Cognitive variables

These refer to:

ú Intelligence

ú Language aptitude (the amount of time needed by the individual to learn the material or develop a skill)

ú Language learning strategies (the mental and communicative processes that learners deploy to learn and use language)   

Personality factors/variables

These refer to characteristics of the individual in the form of intrinsic personality factors which are said to contribute to and influence, in some way, how well one will learn a language. Extrinsic factors, on the other hand, refer to socio-cultural variables that emerge as the second language learner brings not just two languages into contact but two cultures, and in some sense must learn a second culture along with a second/foreign language.

The affective domain

Affect refers to emotion or feeling. The affective domain is the emotional side of human behavior. Understanding how human beings feel and respond and believe and value is an exceedingly important aspect of a theory of second/foreign language acquisition/learning.

Self Esteem

² Self-esteem is probably the most pervasive/broadest aspect of any human behavior.

² It could easily be claimed that no successful cognitive or affective activity can be carried out without some degree of self-esteem, self-confidence, knowledge of yourself, and belief in your own capabilities for that activity.

² Personality development universally involves the growth of a person’s concept of self, acceptance of self, and reflection of self as seen in the interaction between self and others. [Slide 2]

² When it comes to foreign language learning, self-esteem appears to be an important variable.

Inhibition

² It is clearly related to the notion of self-esteem.

² All human beings, in their understanding of themselves, build sets of defenses to protect their ego.

² Those with higher self-esteem and ego strength are more able to resist threats to their existence, and thus their defenses are lower.

² Those with weaker self-esteem maintain walls of inhibition to protect what they perceive as a fragile ego, or a lack of self-confidence in a situation or task.  

² The inhibitions and the defenses that one places between him/herself and others are important factors contributing to second/foreign language success.

² Research has developed steps serving as techniques that reduce inhibition in the foreign language classroom.

² Contemporary teaching approaches have tried to create contexts in which students are made to feel free to take risks, to orally try out hypotheses, and hence to break down some of the barriers that make students reluctant to try out their new language.

² Any learner has to be sensitive to the fact that SL/FL learning necessitates the making of mistakes.

² If one never ventures to speak a sentence until s/he is absolutely certain of its total correctness, one will never communicate productively at all.

² Mistakes can be viewed as threats to one’s ego. Internally, the learner performs (Performing self) something WRONG and becomes critical of his/her own mistake (Critical self).

² Externally, learners perceive others to be critical, even judging their very person when they make a mistake in a second language.

Risk-taking

ú From what precedes (inhibitions, defenses), one understands that risk-taking is an important characteristic of successful learning of SL/FL.

ú Learners have to be willing to try out guesses about the language and take the risk of being wrong.

ú One may assume that high risk-taking will yield positive results in S/FLL, however this is not always the case because some studies found that learners with a high motivation to achieve are moderate, not high, risk-takers.

ú The silent student in the classroom is the one who is unwilling to appear foolish when mistakes are made.

² è self-esteem closely related to risk-taking factor: when foolish mistakes are made, a person with high self-esteem is not daunted/intimidated by the possible consequences of being laughed at.

² Our problem as teachers will be to encourage students to guess somewhat more willingly than the usual student is likely to do, and to value them as persons for those risks that they take. [See slide 3]     

Anxiety

² It is closely – and in a complex way – related to self-esteem, inhibition and risk-taking.

² This construct plays a crucial role in second/foreign language acquisition/learning.

² It is associated with feelings of uneasiness, frustration, self-doubt, apprehension, or worry.

² It can be experienced at various levels:

ú At the deepest or global level, trait anxiety is the permanent tendency to be anxious. Some people are inevitably and generally anxious about many things.

ú At a momentary or situational level, state anxiety is experienced in relation to some particular event or act (e.g. classroom activity, task, etc.).

² In the classroom, it is important for the teacher to try to determine whether a student’s anxiety stems from a more global trait or from a particular situation at the moment.

² Because of its global nature, trait anxiety has not proved to be useful in determining S/FL success.

² Recent research on language anxiety focuses more specifically on the situational nature of state anxiety. Three components of FL anxiety have been identified (see slide 4).

² Most studies conclude that FL anxiety can have a negative effect on the LL process.

² A distinction between debilitative (harmful) and facilitative (helpful) anxiety.

² Anxiety is generally viewed as a negative factor – something to be avoided; however, the notion of facilitative anxiety conveys the idea that having some concern – or apprehension – over a task to be accomplished is a positive factor.

² Facilitative anxiety has proved to be beneficial in learning a foreign language.

² A teacher having anxious students needs to know whether their anxiety is debilitative, as a little nervous tension in the process of learning is a good thing è both too much and too little anxiety are harmful for S/FLL.  

Empathy

² Empathy is commonly defined as the process of putting oneself into someone else’s shoes à reaching beyond the self to understand what another person is feeling.

² Language, along with non-verbal communication, is one of the main means of empathizing.

² Empathy is technically defined as the projection of one’s own personality into the personality of another in order to understand him/her better.  

Extroversion/Introversion

ú Extroversion & introversion are potentially important factors in the acquisition of a S/FL. 

² Two views/definitions of the terms:

(1) An extroverted person is thought of as a sociable person. Introverts, conversely, are thought of as quiet and reserved.

ú In the classroom, teachers admire the talkative, outgoing student who participates freely in class discussions. On the other hand, introverts are sometimes thought of as not being as bright as extroverts. (2) Extroversion is the extent to which a person has an inherent need to receive ego enhancement, self-esteem, and a sense of wholeness from other people as opposed to receiving that affirmation within oneself[1]. Introversion, on the other hand, is the extent to which a person derives a sense of wholeness and fulfillment apart from a reflection of this self from other people.                  

Motivation

¤ Motivation has most frequently been used to express the success or failure of any complex task.

¤ It is easy to claim that success in any task in S/FLL is due simply to the fact that someone is motivated. Such claims are not in deed invalid.

¤ To check those claims one has to have a detailed understanding of exactly what motivation is and what the subcomponents of motivation are.

¤ Three different perspectives on the definition of motivation have emerged:

² From a behavioristic perspective, it is seen as the anticipation of reward. [One is driven by previous experiences of reward for behavior, and thus one is driven to act to achieve further positive reinforcement.     

² In cognitive terms, motivation places much more emphasis on the individual’s decisions. Underlying needs or drives are seen as the compelling force behind our decisions. [see presentation S2]

² A constructivist view of motivation places even further emphasis on social context as well as individual personal choices. Each person is motivated differently, and will therefore act on his/her environment in ways that are unique. But these unique acts are always carried out within a cultural and social milieu and cannot be completely separated from that context.

Distinctions Relating to Motivation

¤ Motivation is typically examined in terms of the intrinsic and extrinsic motives of the learner.

¤ Those who learn for their own self-perceived needs and goals are intrinsically motivated.

¤ Those who pursue a goal only to receive an external reward from someone else are extrinsically motivated.

¤ Another distinction is made between integrative and instrumental orientations of the learner:

ú The instrumental side refers to acquiring a language as a means for attaining instrumental goals: furthering a career, reading technical material, translation, succeeding an exam, etc.

ú The integrative side describes learners who wish to integrate themselves into the culture of the SL group and become involved in social interchange in that group.

¤ Research has shown that integrativeness was an important requirement for successful LL, yet some other research showed that different contexts of LL may favor different motivation orientations (instrumental or integrative), yet these do not invalidate the instrumental/integrative construct.

¤ There is no single means of learning a S/FL some learners in some contexts are more successful in LL if they are integratively motivated; other contexts involve the inverse. è the two concepts are not mutually exclusive.

¤ Most situations involve a mixture of each orientation. [see example S3]

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation in tasks

The most powerful dimension of the whole motivation construct in general is the degree to which learners are intrinsically or extrinsically motivated to succeed in a task.

¤ Intrinsically motivated activities are defined as tasks for which one has no clear reward except the task itself. Learners undertake those tasks/activities for their own sake and not because they lead to an extrinsic reward. Activities that are intrinsically motivated aim at bringing about internal rewards such as feelings of competence and self-determination.

¤ Activities that are extrinsically motivated, on the other hand, are carried out in expectation of an external reward. This may refer to prizes, grades, and other types of positive feedback. [Behaviours initiated to avoid punishment are also extrinsically motivated, even though numerous intrinsic benefits can be obtained by those who view punishment avoidance as a challenge that can build their sense of competence and self-determination].

The importance of motivation

¤ Various studies have found that motivation is very strongly related to achievement in language learning. ¤ The question needs to be asked: which is the cause and which the result? In other words, does success in language learning create/cause its own motivation or does previous motivation lead to success?

¤ Research in this area promotes the view that learners’ motivation is an important factor determining success in language learning.

¤ The uncertainty as to which comes first, motivation or success, does not entail any particular problems for teaching: it simply means that among other things we do to increase our students’ motivation, strategies to increase the likelihood of success in learning activities should have high priorities.

Characteristics of Motivated Learners

The literature leads to the conclusion that most successful learners are those who demonstrate certain typical characteristics, most of them clearly associated with motivation. Some of these are: [see S4]

Different Kinds of Motivation

² Distinction between (a) integrative and (b) instrumental motivation:

ú (a) the desire to identify with and integrate into the TL culture.

ú (b) the wish to learn the language for purposes of study or career promotion.

² Some studies (Gardner and Lambert, 1972) claimed that Integ. Mot. was more influential among learners of French in Canada.

² Research since then has cast doubt on the application of this claim to FL learners in general.

² Distinction between (c) intrinsic and (d) extrinsic motivation in tasks:

ú (c) the urge to engage in the learning activity for its own sake

ú (d) which is one derived from external incentives

² Both have an important part to play in classroom motivation.

² Both are, at least partially, accessible to teacher influence.    

ú (c) is associated with the so-called cognitive drive – the urge to learn for its own sake, which is very typical of young children and tends to deteriorate with age.

² Distinction between (e) global, (f) situational and (g) task motivation.

ú (e) the overall orientation of the learner towards the learning of the FL.

ú (f) this has to do with the context of learning (classroom, total environment).

ú (g) the way the learner approaches the specific task in hand.

² Situation: it is assumed to be the classroom.

ú (e) may seem mainly determined by previous education and a multitude of social factors.

ú (g) is probably where most of our effort is invested in practice: making the task in hand as attractive as possible, and in encouraging our students to engage in it, invest effort and succeed.

The teacher’s responsibility

² It is an important part of the teacher’s job to motivate learners.

² In more recent learner-centred approaches to language teaching, however, the teacher’s function is seen mainly as a provider of materials and conditions for learning, while the learner takes responsibility for his/her own motivation and performance.

² Which of these approaches is nearer your own? Your answer may depend to some extent on your own teaching situation:

ú classes composed of highly motivated adult immigrants learning the TL for purposes of survival in a new country may only need you as a provider and organizer of learning activities and texts

ú schoolchildren learning a foreign language may only learn well if you find a way to activate and encourage their desire to invest effort in the learning activity.

Teacher’s influence on sources of motivation

² Talking about characteristics of a good teachers, some students refer to those teachers who motivate students by making the tasks and lessons interesting, and thus, eventually, the subject of study as a whole.

² Interest is aroused not just by careful planning of stimulating topics and tasks, but also by the teacher’s own enthusiasm and eagerness: teachers who are excited about their subject or who simply love teaching seem to communicate their own motivation to their students.

Teacher Influence on Some Sources of Extrinsic Motivation 

² Extrinsic motivation is that which derives from the influence of some kind of external incentive.

² Many sources of extrinsic motivation are inaccessible to the influence of the teacher, for example, the desire of students to please their parents, their wish to succeed in an external exam, or peer-group influences.

² However, other sources are certainly affected by teacher action. These may include the following.

² Success and its rewards: this is perhaps the singly most important feature in raising extrinsic motivation.

ú Learners who have succeeded in past tasks will be more willing to engage with the next one, more confident in their chances of succeeding, and more likely to persevere in their efforts.

ú It’s important to note that ‘success’ in this context is not necessarily the same as ‘getting the answers right’; it might refer the total amount of language produced or understood, the investment of effort and care, the degree of progress since a previous performance.

ú All these need to be recognized by the teacher as ‘successes’ for which the learner can and should take credit/praise/ compliments.

ú The teacher’s most important function here is simply to make sure that learners are aware of their own success; the message can be conveyed by a nod, a tick, etc.

ú But a sense of pride and satisfaction may of course be enhanced by explicit praise or approval, or by its expression in quantitative grades – particularly for young, inexperienced or unconfident learners.

ú These explicit markers of success may, if overused, harm learners who may become dependent on them; they may lose confidence in their ability to recognize success on their own, and see lack of teacher approval as casting doubt on it, or even as disapproval.

ú The key, then, is the learners’ own awareness of successful performance.

² Failure and its penalties: failure, too, is not just a matter of wrong answers; learners should be aware that they are failing if they have done significantly less than they could have, if they are making unsatisfactory progress, or not taking care.

ú Failure in any sense is generally regarded as something to be avoided, just as success is something to be sought.

² But this should not be taken too far.

ú (1) success loses its sweetness if it is too easily attained and if there is no real possibility or experience of failure.

ú (2) it is inevitable that there will be occasional failures in any normal learning experience, and they are nothing to be ashamed of; good learners recognize this, take obstacles and look for ways to exploit them in order to succeed next time.

ú As with success, it is in principle part of the teacher’s job to make learners aware of when they are failing.

ú Having said this, however, there is certainly a danger that constant awareness of shortcomings may lower learners’ motivation and discourage them, particularly those whose self-image and confidence are shaky to start with.

ú There may be cases where you may prefer to ignore or minimize a failure; and success can be made more likely by careful selection of tasks, and by setting the standard of success at a clearly achievable level.  

² Authoritative Demands: learners are often motivated by teacher pressure: they may be willing to invest effort simply because you have told them to, recognizing your authority and right to make this demand, and trusting your judgment.

ú Younger learners on the whole need the exercise of such authority more, adults less: but even adults prefer to be faced with a clear demand such as ‘I want you to do this assignment by Friday’ than a simple request like: ‘Do what you can, and give it to me whenever you finish.’

ú Authoritative demands can be, of course, over-used or misused: if learners only do things because they are obeying commands, without any awareness of objectives and results or involvement in decisions, they are unlikely to develop personal responsibility for their own learning or long-term motivation to continue.

ú On the other hand an over-emphasis on learner freedom and autonomy and corresponding lack of authoritative demand by the teacher can lead to noticeable lowering of effort and achievement, and often, paradoxically, to learner dissatisfaction.

ú Teachers have, surely, a duty to use their authority to ‘push’ their students – particularly the younger ones – beyond what they might be willing to do on their own, which can only be attained by a learner with the support and help of a teacher.

² Tests: the motivating power of tests appears clear: learners who know they are going to be tested on specific material next week will normally be more motivated to study it carefully than if they had simply been told to learn it.

ú Again, this is a useful incentive, provided there is not too much stress attached, and provided it is not used too often.

² Competition: learners will often be motivated to give of their best not for the sake of the learning itself but in order to beat their opponents in a competition.

ú Individual competition can be stressful for people who find losing humiliating, or are not very good at the language and therefore likely to lose in contests based on (linguistic) knowledge. 

ú If over-used, it eventually affects negatively learners’ willingness to cooperate and help each other.

ú If, however, the competition is taken not too seriously, and if scores are at least partly a result of chance, so that anyone might win, positive motivational aspects are enhanced and stress lowered.

ú Group contests tend on the whole to get better results than individual ones: they are more enjoyable, less tense and equally motivating.

Teacher Influence on Some Sources of Intrinsic Motivation and Interest 

² Global intrinsic motivation – the generalized desire to invest effort in the learning for its own sake – is largely rooted in the previous attitudes of the learners: whether they see the learning as worthwhile, whether they like the language and its cultural, political and ethnic associations.

² However, you can certainly help to foster these attitudes by making it clear that you share them, or by giving further interesting and attractive information about the language and its background.

² When it comes to real-time classroom learning, a more significant factor is whether the task in hand is seen as interesting.

² It is in the arousing of interest, perhaps, that teachers invest more effort, and get most immediate and noticeable recompense in terms of learner motivation. (See S 5&6).

Fluctuations in learner interest

ú Now we’re going to look at how learners’ level of attention and interest fluctuates within the period of engagement with a task and what might cause such fluctuations. ú Some temporary lowering in learner interest can be caused by factors beyond our control – the need of the learner to take a short break, for example, or external distractions – but there are also certain teacher behaviours which can quickly catch or lose learner interest, and it is important to be sensitive to their effect.