C: Introducing the Learners

You will be introduced to different learners who have a variety of skills and different needs. The first two learners, Hyun - Chu and Carine are included in the manual. The workshop facilitator will also introduce additional learners using either a video or additional handouts.

Introduction to Hyun - Chu

After meeting Hyun-Chu and doing a needs and skills assessment, the tutor learned the following information about her:

Hyun-Chu is a 24-year old from Korea. She tells me that she learns best by reading. She is studying English right now, but is planning on becoming an environmental scientist. Before she can do that, she needs to complete English classes and attend some additional courses in her subject area at the University of Regina. Her classes started only a few weeks ago and she is considered a beginning learner.

Since her long-term goal will take years to accomplish, she wants to concentrate on smaller goals right now. Many of these smaller goals consist of improving skills that she needs to excel in her English class. She wants to improve all skill areas: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Although she knows that she still needs to improve in reading and writing, she wants to concentrate slightly more on improving her speaking and listening.

She is interested in learning as much as she can about Canadian culture and has to write a short paper for her English class comparing certain aspects of her hometown to Regina by the end of her semester. She doesn't know exactly what things her teacher will ask her to compare. When she was a middle-school and high-school student, Hyun-Chu's teachers placed a lot of emphasis on grammar. Hyun-Chu feels comfortable with grammatical explanations and a more linear, detail-orientated approach to learning.

In her life outside the classroom, she sometimes feels awkward in social situations. People speak too quickly for her to understand. She feels that people have a lot of difficulty understanding her pronunciation. Some of the problems she has with pronunciation are the differences between /f/ and /v/, /p/ and /b/, as well as /l/ and /r/. Some vowel sounds are also very difficult for her to pronounce. When she says "want" and "won't", they sound very similar. Sometimes, this causes communication difficulties. When at a friends place the other day, she looked at the meal and said, "Looks interesting. I want to eat this." Her friend, however, heard, "Looks interesting. I won't eat this." Hyun-Chu was surprised when her friend said to her, "Oh, you don't have to eat this. You can have a hamburger."

Her sister's birthday is coming soon and she wants to buy her some presents. She is thinking of buying her a shirt of some sort, preferably something that has the Canadian flag on it. She wants to practice shopping in the tutoring session so she feels more confident when she goes to make her purchases.