FP004 – INDIVIDUAL FACTORS IN THE LEARNER'S DEVELOPMENT
ASSIGNMENT
General information
This assignment has to be done in pairs following these formatting guidelines:
Length: 6 pages (cover, table of contents, and appendices are not included in the
page count).
Font: Arial or Times New Roman.
Font size: 11.
Line spacing: 1.5.
Alignment: Justified.
The assignment has to be written in this Word document and has to follow the
instructions on quotes and references detailed in the Study Guide.
Also, the assignment has to be submitted following the procedure specified in the
document: “Subject Evaluation”. Sending it to the tutor’s e-mail is not allowed.
It is strongly recommended to read the assessment criteria, which can be found in the
document “Subject Evaluation”.
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ASSIGNMENT
Design a questionnaire to retrieve information on a group of students and their learning
needs.
The assignment has to include the following sections:
a) Description of the context the questionnaire is designed for (institution, characteristics
of the course, number of students, etc.).
b) Questionnaire proposal.
c) Justification of questionnaire design: all the questions included in the questionnaire
must be justified regarding the group of students it is designed for and the contents
covered in “Individual factors in the learner’s development”.
Important: you have to write your personal details and the name of the subject on
the cover (see the template on the next page). You have to include a table of
contents after the cover. Assignments that do not fulfil these conditions will not be
corrected.
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Student´s full name:
Group:
Date:
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Formerly, we would like to start this assignment by stating and describing the context in
which the following questionnaire is taken. Situated in the city of Goya, in the south-west
part of the province of Corrientes, in República Argentina, Colegio Secundario “Dr. Juan
E. Torrent” is a secondary school institution that shelters an approximate population of
1140 students of both genres. As the city has a kind of subtropical climate, the weather
conditions in the city throughout the year is mainly hot to warm with few days of really
cold weather during winter. Why do we mention these aspects of the weather in this
place? Well, we consider important to mention it as it has a very positive impact in the
learning process of the students, as they are not exposed to constant bad weather
conditions that have scientifically been proved to create a negative influence in the
learning process of any person, learners take as much advantages as possible related to
language, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation, of their classes. Also it is essential to
highlight that all of the learning process occurs in a relax, positive and friendly
environment created by the teachers so that the class will not be perceived as a very
formal or structural one.
To begin with, we must explain that even though English is a compulsory subject at public
and private schools in Argentina, this school since 2021 also works with a pilot bilingual
program. The program is applied to subjects in a gradual way; for instance, in first year of
secondary school, the program is applied in History, and Science, in second year in
Language, and Geography, in third year in Maths, and Technology, in fourth year in
Economics, and Chemistry, in fifth year in Literature and Philosophy, and in sixth year in
Sociology and Ethics. In order to gather information about the progress and effectiveness
of the program, we decided to create a set of questions with several possible answers so
that the learners will be able to choose one or more answers.
The group we decided to work with is the one of third year group B. This group in
particular consists of 32 students that are between 14 and 15 years old. As they are in
third year, they are also exposed to the bilingual program the school works with, which in
this year of secondary school is developed through Maths and Technology, besides their
regular and compulsory lesson of English. This group of students outstand for their
eagerness to participate it does not matter if in English or in Spanish, but they want to let
the teacher knows they are participating and in this way they get good credits for their final
marks. They are very talkative, curious, technological and ready to start working in any
assignment proposed by the teacher of any subjects. This group has a very optimistic
and positive attitude, two mayor aspects that help to create an excellent cooperative
learning environment.
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Below you can find the set of questions that were used to collect information about the
progress and effectiveness of the program as an extra exposure to the target language.
Also, we decided to explain why we chose those questions and the relevant information
they can provide to us.
1. What is the way that best describes your learning style?
a) Listening to audios, speeches, podcasts.
b) Watching posters, flash cards, slide presentation.
c) Moving around, dancing, doing exercise.
d) Solving Math problems.
e) Speaking and writing.
f) Working alone.
g) Working with other people as team.
2. How do you prefer to study?
a) Alone, without any kind of interruption.
b) Listening to music.
c) Listening to someone else repeating the content.
3. How do you motivate yourself?
a) By listening to inspirational podcast.
b) By talking to someone.
c) By praying.
d) You do not do anything.
4. How do you get motivated in class?
a) By playing games or doing interactive activities.
b) When the teacher offers you bonus, prizes or other things that you want.
c) When the teacher allows you to work alone.
5. Do you think that receiving positive oral stimulus from your teachers has a good
impact on you?
a) Yes.
b) No.
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c) Maybe.
6. What is the most important characteristic of a classroom?
a) Order and cleanness.
b) Decoration.
c) Seating arrangement.
d) Size of the classroom.
7. Do you like institutional activities?
a) Yes.
b) No.
8. What would be one thing you would change if you could?
a) The strategies applied in the class.
b) The learning content.
c) The class rules.
9. What do you like the most?
a) Vocabulary.
b) Grammar.
10. What is your favourite English skill to practice in class?
a) Speaking.
b) Writing.
c) Listening.
d) Reading.
11. Do you like tests?
a) Yes.
b) No.
12. Which modality of classes do you prefer?
a) Online.
b) In person.
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13. What kind of activities do you like to do in class?
a) Debates.
b) Questionnaires.
c) Maps.
d) Oral presentations.
e) Summaries.
f) Study cases.
g) Worksheets.
14. What is the most effective way to learn the target language?
a) Watching movies and series.
b) Reading books.
c) Listening to music.
d) Practicing on an app.
e) Speaking to people.
15. If you had a problem at school, who would you go to?
a) To any of my teachers.
b) To the principal.
c) To my schoolmates.
16. Choose your favorite memory strategy.
a) Associating words with pictures.
b) Grouping words into fields.
c) Revising notes.
17. Choose your favorite social strategy.
a) Counting of friends for help.
b) Participating in group conversations.
c) Cooperating with others
d) Developing cultural understanding.
18. Choose your favorite metacognitive strategy.
a) Learning from previous errors.
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b) Keeping a learning diary.
c) Concentrating on keywords in a listening exercise.
19. Choose your favorite cognitive strategy.
a) Practicing pronunciation.
b) Using a dictionary.
c) Using a grammar book.
d) Highlighting the most important information.
e) Taking notes.
20. Choose your favourite affective strategy.
a) Using music and laughter to calm down.
b) Saying to oneself “You can do it, come one!”
c) Encouraging oneself to do something.
d) Discussing your feelings with someone else.
In the case of the first question, we focus the attention in the different learning styles and
the ones that were most used. Based on this is that concrete examples were provided in
the different options to make it easier to identify which one best describes their individual
preferred way of learning.
As regards the second question of this questionnaire, we try to identify if they are more
visual or auditory. By providing these possible explanations and supporting points, we can
understand the different studies preferences and identify which method works best for
them.
In the third question the main key element was to know by their answers the role of
motivation in their learning processes. It is an enormous advantage to be able to see how
intrinsic or extrinsic motivation is the one that leads them whenever they need to feel
ready for anything, and this does not only apply to learning processes, it can also through
some light to the way they feel motivated in life as a whole.
When we thought about question number four we tried to narrow the idea of motivation to
be more class and content specific, not so general as the previous one. By offering the
possible options we collected information of how dynamic they are, if they get on well with
methods that often incorporate collaborations, hand-on learning, competitions, or if they
are more productive and motivated when they have the chance to work alone and apply
their own learning strategies.
As for the fifth question; even though, the possible answers are only three, it helped us to
be able to have real information about how positive reinforcement affects positively the
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supportive learning environment, or if, on the other hand, that positive feedback does not
significantly influence their motivation or performance. Last but not least, if the impact of
positive oral feedback varies depending on the situation or the specific feedback given.
In the case of question number six, the clear focus of attention was to highlight the
importance of the physical space where the class is developed. Tidiness, decorations,
sitting arrangements, are very important elements that influences any learning process by
creating and engaging and stimulating environment.
In the seventh question, as we have many institutional activities along the year, we
wanted to know how they feel about them. With a positive answer we had the indication
that they enjoy participating in them, but with a negative answer we clearly understand
that they do not feel like participating.
As regards question number eight, we wanted to give them a chance to express their own
ideas and thoughts without feeling judged, and also at the same time their answers gave
us an idea of what to keep focusing on or what things we need to take into account and
readjust when we have to teach something new.
As throughout the year most of the content of the lessons are focus on grammar and
vocabulary, we needed to get the information about which of these to aspects they enjoy
the most, so because of this is that we came with the idea for question number nine.
In question number ten, we were eager to see if they could choose just one or more than
one option. When deciding to include this question we were thinking about how they can
identify which skill they like the most or the one that is the easiest for them.