Activity

This international group comprises five people (two females and three males) who come from
different cultural and educational backgrounds. They are from Japan (1), South Korea (3) and
Brazil (1). The students are 20 + years old and have at least a Bachelor’s degree. It is a mixed
ability group; the learners range from pre- to upper-intermediate levels. Most students need
English as a part of their personal and professional growth because they are looking for
a promotion or are going to enter a Canadian university.

Their main problems are in the areas of pronunciation, Grammar, vocabulary, speaking, listening
and writing.
The learners’ intonation patterns as well as the way they pronounce some vowels, consonants
and consonant clusters are influenced by native languages and sometimes make it difficult for
others to understand them. The learners also tend to pronounce the words the way they are given
in dictionaries without distinguishing between weak and strong forms, content and function
words. It is important to work with students on these areas to increase their intelligibility,
improve fluency, sentence stress and intonation patterns to help the learners to integrate into the
society more quickly and less painfully.

In terms of vocabulary the main struggles are with multi-word verbs, collocations, idioms,
proverbs, sayings and distinguishing between different registers. It is often quite difficult for
the learners to combine correct words to sound natural, use appropriate register, as well as
understand the meaning of non-transparent idioms or sayings. As a result, they are often reluctant
to learn new expressions and include them in their speech. The learners do not understand
the necessity of it, as they do not often have or use such types of lexis in their native languages.
Mastering these types of vocabulary is crucial for achieving higher levels of proficiency and
sounding more like native-speakers, additionally to being able to function in the English-
speaking environment more successfully.

As far as Grammar is concerned, most learners experience difficulties with using correct
narrative tenses when those appear within the same text. Another challenge is with modal verbs
to express different aspects about present and past happenings. Subjunctive mood is one more
fear of the learners, as they often struggle with the correct choice of the structure to be used.
The necessity to practice and develop a better understanding of the above-mentioned topics
cannot be underestimated and, as it is a logical progression while achieving higher levels of
language proficiency, especially when the learners aim at entering universities and getting better
jobs with higher responsibilities.

In terms of skills the students still need to continue working on speaking, listening and writing.
Listening to the spoken language remains a challenge because of its quick speed, sentence stress
and different features. Students deal quite well with the recordings that accompany their
textbooks, but when having a face-to-face conversation with native speakers or talking over the
phone, they do not cope with all the difficulties that arise. They often complain that they fear
telephone conversations and try to avoid those as much as possible. While doing Delta Module
II, I focused on developing bottom-up listening skills, and my learners were surprised to see how
connected speech works and what can be paid less attention to while trying to understand the
main information. Continuous work on developing students’ bottom-up listening skills will
enable them to successfully function in the majority of day-to-day situations.
As regards writing, students are still developing both its informal and formal types. Informal
writing is a little bit easier because of the ability to transfer certain grammar structures and
vocabulary from the spoken language. However, formal writing is a considerably bigger
challenge for all of them because of a more complicated nature of lexis and grammar patterns,
cohesion and coherence to take into consideration. It is particularly important for this group of
students because they are aiming at continuing their education in Canada and performing in a
professional environment.
The final area is developing students speaking skills in terms of teaching them how to hold and
steer a conversation: taking turns, signalling they want to start or finish it or that they are
following, acknowledging the interlocuter’s contribution, expressing disagreement in a polite
way and letting the partner to finish expressing their opinion. Developing students in this
direction will allow them to function at a more advanced level in the academic and professional
settings.