NIHAD AHMIĆ May 5, 2014

Discussion Questions for Chapter 3: Individual differences in second language learning

1. Assessing the influence that personal characteristics have on L2 learning is made finding out whether there is CORRELATION between VARIABLES such as motivation and the second language proficiency of L2 learners. This assessment is often made on specific learners’ group by determining their motivation using questionnaires and then assessing their language proficiency by some kinds of tests. There are difficulties in assessing because correlations requires some kind of interpretation. The problem is, unlike variables such as height or age, it is not possible to directly observe and measure motivation, extroversion, or even intelligence. These characteristics are also not independent of each and researches can use the same label for totally different behavioral traits. For example desire to interact and opportunities or the need to interact can be hard to distinguish and then assessing the speaker’s motivation can be interpretable. Another difficulty is that language proficiency tests used in different studies do not measure the same kind of knowledge. For examples IQ may be closely correlated to measures of conventional fluency than to tests that measure metalinguistic knowledge.

2. Researches seek to know how different cognitive and personality variables are related and how they interact with learners’ experiences, so that they can gain a better understanding of human learning. Educators hope to find ways of helping learners with different characteristics to achieve success in second language learning.

3. IQ quotient of language learner can show some of his/her capabilities in language learning but there are also some aspects that do not depend on IQ quotient. On pages 80-83 we can see how aptitude for language learning can shape our success. I would tell that some of those mentioned abilities like working memory and analyzing the language directly depend on the IQ of the learner but some other abilities that define aptitude like willingness to learn and communicative abilities are not directly connected to IQ quotient.

4. One of the researches (Leila Ranta, 2002) shows that children who were good at analyzing language were most successful learners in which activities never involved direct attention to grammar. We can conclude that aptitude test are predictive of success even in the classes where there is emphasis on communicative interaction

5. Teachers can conclude that they need to provide different instructions for different learners’ profiles because if the language learner is set in the classroom with the instructions compatible with his or her aptitude profile their success will be more evident. More structured teaching may even out individual differences compared with the less structured teaching.

6. I believe that there will never be a unique ideal way to teach/learn languages but everyone can find their ideal way to become good teacher/learner. We all have differ by our DNA structure so we shouldn’t tend to copy someone’s learning style if we feel uncomfortable about it but rather we should work on discovering our own learning style,

7. Differences in learning styles of course affect the way L2 teachers teach in a way that they try to adjust their teaching style with the needs of the students. In a real world it is

a very tough task but an effective teacher should always tend to find a ways how to satisfy the needs of all students.

8. We can learn that some ordinary researches on the correlation between personalities and efficiency in language learning are not always the whole truth. It is the case with the correlation between extroversion and successful language learners. I realized that an extrovert doesn’t have to always necessarily be more successful in language learning than an introvert and this is also supported by many researches. Another thing is with inhibition where almost all researches showed negative force of inhibition in learning pronunciation because it discourages the risk taking of the speaker. Researches on anxiety shows that it is not static but dynamic and depends on specific situation and also that not all anxiety is bad because it sometimes facilitate learning with positive pressure. Willingness to communicate (WTC) can be related to anxiety and it changes with the number of people present, the topic of conversation, the formality of the circumstances, etc.

9. As we mentioned before the major difficulty is that of identification and measurement. 10. Learners with an instrumental motivation want to learn a language because of a

practical reason such as getting a salary bonus or getting into college. Learners who are integratively motivated want to learn the language because they want to get to know the people who speak that language. They are also interested in the culture associated with that language. Integratively motivated learners may have significant others such as a boyfriend or girlfriend or family members who speak the language, and heritage language learners typically have a particularly strong integrative motivation for language learning.

11. It is a model of motivation consisted of three phases. First is to start and define your goals (choice motivation), second is to accomplish designated tasks to maintain motivation (executive motivation) and third is review of your performance (motivation retrospection).

12. The main challenge in motivating students in the schools is how to make them interested in particular subject. There are various methods that can be done and I think that how efficient as a teachers we are that will reflect to the motivation of the students. We need to always measure and observe the motivation of our students in order to plan some strategies to involve them in the class. We have to encourage them and engage them into group or pair works in order to make them motivated.

13. First of all there is a huge difference in motivation between these two groups. There is example of immigrant women in Canada which explains how the motivation for speaking is changing when there is power imbalance in social context. Their experience in those situations limited the opportunities they had to practice and to continue to develop 2nd language outside the classroom.

14. This is hard question to answer but I would say that it is the psychological nature of human being where we do not feel comfortable if we are surrounded by the people who are not similar to us and in these situations we often feel endangered.

15. Identity of a student as a learner is crucial in pronunciation mastery because sometimes we need to change our leaner’ identity in order to develop our pronunciation. This may seem more natural and appropriate when we are younger because we may feel uncomfortable in the acquiring new sounds.

16. This is connected with the previous question because they didn’t want to lose their identity in language learning which sometimes cannot be separated from the native

culture and language. I personally experienced the same situation when need to speak in different language in a manner which would seem inappropriate and inconsistent with my native language.

17. It is very important for teachers to synchronize their delivery with the expectations of the students (especially adults) because the adults are pretty much aware how they should be taught. In many researches we can see inconsistency between teachers’ and students’ questionnaires on what is the most important in teaching which show low level of their cooperation in creating better learning environments. Knowing the learner’s expectations teacher could easily create their types of delivery and the teaching content.

18. These different ideas obviously come from different experiences and opportunities to be exposed to the learning language. As a language learner I was in the same position as EFL-teaching the grammar rules were mostly integrated into communicative practices which were only available inside the classroom. I feel that this type of delivery lacks if we compare it to the one where grammar rules are separated form communicative practices but it is inevitable in our educational system so far.

19. It is difficult to compare L2 learning success of adult and child because of different ways of gaining the new knowledge. We may say that the adults passed all critical periods for learning languages relying on the innate biological structures so they use different methods such us general learning abilities where children rely on innate capacities. Young learners have more time to devote to learning, they have more opportunity to be exposed to the language and they do not feel pressure when they need to speak or when make mistakes. On the other side older leaners are often demanded to speak in their environment, feel more pressure and they are often embarrassed if they make mistake in their speech.

20. Patkowski studied the relationship between age and the acquisition of features of a 2nd language other than pronunciation. In his research he concluded that age in the acquisition of the language plays very important role which support CHP.

21. They researched these two assessing groups by letting them to hear recorded sentences and to decide whether it is true or not. They concluded that age of arrival in the US was a significant predictor of success on the test and it totally proves CPH in language learning.

22. He added aptitude test which proved that aptitude profile of adult language learner defines his or her success. However he showed that is not relevant for those who learn English in the childhood.

23. Study compares the development in language learning of children, adolescent and adult. During less than half year the most successful learner was the adult and the second was adolescent. By the end of the year children were catching up but nevertheless they stayed in front of the children. The study shows that adults an adolescents can make considerable and rapid progress in their proficiency in 2nd language in contexts where they use the language in social, personal, professional, or academic interaction. This is quite different study form previous ones and does not support the CPH.

24. Researches shows that the best period for starting learning L2 is before we are the 15 years old (especially in learning pronunciation). However later start has also its advantages in terms of our experience and cognitive development. I would say that it’s never late but if we have opportunity to start learn earlier we shouldn’t miss it.

25. BAF studied language levels of students who had started learning at different ages and had different numbers of instruction hours. The study showed that those who started later were performed better on almost each measure in comparison with the level of those who started earlier. This was particularly true of measures based on metalinguistic awareness or advantages.

26. It is hard to determine real cause of one variable. If we have two variables which are correlated we cannot also predict that one causes another because they may be the cause of some another thing. In the beginning we mentioned the variable of motivation which is said to be correlated with the success in language proficiency. However sometimes we cannot distinguish whether it is students’ motivation for speaking or his need for speaking 2nd language because of environment. So the measurement will be interpretable and hardly defined.