Individual differences in Second Language Learning 2013

1. Individual Differences in
Second Language Learning
Samira Bakeer

2. Schedule Change
NO LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
CLASSES FOR NEXT WEEK (29th
&
30th
of April (good news isn’t it?)

3. 3
The “Good Language Learner”
Are there personal characteristics that make one
learner more successful than another?
In your experience, as an English learner, which
characteristics seem to you most likely to be
associated with success in L2 acquisition?
share your opinion with your group members. Find
three most important and three least important learner
characteristics.

4. Types of variation
There are a number of personality
characteristics that may affect L2 learning,
such as
- Empathy
- Extroversion
- Self –esteem
- Inhibition
- Risk-taking
- Anxiety
- attitudes
- egocentricity (self image)

5. Empathy
Group A
Arwa
Hawa Hanga
Muna
Aesha
Group B
Ghazala
Najla
Amani
Nwwara

6. Empathy
empathy is the process of reaching beyond
the self and understanding and feeling what
other person understands or feels.
It is usually described as the projection of
ones' own personality into the personality of
another in order to understand him better. In
other words, it is the compassion one can
render for another person.

7. Empathy
 Empathy refers to an individual's ability to imagine
what another person is feeling or thinking based on
his or her own experiences--to put him/herself in the
other's shoes.
When a learner is acquiring a second language, he
or she is also acquiring, in a sense, a new
personality, and a new culture.
The ability of a learner to open him or herself to new
cultural experiences and adopt these experiences as
their own is essential in the language acquisition
process.

8. Extroversion vs. Introversion
Group A
????
Group B
Huda
Hanan
Rogia

9. Extroversion vs. Introversion
Are you more extroverted or introverted?
It is often argued that an extroverted person is well
suited to language learning. However, research does
not always support this conclusion.
Some studies have found that learners’ success in
language learning is associated with extroversion such
as assertiveness and adventurousness, while others
have found that many successful language learners do
not get high scores on measures of extroversion.
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10. Self-esteem
Group A
Mohammed
Muad
Group B
Sondos
Ferdous
Ahmed
Baset

11. Self-esteem
Self-esteem refers to a personal evaluation and judgment of
worthiness that is expressed in the individual's attitude toward
him or herself or toward his or her
capabilities.
Although several studies have shown that those who have high
self- esteem are also good language learners, it is difficult to
say whether successful language learning is because of high
self- esteem, or if high self-esteem is a result of successful
language learning.
We do know that teachers who pay attention to their students'
emotional well-being in addition to their language performance
will have more successful and happier students.

12. Inhibition
Group A
Fawzia
Aesha Hamza
Group B
Esraa
Entisar

13. Inhibition
All human beings build sets of defences to
protect the ego (concept of one’s self)
Inhibition in a person arises as he/she tries to
defend or protect their self-image.
If the learner perceives the mistakes that
he/she makes in the second language as a
threat to their emotional well-being and self
perception, then acquisition will not occur or
will occur much more slowly.

14. Risk-Taking
Group A
Aesha
Hanan
Areej
Group B
Sofia
Raja
Khairia

15. Risk-Taking
One of the characteristics that has been found to
exist in "good" language learners is the willingness
to guess. If the learner is less inhibited, he/she is
more willing to take a chance on producing a
"correct" utterance in the second language.
They are willing to guess about the possible word in
the second language, even when their guesses
often bring comical results. They do not worry about
the possible consequence-- of looking or feeling
foolish-- if they guess incorrectly

16. 16
Inhibition vs. risk-taking
It has been suggested that inhibition discourages
risk-taking, which is necessary for progress in
language learning.
Inhibition is often considered to be a particular
problem for adolescents, who are more self-
conscious than younger learners.
Inhibition is a negative force, at least for second
language pronunciation performance.
Be aware that inhibition may have more influence in
language performance than in language learning.

17. Anxiety
Group A
Hajer
Asma
Group B
Hawa
Amal
Nouria
Amna

18. Anxiety (I)
Trait Anxiety vs. State Anxiety:
a) Trait anxiety: a more permanent predisposition to be
anxious
b) State anxiety: a type of anxiety experienced in
relation to some particular event or act; temporary
and context-specific
More recent research acknowledges that anxiety is
more likely to be dynamic and dependent on
particular situations and circumstances.
Anxiety can play an important role in L2 learning if it
interferes with the learning process.
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19. Anxiety (II)
Debilitative (harmful) Anxiety vs. Facilitative (helpful)
Anxiety: Not all anxiety is bad and a certain amount of
tension can have a positive effect and facilitate
learning.
A learner’s willingness to communicate has also been
related to anxiety. It is often affected by the number of
people present, the topic of conversation, and the
formality of the circumstances.
Willingness to communicate or state anxiety can also
be affected by learners’ prior language learning & use
experience, self-confidence, and communicative
competence. 19

20. Attitude
Group A
Fatema Alfughi
Asma
Israa Attwair
Zainab
Group B
Aesha Omar
Radia
Ghada (A)
Fatima Bashir

21. Attitude
When looking at students’ attitudes towards
language, we need to consider that their attitudes
might be in relation to the language they are
learning, towards the speakers of this language or
towards the language learning environment –
including the teacher and/or classroom. Many
attitudinal factors are related to the learner’s
personality including their self image, inhibitions
and risk-taking characteristics.
Other characteristics such as language ego and
tolerance for ambiguity, also related to personality,
have to do with a learner’s view of him or herself in
relation to the language and culture environment.

22. Egocentricity
Group A
Aya
Sondos
Basma
Laila
Group B
Salma
Intihaj
Asia
Esraa Ismail
Noor-Alhuda

23. Egocentricity
The term ―ego refers to a person’s awareness of
his or herself in relation to the rest of the world,
and how distinct the person is in relation to others.
Language Ego is a person’s awareness of the
language he or she speaks and that it differs from
languages spoken by others.
This awareness of the use of one language to
speak with a certain group of people, while it
cannot be used to speak with others is known as
―language boundaries.

24. Self Image
A learners self-images are determined
by how they see themselves in relation
to other second language learners (Are
other students faster, smarter, etc. than
I am?) and in relation to native speakers
of the second language (Will they
understand me? Will they think I am
less intelligent because I don’t speak
the language as well as they do?).

25. Young children are not developed
cognitively enough to have ego or attitude
in the formative years; therefore language
boundaries are more flexible. Young
children often do not realize that they are
using two or more languages. For them, it
is one big communication system. There is
no distinction between one language and
another.

26. Language Ego Permeability refers to the ability to
move back and forth between languages and the
different ―language personalities that develop as‖
the result of learning additional languages. People
who have highly permeable language egos do not
feel that their native language or native identity is
threatened by the learning of an additional
language or languages.
To have permeable ego boundaries, you must
have a well-defined, secure, integrated ego or
sense of self in the first language (Guiora, 1972).

27. Motivation
Group B
Khawla
Warda
Salma

28. Motivation
Motivation has been widely accepted
as the stimulant that drives people to
learn a language, directs and
encourages them to expend some
effort, and enables them to sustain
that effort in order to reach their goals
(Gardner, 2001;).

29. 1.Integrative motivation: aim of learning is to learn about the language
group, or to meet more and different people from the target language
community, to the point of eventually being accepted as a member of
that group.
1.Integrative motivation: aim of learning is to learn about the language
group, or to meet more and different people from the target language
community, to the point of eventually being accepted as a member of
that group.
Integrative and instrumental motivation
 Gardner and Lambert proposed integrative motivation and instrumental
motivation from a social psychological point of view. (Gardner and
Lambert 1959, 1972)
2. Instrumental motivation: reasons of L2 learning reflect the more
utilitarian value of linguistic achievement, such as benefiting in an
occupation.
2. Instrumental motivation: reasons of L2 learning reflect the more
utilitarian value of linguistic achievement, such as benefiting in an
occupation.
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30. Thought provoking question
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31. 31
Identity & Ethnic Affiliation
The social dynamic or power relationship
between L1 and L2:
Minority group members learning the language of a
majority groups may have different attitudes and
motivation from those of majority group members
learning a minority language.
Think of why an ESL learner’s and an EFL learner’s
attitude may differ in motivation and attitudes.

32. 32
An imbalanced power relationship between L1 and L2
may limit the opportunities learners have to practice and
to continue to develop the L2.
Identities are not static and can change over time.
Learners’ identities will impact on what they can do and
how they can participate in classrooms, which affects
how much they can learn.
The relationship between feelings of ethnic affiliation and
L2 learners’ mastery of pronunciation can be complex.
Learners may want to speak with a strong “foreign
accent” to maintain their L1 identity.
Identity & Ethnic AffiliationIdentity & Ethnic Affiliation

33. “The process of becoming adapted to a new culture”
4 stages
• Initial excitement and euphoria
• Culture shock Estrangement and
hostility
• Culture stress Recovery
• Assimilation or adaptation to the new culture
Schumann’s Acculturation Model

34. Schumann’s Acculturation Model

35. Its relation to SLA
• The degree to which a learner acculturates to the
target language group will control the degree to which
he acquires the second language
• Learner group vs. Reference group (or Target
language group)
• Social and psychological factors determine the
amount of contact with the TL and the degree to
which the learner is open to that input which is
available
Schumann’s Acculturation Model

36. As a result his/her target language will stay
pidginized. Pidginization is characterized by
simplifications and reductions occurring in the
learner’s interlanguage which lead to fossilization
when the learner’s interlanguage system does not
progress in the direction of the target language (for a
review see McLaughlin, 1987:110-112)
If the social and/or psychological distance is great then
acculturation is impeded and the learner does not
progress beyond the early stages of language
acquisition.
Pidginization

37. when social and/or psychological distances are great,
the learner fails to progress beyond the early stages
(Schumann, 1976)
Pidginization hypothesis
Alberto (33, Costa Rican)
a reduced and simplified form of English
• use of no e.g. I no use television
• lack of inversion e.g. What you study?
• lack of auxiliaries
• lack of possessive "-s"
• unmarked forms of the verb (-ed)
• lack of subject pronouns

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Conclusions for Personality
In general, the research does not show a single clearly-
defined relationship between personality traits and SLA.
1. The major difficulty is that of identification and
measurement of personality characteristics.
2. Personality variables may be a major factor only in the
acquisition of conversational skills, not in the acquisition
of literacy or academic skills.
3. Most research on personality traits has been carried out
within a quantitative research paradigm (i.e., an
approach that relies on measuring learners’ scores on
personality surveys and relating these to language test
performance). More qualitative research is needed to
adequately capture the depth and complexity of the
relationship.

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Summary
1. The research on individual differences is complex and the
results of the research are not easy to interpret.
This is because of
a) the lack of clear definitions and methods for measuring
individual characteristics
b) The fact that the characteristics are not independent of
one another: learner variables interact in complex ways.
2. It remains difficult to predict how a particular individual’s
characteristics will influence his or her success as a
language learner.
3. Teachers should take learners’ individual differences into
account and to create a learning environment in which
more learners can be successful in learning an L2.

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LA Groups 2013