INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING

1. Intelligence

   • Performance on certain tests that are often associated with success in school, and a link between it and second language learning has sometimes been reported.

2. Language learning aptitude

   • Ability to learn a language quickly
   • Learners with greater aptitude figure out the rules of language based on input and are able to consolidate this knowledge without the need to produce language
   • It is at least partly independent of cognitive, social, and personality characteristics that are often associated with successful learning.

3. Learning styles

   • Individual's natural, habitual, and preferred way/s of absorbing, processing, and retaining new information and skills

4. Personality

   • An aspect of it is inhibition
     • It is a feeling that makes one self-conscious and unable to act in a relaxed and natural way.
       • Alexander Guiora and his colleagues found support for the claim that it is a negative force, at least for the second language pronunciation performance
   • Learner anxiety (nervousness, stress) may affect the learner performance in the process of learning a second language.
     • Anxiety can be temporal and context-specific
   • Willingness to communicate (WTC)
     • It may change depending on the context of the situation such as the number of people, the topic of conversation, the formality, and even with the mood of the student.

5. Motivation

   • Intrinsic motivation comes from an individual feeling. He/she does the activity out of his/her “free choice”
   • Extrinsic motivation is reward-driven behavior. It's a type of operant conditioning.

6. Learners beliefs

   • Learner beliefs influence the strategies they use.

7. Classroom instruction

   • The number of students in a classroom can influence how the teacher develops the class.

8. Age

   • Critical period hypothesis
     • There is a time in human development when the brain is predisposed for success in language learning.
   • Also, adults have the advantage in several important areas, such as those involving cognitive skills, making them more adept.