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Personality Factors and Second Language Acquisition

This document discusses several personality factors that can influence second language acquisition, including self-esteem, attribution theory, willingness to communicate, and inhibition. Specifically, it covers three levels of self-esteem (general, situational, task), the four factors of attribution theory (ability, task difficulty, effort, luck), how willingness to communicate is important for language learning success, and how inhibition can impact self-esteem and language acquisition. Research suggests social support in the classroom can help build students' willingness to communicate in the target language.

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JoselitoQuintana
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384 views61 pages

Personality Factors and Second Language Acquisition

This document discusses several personality factors that can influence second language acquisition, including self-esteem, attribution theory, willingness to communicate, and inhibition. Specifically, it covers three levels of self-esteem (general, situational, task), the four factors of attribution theory (ability, task difficulty, effort, luck), how willingness to communicate is important for language learning success, and how inhibition can impact self-esteem and language acquisition. Research suggests social support in the classroom can help build students' willingness to communicate in the target language.

Uploaded by

JoselitoQuintana
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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PERSONALITY

FACTORS AND SECOND


LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION
PERSONALITY FACTORS

• Factors within a person that contribute in


some way to the success of language
learning.
PERSONALITY FACTORS

• ERNEST HILGARD
Well known for his study of human learning and
cognition, once noted that “purely cognitive theories of
learning will be rejected unless a role is assigned to
effectivity”
AFFECTIVE DOMAIN

• Affect refers to emotion or feeling.


• The affective domain is the emotional
side of human behavior, and it may be
juxtaposed to the cognitive side.
BLOOM’S TAXONOMY
AFFECTIVE FACTORS IN SECOND
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
• Understanding how human beings feel and respond
and believe and value is an exceedingly important
aspect of a theory of second language acquisition.
• We turn now to a consideration of specific affective
factors in human behavior and how they relate to
second language acquisition.
SELF-ESTEEM
• Is a term used in psychology to reflect a person’s overall
evaluation or appraisal of his or her own growth.
• Dr. Stanley Coopersmith (1967: 4-5), defined self-esteem
as:
A personal judgment of worthiness that is expressed in
attitudes that the individual holds toward himself, and indicates
the extent to which the individual believes in himself to be
capable, significant and worthy.
THREE GENERAL LEVELS OF SELF-
ESTEEM
1. General or global self-esteem is said to be relatively
stable in a mature adult, and is resistant to change
except by active and extended therapy. It is the general
or prevailing assessment one makes of one’s own
worth over time and across a number of situations. In a
sense, it might be analogized to a statistical mean or
median level of overall self-appraisal.
THREE GENERAL LEVELS OF SELF-
ESTEEM

2. Situational or specific self-esteem refers to one’s self-


appraisals in particular life situations, such as social
interaction, work, education, home, or on certain relatively
discretely defined traits, such as intelligence, communicative
ability, athletic ability, or personality traits like gregariousness,
empathy, and flexibility. The degree of specific self-esteem a
person has may vary depending upon the situation or the trait
in question.
THREE GENERAL LEVELS OF SELF-
ESTEEM

3. Task self-esteem relates to particular tasks


within specific situations.
For example, within the educational domain,
task self-esteem might refer to one subject-matter
area.
ATTRIBUTION THEORY and SELF-
EFFICACY
• Attribution theory (Weiner, 1980, 1992) is probably
the most influential contemporary theory with
implications for academic motivation. It incorporates
behavior modification in the sense that it emphasizes
the idea that learners are strongly motivated by the
pleasant outcome of being able to feel good about
themselves.
ATTRIBUTION THEORY and SELF-
EFFICACY
• It incorporates self-efficacy theory in the sense that it
emphasizes that learners’ current self perception will
strongly influence the ways in which they will interpret
the success or failure of their current efforts and hence
their future tendency to perform these same behaviors.
Four factors related to Attribution Theory

• Ability is a relatively internal and stable factor over


which the learner does not exercise much direct
control.
• Task difficulty is an external and stable factor that is
largely beyond the learner’s control.
Four factors related to Attribution Theory

• Effort is an internal and unstable factor over which


the learner can exercise a great deal of control.
• Luck is an external and unstable factor over which
the learner exercises very little control
WILLINGNESS TO COMMUNICATE

• (WTC) refers to the idea that language students


(Language learners) who are willing to communicate
in the second language (L2) actually look for chances
to communicate; and furthermore, these learners
actually do communicate in L2.
WILLINGNESS TO COMMUNICATE

• Therefore, “the ultimate goal of the learning process


should be to engender in language education students”
the willingness to communicate (Mclntyre, Clement,
Dornyei and Noels:1998). Language programs that do
not instill this are therefore failed programs.
INHIBITION

• A feeling that makes one self-conscious and unable to


act in a relaxed and natural way.
• Inhibition is closely related to self-esteem: the weaker
the self-esteem; the stronger the inhibition to protect
the weak ego.
CLASSROOM CONNECTIONS

• RESEARCH FINDINGS: The research spearheaded by


Peter Maclntyre and his colleague suggests that saying a
learner has a high WTC must be distinguished from simply
describing a learner as extroverted, confident, or risk-taking.
One of the key contributors to building WTC as reported in
Mclntyre et al. (2001) seems to be social support.
CLASSROOM CONNECTIONS
• TEACHING IMPLICATIOS: Current language teaching
methodology strongly supports such communicative techniques
such as a group and pair work and related interactive activities,
all of which can potentially provide social support. What has
been the extent of social support in your language classroom?
What techniques has your teacher used – or have you used, if
you have taught – to promote social support? Have they led to
students’ greater willingness to communicate?
• Ehrman (1993) suggests that students with thick,
perfectionist boundaries find language more difficult than
those learners with thin boundaries who favor attitudes of
openness and the tolerance of ambiguity.

• Brown (1994) noted, language learning implies a great deal


of self –exposure as it necessarily involves making
mistakes. Due to the defense mechanisms, these mistakes
can be experienced as threats to the self.

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