CELTA – Assignment 1 – Focus on Leaner – Melissa Venuri Mendis

ASSIGNMENT 1 – FOCUS ON THE LEARNER

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Monday 12 June 2023 13.30 WORD COUNT: 750-1000

Name: _________________________________ Date submitted: ______________________ Word

count: __________

I confirm that this assignment is my own work:

_________________________________________________ (signed)
The candidate is able to Met Met Tutor Comments
Show an awareness of how a learner’s
background, previous learning
experience and learning preference(s)
affect learning.
Identify the learner’s skills strengths and
needs.
Identify the learner’s language strengths
and needs (2 areas/2 examples each).
Correctly use terminology relating to the
description of language systems and
language skills.
Include why these two problems were
prioritised.
Select appropriate material and/or
resources to aid the learner’s language
development.
Provide a rationale for using specific
activities with the learner.
Find, select and reference information
from one or more sources.
Use written language that is clear,
accurate and appropriate to the task.
Word count met (+/- 10 per cent)

Yes/No Date 1st marker 2nd marker

PASS

RESUBMISSION Monday 3 July

needed 13.30
PASS ON
RESUBMISSION
FAIL

OVERALL COMMENTS/ACTION POINTS:

NB: If you need to resubmit an assignment, make sure you hand in the original version and the
resubmitted version. Both versions need to be in your portfolio.
Trainee Checklist (continued on the next page)
Before submitting the assignment make sure you have done everything. Have you:

- Written a short profile including personal details and educational background ☐

- Stated what activities you have established the student enjoys or doesn’t enjoy and
how you know this ☐
- Highlighted their strengths and weaknesses with a balance of skills and language
mentioned ☐
- Mentioned two specific language problems (grammar, lexis or pronunciation ONLY).
You cannot have two from the same area e.g. 2 pron problems ☐
- Have not been too general e.g. stating they have problems with pronunciation is too
general ☐
- Suggested specific solutions to the problem ☐
- Ensured the solution matches the problem exactly e.g. if you have said the problem is
with the form of the past participle when forming present perfect your solution must
focus on practice using the past participle form ☐
- Stated a word count ☐
- Sourced your solutions from other published materials - NOT the coursebook ☐
- Included a bibliography following Harvard referencing conventions ☐
- Completed the cover page and submitted it with your assignment ☐
- Proofread your assignment for spelling, punctuation and use of English ☐
 CELTA – Assignment 1 – Focus on Leaner – Melissa Venuri Mendis

Part A -Overview
Learner profile
General background
Kavitha Perera is 20 years old and she is Sinhalese by birth. She has recently finished her school years and has applied for higher
education at a university. Her current level of English is intermediate.

Kavitha mentioned that Sinhala was commonly used in her household. Even with friends, she tends to naturally fall into using L1.
However, she did mention that she speaks English with her university peers.
Kavitha has attended additional classes for English as a young learner and stated that she was only given attention to her grammar
skills. Speaking and other collaborative activities where never focused upon.

Her focus and dedication to learn English is astounding. It is quite evident that her genuine enthusiasm to venture into jobs
internationally is the prime factor that fuels her intrinsic motivation to learn English.

Kavitha has a preferred learning style. In the recording, she mentioned that she prefers mingling and speaking tasks. In her previous
classes, her needs were never addressed, which is why her speaking skills never bloomed. With her enrollment to British Council, she
stated that her English has improved and she is quite happy with herself.

Part B - Skills
Reading
Kavitha took 7 minutes to finish off her gist task although she was given 3 minutes at first.
The purpose behind allowing her such a time limit was to see how long she took to finish a task that is designed to be skimmed.
I noticed that she underlines every word as she reads and judging her actions through active monitoring, I realized that she read word
to word.
Albeit taking quite a bit of time, her answer for the reading for gist task was in fact correct.
During her reading for detail task, Kavitha took 5 minutes to finish up. Her answers for the questions were correct.

Listening
Kavitha was given her listening for gist task along with a three-minute audio to listen to. Despite the fact that it was one question to
answer, Kavitha requested that I play the recording one more time. She still found it a tad bit difficult to answer the questions. I asked
her CCQs to check her understanding of the audio.
Kavitha’s listening for detail task had no issues.
Her answers for both the listening for gist and detail was correct.

Speaking
Kavitha took a minute to write down points. she took 1 minute and 36 seconds to speak about the given topic.
Although, she had inconsistencies with her grammar, Kavitha spoke about all the points she made notes of.
Additionally, during the interview, Kavitha did not feel reluctant to speak at all. She was quite confident with getting her point across
even if it meant that she was bound to make grammatical errors.
Throughout the whole conversation I had with Kavitha, I noticed how she addressed situations in which she misunderstood what was
expected of her. Whenever, she could not understand what I asked, she would clarify the question herself.
Additionally, through classroom monitoring I have noticed that Kavitha feels extremely comfortable in terms of expressing herself
when group work or mingling is assigned.

Writing
Kavitha takes some time to think about the vocabulary she wishes to use. She does this while writing her sentences. Her penmanship is
fine. She does not write in a manner in which the reader finds it difficult to understand.
 CELTA – Assignment 1 – Focus on Leaner – Melissa Venuri Mendis

Part C – Language
Kavitha finds it a bit difficult to adapt her sentences based on the context. This will be discussed in the below table of Error
identification
Kavitha’s pronunciation is quite good. Although there are few errors that she makes that emphasizes itself as unnatural. This is easy to
spot because the rest of her pronunciation is quite fluent.

Error identification
Error Example of error Correction Why the learner made this error Why the error is prioritized over
other weaknesses

Grammar Wider range of Sinhala and Tamil Sinhala speakers tend to generalize the To express herself much more
uses of New year is present continuous tense when clearly based on the situation.
progressive be + usually celebrated conversing in English. The reason is
V-ing at the end of the that there is no proper distinction
harvest (News.lk, between the present and present
 It is marking 2021). Therefore, continuous in the Sinhala language
the end of the “It marks the end (Hettige & Karunananda, 2009).
harvest of the harvest” For example;
 Sometimes (Habitual action I read (/aɪriːd/) in Sinhala translates to
my friends and general truth) uu lshjkjd(/mʌməkɪjəvənəvʌ//)
are taking a With context, she
zoom means that her I am reading (/aɪjæmriːdɪŋ/) also
meeting... friends always translates to uu lshjkjd
schedule zoom
 meetings to discuss (/mʌməkɪjəvənəvʌ//) or uu
lessons. Therefore, lshjñka isáhd
“My friends (/mʌməkɪjəvəmɪnsɪtɪjʌ/)
schedule
(appropriate word) As there is no proper difference
a zoom meeting...” between tenses in the Sinhala language,
speakers are bound to muddle up
situations in which they have to use
present or present continuous at the
appropriate place(Hettige &
Karunananda, 2009).
Pronunciation Use of /ɔː/ /prɒʤekt/ In Sinhala, there is no clear distinction To get rid of her fossilized
instead of /ɒ/ /ʤɒb/ between /ɔː/ and /ɒ/ (Low & Pakir, pronunciation error
/prɔːʤekt/ 2021). The Sinhala language does have
/ʤɔːb/ the letter “T” which denotes the sound
/ɔː/. As Sinhala speakers are mostly
exposed to the /ɔː/ sound, they are
much likely to pronounce all words
with the letter “o” as /ɔː/.
 CELTA – Assignment 1 – Focus on Leaner – Melissa Venuri Mendis

Part D – Needs and suggestions

Learner needs and activity suggestions
Learner needs 1 – Differentiating the present and present continuous tense based on the context.
Kavitha stated that she prefers speaking and mingling activities. Her multiple intelligences sheet mentions that she is a dominant
linguistic learner.
The task includes an error correction in which Kavitha will work with her peers and discuss answers. Students will move from group
to group and check answers.
(Attached as appendix 1)

Learner needs 2 – distinguishing the /ɔː/ and /ɒ/ sound appropriately

10 words (with pictures) denoting the /ɔː/ sound the /ɒ/ sound will be pasted around the class. Students as pairs (including Kavitha)
will move around the class to identify and note down words that have the /ɔː/ and /ɒ/ sound.
(Attached as appendix 2)
Appendix 1
Are the underlined words wrong? Speak with your partner. Correct them where necessary.

1. Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. ____________

2. The water boils. Can you turn it off? _______________

3. Look! The man tries to open the door of your car. _______________

4. The moon goes around the earth about 27 days. _______________

5. “Hurry up! It’s time to leave.” “OK, I come” _________________

6. They don’t get on well. They’re always arguing _______________

Appendix 2
(Pictures and words that will be pasted around the class)

North Door Fork Bot Fox

Morning Dot
Orange Horse

Job
 CELTA – Assignment 1 – Focus on Leaner – Melissa Venuri Mendis

Conclusion
To sum up, it is vital to understand that each student learns differently from their peers. Their
pronunciation techniques can vary from the standard pronunciation, but still has the ability to
maintain clarity. An example of such was discussed above. At situations such as this, it can be an
advantage to help students pronounce the word correctly so that they can sound natural with the
language.

Word count - 978

References

Hancock, M. (1995) Pronunciation Games. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Bambridage

University Press.

Hettige, B. and Karunananda, A.S. (2009) ‘Theoretical based approach to English to Sinhala
Machine Translation’, 2009 International Conference on Industrial and Information
Systems (ICIIS) [Preprint]. doi:10.1109/iciinfs.2009.5429832.

Low, E.L. and Pakir, A. (2022) English in East and South Asia: Policy, features and language in
use. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Meyler, M. (2020) Sri lankan English, eWAVE. Available at: https://ewave-

atlas.org/languages/55 (Accessed: 10 June 2023).

Murphy, R. (2015) ‘Unit 1 Present continuous (I am doing) , Unit 2 Present simple (I do) , Unit 3
Present continuous and present simple 1 (I am doing and I do)’, in English grammar in
use: A self-study reference and practice book for Intermediate students of english: With
answers. 4th edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 3–7. Unit 2 - Exercise 2.1
and Unit 3 - Exercise 3.1 are adapted for the worksheet

Swan, M. (2001) ‘Speakers of South Asian Languages’, in Learner English: A teacher’s guide to
interference and other problems. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, pp. 227–250.