LEL Task 1 – Learner Profile
LEARNER IDENTIFICATION:
Information about Faisa was gathered through a recorded interview, informal conversations in class, class assessments and a learning styles test (VAX).
INTRODUCTION
Faisa is a 21-year-old Somali woman. She moved to the UK in 2006 as a refugee. She lives in a council flat with her brother, his wife and her baby nephew. She worked in a mobile-phone shop for five months in 2008, but has been unemployed for the past eighteen months and claims benefits. Faisa attended classes at Enfield College before joining my ESOL Entry 3 class, and has a full ESOL Entry 2 certificate. She joined my class because she was put on the Job Centre’s ‘New Deal Program’, which offers job seekers the
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Her requests to read and write stories led me to use Penguin Readers in class and she was very involved in reading some of the stories aloud, discussing the ideas in the stories and writing short reviews and stories. This new goal motivates her language learning and supports the Andragogical theory that adult learners learn best when they are interested in the subject they are learning and the lesson is useful to them. Her high aspirations with regard to understanding English keeps her focused on improving her expression in English. The result is that her basic communication skills, e.g. with the Housing office or the doctor is better than most E3 learners.
FACTORS AFFECTING LEARNING:
Despite her very positive approach to language class, Faisa has many personal factors affecting her progress.
When she was fourteen her sister was killed and she was seriously injured in a bombing on her home in Mogadishu. As a result Faisa suffers extreme migraine headaches and often cannot come to class, or has to leave early. She says the pain is like a fire in her skull. Faisa is also dyslexic, having been diagnosed while in Sweden. She does not see this as a difficulty. She wears tinted glasses and has a transparent blue plastic ruler that she uses over her reading material to aid her. At the moment Faisa’s sister-in-law is gong through a difficult pregnancy and so Faisa has a greater amount of responsibility at home. She does not mind this but
Providing a rich and varied context is essential, tutors should utilize a range of different methods to engage all students interests and learning styles. Identifying and meeting the learners needs are important so that tutors can facilitate students learning and ensure that both the students and tutors meet the required goals. Each learner is unique and brings to the learning situation their own different learning style, knowledge set, past experiences and motivational levels. It is important for tutors to consider the level of knowledge and skill development attained by the learners prior to instruction through a variety of different types of assessment, in order to offer a high quality learning experience, delivered and resourced to suit the needs of the learner. Tutors can assess learner needs through numerous means, such as; informal and formal assessment strategies, pre-course interviews and learning style tests. This will allow tutors to tailor lessons and activities to support learners individual needs.
Without sufficient education, finding a job is exceptionally challenging. Today, having an educated background is crucial in finding a job, due to the competitive nature of society. Employers simply want the best of the best, meaning that you must have, at the very least, a secondary school education, a tremendous amount of work experience in many different fields of work, and in many cases, a postsecondary education. If an individual is coming from a disadvantaged background, having a sufficient education in the standards of today’s society is rare. If an individual does not have the requirements to get a sufficiently paid job, they will have no other way of getting an income that will allow them to afford the cost of a living space. Even if an individual acquires a job that pays minimum wage, the amount of income earned may not be enough to stay off the streets. In the documentary, Storied Streets (2014), many of the individuals that were interviewed discuss how difficult it is to get off the streets without external help from social support groups. Many of the individuals in the documentary did not have sufficient education and were unable to get jobs that paid enough for them to support themselves and afford housing. An example of the impacts of insufficient education and income is Digger’s life as a rounder. When he
As a Learning Assistant, working in Year 3, I worked closely with a seven year old girl who, for the purpose of this case study, I will call Jane. Jane was a confident and happy girl who, despite not being particularly academically gifted, always participated with class discussions and activities enthusiastically.
Aminata’s love for education comes from her father, and it acts as a light that
From what I have observed, I came to an understanding that Child C’s language and communication has developed well for his age. He listens to stories accurately and understand ‘why’ or ‘how’ questions. Normally he is one of the first children to answer the question which was asked by the teachers. In the EYFS, it states that at this age, children would have developed an understanding when it comes to listening to stories either in small groups or as a class, their attention span lasts longer and they tend to join in, repeating phrases and sentences. This also has a link to his literacy development. Whilst there was a session where it was time to tell stories, child ‘C’ showed an understanding from the feedback he gave to the teachers. He is able to recall what happened in the story and the adults did their job by asking him leading questions and encouraging him and this leads to him expanding his thoughts and ideas. This also comes with positive praises and stamps as well as other forms of rewards. The way in which I found out this information was through narrative observation with post it notes to capture any wow moments.
review the key aims of your subject specialism, and discuss the key philosophical issues associated with it. Provide a summary of the aims and structures of course(s).
There is an ancient Chinese proverb, that goes by “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. Today, I would like to discuss my cousin, Stephanie Lam, who went to Taiwan one summer to teach English in a two week enrichment program. Her students, ranging from 12 to 17-year-olds, came from low-income families around Taiwan, seeking help in learning English, as they do not normally have the proper resources to do so. Though the language barrier was a formidable obstacle, Stephanie bonded with her students and other teachers, and greatly improved their English proficiency. Now, thanks to her, they understand a new language even better than they did before, and therefore have access to
What are your instructional goals to promote growth for this student as a reader and interpreter of text in a variety of media? My
The aim of this essay is to give the reader an overview of the types of study skills necessary for a student to study for and attain a Diploma in Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector. In it I will discuss my personal approach to study and the study skills I need to use on the programme. The essay will highlight the skills I feel are my current strengths and draw attention to the areas I need to develop. I will briefly describe and evaluate some different reflective models and in relation to these explain the type of reflective model I use and how this helps me to understand how I can improve my learning experience and my study skills in order to study more proactively.
The most effective method of differentiating is to ensure that resources and assessment methods, as well as teaching and learning approaches meet individual learner needs. According to Francis and Gould (2013) setting a single objective for a whole group will not be appropriate for all learners, due to the diversity of the group, therefore, as Gravells (2008) suggests we must identify the learning needs, styles, aspirations and potential of our learners. At this very stage, any barriers and boundaries should be identified, so the teaching and learning approaches, assessment methods and resources can be planned accordingly.
Many of their learning needs are similar to those of other children and young people learning in our schools. However, these learners also have distinct and different needs from other learners by virtue of the fact that they are learning in and through another language, and that they come from cultural backgrounds and communities with different understandings and expectations of education, language and learning”. (NALDIC, 1999).
1.1 Compare and contrast the roles of the teacher and the learning support practitioner in assessment of learners’ achievements.
Dennis is a single 43 year old man who had a steady job and a good income in concreting. Over the years he has always a lot of work, earning a good income every month. Dennis doesn’t own a property, choosing to rent throughout his life. Due to a recent recession there has been a rapid decline in work whereby Dennis’ income has been rapidly decreasing. Dennis has never acquired qualifications as he has been in this trade since he started working. Dennis has recently lost his flat due to being unable
Whenever she receives an email from any of the teachers she usually replies it and asks questions related to what she could not understand (e.g.: Teacher, what does Rgds mean?) Although she is very motivated, during the lessons she prefers to be nominated for activities. Whenever talking to the teacher, she often asks for feedback and after making a mistake, she tries to say it again until she feels she understood it.
The learner I have chosen has a general level of education from her native country, having attended nursery, primary and secondary schools. In her period of education in secondary school, she managed studied the English language for approximately 5 years.