Focus on the Learner

Learner Profile

The learner in focus for this profile is Mendy Wong. She was born in The New Territories of Hong Kong in 1960, and has
lived and worked in the city her entire life. She is a garment manufacturer that owns her own business, including a sales
shop in Sham Shui Po and a factory in Shenzhen, China. She is fluent in her native Chinese and has no trouble reading
and writing at an advanced level. Though she has decades of experience with English, it is difficult to place her at an
exact level. Like most students, Mendy demonstrates a range of language related tasks she is weaker and stronger at,
and falls somewhere around the pre-intermediate/intermediate level in terms or practical application (Scrivener
2005:87-89).

Mendy’s first exposure to learning English was at primary school in Hong Kong. The classes were about 1 hour a day, 5
days a week and were taught by a local Chinese teacher that was not a native speaker of English. She recalls that her
English lessons were not an enjoyable experience. The primary methods of education were to memorize vocabulary
words and grammatical concepts, and to listen and write down dictations read by the teacher. Her English lessons
continued into secondary school, but they weren’t as frequent or as memorable (Mendy was unable to recall any
specifics of her secondary educational experience). Mendy’s formal education, along with structured English lessons,
ended with her completion of secondary school.

Mendy would like to improve her English in order to further develop her business. As a self-owned garment
manufacturer, Mendy has clients from around the world. The primary language used to interact with clients is English.
Currently, Mendy has her daughter (a native English speaker) liaise with clients and represent the business on her
behalf. However, as her daughter advances with her own career and takes on more professional obligations, she has less
time to devote to facilitating international communication for her mother’s business. Mendy’s primary motivation for
expanding and improving upon her English is so that she can be more self-reliant when interacting with foreign clients.

Learning preference

Mendy is primarily a visual learner. When learning about new words or ideas, she needs there to be writing on the board
that helps convey the meaning. Visual aids also assist in her learning as well, and can easily be used instead of written
words to help convey meaning. Mendy believes her appeal to a visual learning style is a direct consequence of the
negative experience she had in primary school in having to listen acutely and transcribe oral dictations. Mendy does not
like to work alone, but instead prefers to complete tasks in pairs or small groups. If groups become too large though,
Mendy becomes more self-conscience of her English and withdraws from conversation. While studying English as an
adult, Mendy would prefer a limited amount of lecturing in class and for activities to be completed in groups of 2-3
people.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Mendy has no trouble understanding basic English instructions and questions. When interviewed about her work,
friends, family, and educational background, she was able to clearly grasp the questions and what was being asked of
her. Her comprehension of lexis relating to everyday topics of conversation and the more nuanced aspect of her work is
solid. Mendy’s responses were simple and direct, though she finds it more comfortable to write out her replies rather
speak them.

As a whole, Mendy is much more comfortable with reading and writing than interactions involving listening and
speaking. She keeps bringing up her primary school experience, which likely does play a role, however a more likely
explanation is that all of her current English practice revolves around communicating with her clients through email,
thus she has received much more practice and authentic experiences with these methods of communication.
She makes a few errors with tense when writing, such as using present continuous tense to say ‘I am living in New
Territory’ instead of using the simple present tense to say ‘I live in The New Territories,’ but these are minimal when
compared to her spoken English. (Appendix 3)

As another example, Mendy has no trouble using correct subject and object pronouns when writing. When speaking
though, she will often mix up genders and the placement of subject/object pronouns. In referring to her daughter
helping her with the business, it was not uncommon for her to say ‘he help me’ or ‘us go to China.’ While this is a
common issue among native Chinese English speakers (Swan and Smith, 2001:318-319), it is one Mendy needs to
overcome before taking on a more direct role when communicating with clients in person.

There are a lot of sounds and pronunciations in English that Mendy still has difficulty with. When giving her thoughts on
different situations, she would often pronounce ‘I think’ with a /t/ replacing the /θ/ sound at the beginning of the word.
As another example, when saying the things were ‘good’ Mendy would often pronounce /uː/ instead of /ʊ/. Mendy is
aware of these pronunciation issues and makes an effort to correct them, though these are common mistakes for
Chinese speakers, as “some English phonemes do not have Chinese counterparts and are hard to learn.” (Swan and
Smith, 2001:310)

Some other common mistakes Mendy will make include grammatical concepts that exist in English, but do not have a
clear Chinese counterpart (Swan and Smith, 2001:321). For example, with phrasal and prepositional verbs, she will often
only use a part of the phrase to get her point across. When wanting to say ‘turn off the light,’ it will come out as ‘off the
light,’ with the verb ‘turn’ being left out entirely. The articles a/the will often be left out (or mixed up) in oral
communications, but used correctly with written responses. Some examples include sentences indicating that she ‘loves
the Hong Kong’ and likes to ‘make the good seafood.’ Despite these grammatical mishaps, there is no loss of
comprehension in understanding the points she is trying to get across.

Suggested Practice
One area where Mendy would benefit and receive a boost to her confidence is with pronunciation practice involving
some of the phonemes that are not utilized as much in the Chinese language. The book English pronunciation In Use by
Mark Hancock provides activities that help students practice and distinguish the /uː/ /ʌ/ and /ʊ/ sounds. Activities have
the student select the word that corresponds to the given phoneme, and then later have the student select the odd
word out, that doesn’t sound like the others. Being more familiar with these sounds and pronouncing them correctly will
help Mendy to become less self-conscience about how she sounds when speaking English. (Appendix 1)

Another area where Mendy would benefit from additional practice is correct pronoun usage with spoken English. By
utilizing the correct pronoun where appropriate, Mendy will develop a more professional rapport with her clients while
communicating in person. To achieve this, the Practice Activities from Collins & Cobuild’s Intermediate English Grammar
& Practice section on personal pronouns can be utilized. These activities require the student to use the correct personal
pronoun (subject and object) in a given situation. Activity C in particular incorporates a comic, which would appeal more
towards her visual learning preference. To receive the maximum benefit from the activities, it would be best for Mendy
to complete them orally with a partner. (Appendix 2)

Bibliography

Collins & Cobuild. (2011) Intermediate English Grammar & Practice, Glasgow: HarperCollins Publishers, Pgs 32-33.

Hancock, Mark. (2007) English Pronunciation in Use – Intermediate, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Pgs 44-45.

Scrivener, Jim. (2005) Learning Teaching, Oxford: Macmillan Education

Swan, Michael & Smith, Bernard. (2002) Learner English, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Pgs 310-324.
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3