TeachingEnglish
CELTA assignment 1(focus on the learner)
Submitted by bafu on 4 January, 2012 - 01:07
Hi!
I am doing an assignment(celta) on focus on the learner. I need to provide an activity for my student(intermediate level) who has used wrong word in her written piece of work. She has written "It is my evergreen dream to speak english fluently." I have to suggest an activity to address this issue. I have to re-submit my assignment in a few days.Can somebody help me,pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee???
Many thanks
bafu
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Hi Bafu,
I wish I could help, but each organisation that runs the CELTA develops their own variation of the assignments and they often have very specific criteria that we would need to know to be able to provide any suggestions.
For example, if your assignment asks you to provide a 'language focusing activity' then you might use something like a card matching game, or a multiple-choice gap-fill task, etc. But if your assignement asks you to provide a 'communicative activity' then you'd need something more like a role-play, scenario, interview, etc.
And not only is this example just one of many aspects that depend on the assignment itself, but many things would depend on the student/s too.
My initial thoughts are that whatever activity you choose, it should be focus on one of the following:
If a gapfill task is acceptable, for example, you could have Ss edit a "letter to a friend" that has 6 words that are too formal/literary/technical (changing evergreen dream, haemoraging nose, raining cats and dogs, etc, to lifelong dream, blood nose, pouring rain, etc).
If a vocabulary game is acceptable, for example, you could design dominoes that fit together according to collocations, or matching cards for the memory game 'pairs' (matching words like evergreen + tree, lifelong + dream, ongoing + projects, endless + piles of reports, etc)
Hi Bafu
Do you actually need an 'activity'? Or do you just need a way of addressing the issue so that the student realsies the word she used was wrong? If a student said this to me, I think I would just repeat the sentenhce back, using a questioning intonation on the word "everygreen" and provide the student with an opportunity for self-correction. It is possible that she only made this error because she was concentrating on speaking fluentyl and communicating ehr ideas, but if she had more time consider her word choice then she would be able to identify the error herself, so give her the chance to do that.
Depending on what 'method' you are supposed to be using for your course, the next activity may or may not be suitable. But I could see this error as an opportunity to get on to some dictionary work. Ask her what 'evergreen' means and see if she can define it. I guess that she's probably heard it somewhere and is now confusing it with another meaning. Then you can get her to look it up in a English learners (monolingual) dictionary (don't give her the full OED definition!!! Make sure it's a dictionary aimed at learners) and help her to understand the definition and loko at the example sentences. Then repeat her incorrect sentence and ask her whether the word works in this case. She will (hopefully!) say no! Then you can use an English collocations dictionary to look at which words she can use together with "dream" and have her (help her to maek up some example sentences using each of the collocations. This way, she will not only correct her mistake, but also probably learn some new words (not least the correct meaning / use of 'evergreen'!), and on top of that she'll gain dictionary skills which are not to be underestimated for all language learners!
Hope that helps!
Thank you very much for such a detailed response. I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. Could you pleaseeee shed some mre light on this? I have to provide some kind of remedial work(written) and attach it woth my assignment.
Thanks again
bafu