Akbar is a 32- year old man from Afghanistan who has been studying English part-time for 4 years. He is considered an upperintermediate student. In addition to studying, he has a security job at a local government agency. Generally, he feels comfortable speaking with people and has little difficulty doing daily tasks. However, he has some concerns about his pronunciation, including the way in which he stresses words. People who don't know him sometimes have difficulty understanding him because he uses unfamiliar word stress patterns.

He is interested in improving all of his skills but feels, at this time, that listening and reading are his weakest. He believes that his problems stem from having a limited vocabulary. When watching television or listening to the radio, he often doesn't understand the speaker. His strategy is to listen for words that he understands and try to string them together. However, he feels he misses a lot of important information. Sometimes, he does not learn new words because he believes them to be words that he already knows. When reading, he spends a lot of time looking words up in his dictionary. He is interested in learning how to read faster.

He uses many of the same phrases everyday and discusses activities (rather than more abstract ideas or concepts) with the people that he knows at work.

He wants to do reading exercises that are challenging and will help him improve his vocabulary. He is interested in keeping a listening journal (a written summary of a television program) and will bring it to each session to check his comprehension of the news against what his tutor heard.

His hobbies include playing soccer and doing volunteer work in the community. He is an active member of the local multicultural association.