rl hblti e bkz e a lst
14.prkts | t t spik n l |

4. ANALYSIS AND EXAMPLES
4.1. - GENERAL ANALYSIS
In the analysis we could notice some interesting issues about the learner. Some of the problems
were difficult to see or hear and some others were easier. The biggest problem we found in
phonetic and phonology was the fluency, and in grammar it was more difficult to find a problem.
Even though the learner has a lack of vocabulary or difficulty with word order it was easy to
understand what she was trying to say because she took her time to answer the questions.






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4.2. - PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY
Word Pronunciation analysis Correct
pronunciation (RP)
ability /hblti/ Even though, the learner said the word at
first properly, the pronunciation of this
word might differ because of Spanish
interference on the learner speech.
/blt/
Help / hel/ In colloquial Spanish, final sounds are not
important as it is in colloquial English
speech; this is why many not native
speakers have problems with the final
sounds. In this case the student omitted
the final sound /p/
/help/
Allow / alou / The person knew the meaning of the word
but maybe learnt the word by reading it
and the interference with the L1 made the
student leanr the word by how it may
sound if the word is read in Spanish. This
may end in fossilization if it is not corrected
on time.
/la/

4.3. - GRAMMAR/ SYNTAX ANALYSIS (FORM, MEANING, USE)

Form
(3) Well, I decide to study English pedagogy because its ah()
In this sentence the learner made a mistake using a different tense in the verb decide. Maybe the
problem in this initial answer was that at the time the question was made the learner heard the
word decide and related that with the answer. The correct way should be: Well, I decided to
study English pedagogy because its ().




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(6) Yes, I think the English is a very important subject in nowadays ()
Here we have an addition of the definite article THE. In this case we can think of two probable
reasons that can explain why the learner adds that definite article. The first probable reason is
that the learner made a mistake of generalization and the second probable reason is an omission
of a word that precede English such as subject. The correct way should be: Yes, I think English
is a very important subject in nowadays ().


Meaning
(9)Learner: Em I think the English eh can help me in a the future, e because
(10) e is a one to one language to eh alou to eh keep contact with the others.
The mistake we found here is a meaning mistake. It is very difficult to guess what the learner tried
to say in this part of the sentence, but reading what continues in the interview we can infer that is
trying to say something related with the socialization with others English speakers. As we can see
here we have a problem with lack of vocabulary and as a consequence the sentence loses all the
meaning.

Use
(3)Learner: Well, I decide to study English pedagogy because its ah wonderful degree when
(4) you know other peoples and to help their questions.
We could find some mistakes in this sentence, but the one that caught our attention was the
misuse of the word when. In that context it would be better to use where rather than when. We
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can infer that the learner refers that in English degrees you can find people and socialize with
them, maybe even from other countries.


(10)eh is a one to one language to eh alou to eh keep contact with the others.
In this sentence we can also find a mistake of use. As we mentioned before in the preview
analysis, there is a problem with meaning and after that we can see that there is a problem with
use. Keep contact with others has a correct form and meaning, but it is not well use in that
context. The question we made was refer to how English can help as a tool in the future work and
the learner answer the question thinking in a social matter. Also, we can infer that the idea of the
learner was to communicate with other people, and using keep contact is trying to say still
talking with someone that is not near anymore.

5. - PROPOSAL
There are a lot of difficulties at the time someone starts to learn English. It is not only matter of
time to learn English, it is also practice. We cannot develop any ability of English without
practicing. We live in a non-native English country so that means that there is almost no context to
use English. This is why we should take any advantage when we have the chances to develop the
language. With this interview we notice that speaking is a difficult ability and foreign learners are
shy or ashamed to talk in English. We can make a lot of proposals, but we are going to focus in a
particular element, fluency.
Fluency is a very important element in speaking and most of the learners have no fluency at the
beginning. There are a lot of different things that can make this happen but one of them is
security. Elementary learners or students do not have enough security to speak fluently and they
start making mistakes because of been nervous. This is why our proposal to develop this ability is
to give confidence to the students so this way they can become more fluent in a short period of
time. Every instance they may have to speak they have to use it and the teacher should lend them
the necessary tools to make them speak.
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6. - CONCLUSION
To conclude, during this deep analysis of the speaking performance of a l2 learner, helped us to
understand the processes which an L2 may have during the learning procedure. We also
understood how difficult is speaking in order to teach in a classroom. Confidence has an important
role on learners in order to improve their performances while are learning the language. Most
students lack of confident because their feel afraid of being wrong in front of an audience, as
teachers we need to teach students how to deal with an audience and to show themselves they
can do it.
During this workshop we have seen and understand how does the L1, (in this case Spanish)
interferes in the learning process of an L2 (English) and how does the metacognitive process has
an effect on the speaking performance of the student.













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7. - References

- Larsen-Freeman, D. (2003). Teaching Language: From Grammar to Grammaring. Thomson
Heinle.