A Language Learner Profile

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General Background
Beatriz is an eighteen-year-old first year
university student from Madrid, Spain. Her
major course of study is computer
engineering. According to Beatriz, English is
not only important for her because of the
reading involved in her current studies, but
also for future job prospects as well. She is an
attentive and sociable student but because of
her demanding university studies, and being
her first year as well, she often comes to
class tired and mentions lack of sleep as the
reason. She is the youngest of two daughters
and her sister also studies English.

Language learning Background

Beatriz began learning English at the age of

three while attending a bilingual Spanish-
English school for young learners. She
attended the bilingual school until the age of
twelve at which point she began attending
regular Spanish state schools. She has been a
student at International House, Madrid for
three years and passed the Cambridge First
Certificate exam two years ago. During her
high school years, she spent three months in
Canada as an exchange student and last year
went back to study English for the summer.
She is currently attending class to prepare for
the Cambridge Certificate in Advanced
English and she has approximately ninety-
percent attendance.

Learning Style

Any individual's preferred ways of going

about learning. It is generally considered that
one's learning style will result from
personality, including psychological and
cognitive make-up, socio-cultural
background, and educational experience.
Observing Beatriz over the past seven
months, she appears to be quite self-contained
and although she works well in pairs and
groups, she is just as happy to listen to the
teacher, and take notes. In order to better
determine her learning style I asked her to
complete both a learner profile and needs
analysis (Appendix A & B), and two
additional questionnaires (Appendix C & D),
which were designed to determine favored
learning styles.
From the sources mentioned above, Beatriz
stated that she preferred working in pairs to
other options, learned better by 'being in
physical contact with things', liked learning
through problem solving, listening, reading,
and taking notes. She prefers to be corrected
'later, in private' to 'immediately, in front of
everyone', and feels somewhat uncomfortable
having others see and be asked to comment
on or correct her written work.
She was shown to be well balanced in the
primary senses; Visual, Auditory or
Kinesthetic which people use principally in
learning.
Beatriz was also shown to be a 'concrete'
learner by scoring highest for this type at 76%
in a questionnaire based on learner types
taken from findings reported by Willing
(1988) found in Nunan (2000:170). She
scored similarly in the 'authority oriented'
type at 73%. This was followed by 66% in the
communicative learner type. Her lowest
scoring was in the 'analytical' learner type,
scoring 56%.
This information is in line with my
observations of Beatriz in class and I believe
is also somewhat representative of her age.
Being a teenager, she has still to fully develop
her preferred learning styles and learners of
this age group often feel self-conscious about
being 'criticized' or corrected in front of
others. Having said that, I find Beatriz to be
an attentive, well-balanced learner.
orientation) and then, she wants to get a job
Motivation with the help of the language so it means,
intrinsic orientation and finally, in class she is
Williams (1999) cites the work of Gardner visibly motivated when she does well on a
(1985) and defines motivation as consisting of
effort, plus desire to achieve the goal of
learning, plus favorable attitudes towards
learning the language.
A distinction is made between integrative (or
intrinsic) orientation, which occurs when the
learner wishes to identify with the culture of
the target language, and instrumental
(extrinsic) orientation, which occurs when
motivation arises from external goals, such as
passing exams, financial rewards, or
furthering a career. LittleJohn (2001) adds a
third category: success in the task, which is a
combination of satisfaction and reward.
Beatriz is motivated to a large extent by the
exam at the end of June as well as continuous
encouragement from her father. This points
principally to instrumental or extrinsic
motivation. However, Beatriz also cites being
able to communicate in English as a source of
accomplishment and hopes to travel again to
Canada or to the U.S. and work for a year
when she finishes her university studies. This
suggests integrative or intrinsic motivational
factors as well. In class she is visibly
motivated when she does well on a particular
exercise and vice-versa.