Arasteh 1

Nastaran Arasteh
Trainer: Sandy Millin
CELTA (Written Assignment #1)
9 December 2014
Focus on the Learner Part One and Two (1012 words)
PART A
The subject of this study is Masami Ishibashi; a 29-year-old female Japanese learner,
with -according to her- almost no background in language learning. This learner has just
moved to Vancouver to learn English and is an elementary student at IH Vancouver.
With her first language being Japanese, the learner is struggling with English
grammar and pronunciation due to the great grammatical, lexical and phonetic disparity
between the two languages. (Thompson 296) To further illustrate these difficulties, I will
provide three examples of grammatical mistakes and two examples of pronunciation
problems, which according to Ian Thompson are quite common among the Japanese learners
of English.
In his essay Japanese Speakers, under the title of Topicalisation Ian Thompson
writes It is common for the topic of a Japanese sentence (which may not be the subject) to
be announced separately at the beginning.. (301) Masami utters such sentences very
frequently. For instance, when asked about her motivation to learn English, she said English
the world speak. Instead of saying People speak English all over the world.
Another common grammatical mistake that Japanese learners make -due to first
language interference- is, according to Ian Thompson, that The copula be is often dropped.
(301) One example of this mistake can be found in the homework task completed by the
learner. She wrote Japans desert small instead of Japans desert is small.

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The last example -regarding grammar- that I would like to mention is what Thompson
calls inappropriate use of auxiliary be. (301) You and I are have dark hairs. is one of
several instances of such misuse of this auxiliary found in the learners writing.
Two of the most noticeable pronunciation problems of this learner were what
Thompson mentions in his essay under Phonology as /s/ becoming // when the
learners attempt to produce the word same /sem/ sounded more like
shame /em/ and // becoming // when her attempt to produce the
word worker /wrkr / resulted in what sounded like walker /wkr/.
(297-298)
As for motivation, the learner only mentioned the vast global use of English in
contrast with the limited local use of Japanese. What I infer-from this and the fact that she is
planning to return to Japan after finishing her English studies in Vancouver-is that her
motivation is basically intrinsic and greatly influenced by globalization.
The learner showed interest in pair-work activities while preferring individual work
for the more difficult exercises. She also mentioned that in order to memorize vocabulary she
needs to write the words over and over again. This along with her judgment about writing
being her best language skill leads me to conclude that her preferred sensory modality must
be visual.
When asked about the skills she wanted to improve, the learner gave the highest
priority to listening and the second priority to speaking. This is most probably related to the
fact that her basic motivation in learning English is having the ability to communicate orally
when she is traveling abroad. Furthermore she expressed an interest in listening to English
songs, which I would definitely consider when suggesting activities for her.

Arasteh 3

PART B
Problem area 1
Although grammar is usually believed to be the most important of the language
systems, I believe that the Masamis inability to pronounce English words properly is what
really makes her attempts to communicate in this language fail. This means that even if she
produces sound sentences regarding lexis and syntax, the listener will have a hard time
decoding her utterances due to mispronunciation. For example when the learner was asked
about her plans for the coming weekend, her answer sounded like Ill go to shuttle, and it
took me and a couple of other trainees quite a while to decode the utterance to Ill go to
Seattle. In another instance, when she was asked about her job, the answer sounded like
horse walker, which again took us a while to realize that she was trying to say office
worker.
For the first 30-minute one-to-one lesson, I recommend a pronunciation activity
focusing on pairs of words that vary only by one having the sound /s/ and the other the
sound // such as sea /si/ and she /i/. From the long list of such word pairs presented on the
englishclub.com website, I have selected those I thought appropriate for Masami considering
her language level (Appendix 2).
Activity procedure:
The teacher cuts the cards out of the worksheet (Appendix 2) and put them face down
on the table. The students must take turns to try to find a pair by turning the cards over two
by two and pronouncing the words on both cards. Every time a student finds a pair he/she
gets a point, leaves the two cards face up and gets another turn. The game would continue
until all the cards are face up and each student has pronounced all the words a few times
during their attempts.

Arasteh 4

Problem area 2
Among the four language skills, the learner showed the most interest in improvement
of her listening skill. For this reason, the inherent significance of listening in oral everyday
communication and the influence it has on speaking skill; I would strongly suggest that the
focus of the 30-minute one-to-one lesson be on listening.
For this purpose I used the forth chapter of Tim Murphys book Music and Song
(appendix3) to design a text completion activity for Masami. The song I have chosen is Frank
Sinatras Let it Snow (appendix4) which is both level appropriate and well known. The lesson
would contain four stages namely; lead-in, listening for the gist, Listening for details and
follow-up. In the first stage I would have a chat with Masami about Christmas songs and see
if she has a favorite. In the second stage her task would be to listen to the song and see what it
is about. Then I would give her the gapped lyrics to complete, while listening to the song for
the second time. And In the last stage I would ask her to sing along.

Works Cited
"Minimal Pairs /s/ and //." Minimal Pairs /s/ and //. Web. 14 Dec. 2014.
<https://www.englishclub.com/>

Arasteh 5

Murphy, Tim. Music and Song. Oxford. OUP. 1992. 69. Print.
Thompson, Ian. Japanese speakers. Learner English: A teacher's guide to interference and
other problems (2nd ed). Ed. Michael Swan. Bernard Smith. Cambridge. Cambridge
University Press, 2001. 296-309. Print.

Appendix 2

sea

she

Arasteh 6

seat

sheet

sock

shock

seal

shell

save

shave

so

show

sort

short

Appendix 4

"Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!"

Oh, the weather outside is frightful
But the ______is so delightful
And since we've no ______ to go

Arasteh 7

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

It doesn't show _____ of stopping
And I brought some corn for popping
The ______are turned way down low
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
When we finally _____ good-night
How I'll hate going out in the storm
But if you really hold me tight
All the way home I'll be _______
The fire is ______ dying
And, my dear, we're still good-bye-ing
But as long as you love me so
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
When we finally kiss good-night
How I'll hate going out in the _____
But if you really hold me tight
All the way home I'll be warm
The fire is slowly dying
And, my dear, we're _____ good-bye-ing
But as long as you love me so
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

kiss

place

still

storm

slowly

signs

lights

fire

warm