Persona Profile

Name: Jack 

Gender: Male

Age: 17

Lives in: Shanghai, China

Likes: listening to pop music and watching movies

Education & Experience

Jack is a second-year high-school student who lives in Shanghai, China. He studies at an international high school, so he plans to study abroad after graduation. The National Higher Education Entrance Examination is also not mandatory to him as well. He needs to go to a few after-school programs on the weekends, which he has to go to, such as piano class. His hobbies include listening to pop music and watching movies.

Roles & Responsibilities

Jack’s high school is far away from his home, so he needs to live on campus on weekdays. Every Friday afternoon, a school bus will send him home, so he cannot leave school until the weekends. On the weekends, he also needs to go to a few after-school programs. Jack’s father is a manager in the bank and his mothers owns and runs a cafe shop nearby his home. His mother frequently needs to work long hours in the cafe shop without a fixed rest, so when Jack is free at the weekends, he also assists in the daily running of the cafe shop and works as a waiter in order to help his mother.

Technical Skills

Jack is a proficient Internet user. He has a laptop, an iPad, and an iPhone. He always chats with his friends through social media tools, such as WeChat. Jack’s high school also allows him to bring the kinds of equipment (i.e. laptop and smartphone) to school as well. Also, his high school provides several computer rooms to students to surf the Internet and learn online freely. No matter at the school, or at home, he both has a free Internet connection. Jack feels comfortable with online technology and accessing social media.

Subject Domain Skills & Knowledge 

Jack’s international high school focuses mainly on English teaching. He has also been learning English since he was in primary school, so he had previous learning experience of English grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. He is good at English speaking and listening. However, compared with his English speaking and listening, he is a little bit weak in writing essays. Jack is also well-versed in playing the piano and he got many related medals.

Motivation & Desires

Most students who study in international high schools in China plan to study abroad after graduation, Jack included. He wants to study abroad in Canada after graduating from his high school. Now, he considers to prepare to his IELTs Academic test. For an international student, in order to apply for the university in Canada successfully, a minimum overall score of 6.5 in ILETs test is a mandatory requirement with a minimum score of 6.0 in each components of this test (i.e. listening, speaking, writing, and reading). Jack is a little bit weak in writing essays in English, so he needs to have a more academic learning to improve his writing. Although this is his second year in high school and he still has one more year to prepare, he understands that it is not very easy to improve the skills of writing in a short period. Also, if his overall IELTs score cannot be 6.5 (but above 5.5), Jack’s parents need to pay more money to send him to the Pathways Program in university in order to meed and improve his English language requirements. It may bring financial pressure to his parents. Fortunately, Jack’s parents support him to learn IELTs.

Goals & Expectations

Jack’s goal and expectation is to get a higher overall score in IELTs test in order to not only apply to the university that he likes in Canada successfully, but also reduce financial pressure to his parents. Jack is very busy on the weekends, so he needs to enroll in online courses and participate in it during his school time from Monday to Friday. He had never taken any online courses before, so he does not know what to expect and what kinds of online learning environment will be more suitable for him. However, he expects to enroll in an online learning, which is well-organized and clearer to participate in.

Obstacles to Their Success

It’s Jack’s first time participating in an online learning, so he really worries about managing time efficiently and effectively between his school learning and online learning. On the weekends, he needs to go to after-school programs and works in his mother’s cafe shop, so he is a little bit busy. The free time that he can take the online learning is after class on weekdays. Fortunately, as an international high-school student, all his classes are over at 4 p.m. every day, so he has a lot of time to learn online after class. However, he may need to do his homework or prepare exams after school as well. Therefore, a well-organized schedule will be much more important and necessary to him. Also, Jack worries about if he will have the sense of isolation when participating in the online learning and if he will not concentrate on the learning materials. Jack prefers to communicate with people in a relatively safe online environment and works in a small groups. He likes to chat with his friends through social media, but he seldom communicate with other people in public. Moreover, he likes to study in a well-organized lecture step by step rather than learning from dense text by himself, so he worries about the teaching method of the online learning.

Unique Assets 

Jack is very confident with learning and communicating with a relatively small group. He always tries his best to do something even he has never done it before.

Reference

Photo by JD Chow on Unsplash