Cognitive influences on Language Learning

Cognitive influences on Language Learning

1. Language Aptitude

   • Intelligence or the "G" factor
   • aptitude is an important factor in SLA
   • The existing aptitude tests should be devised
     • To measure not only grammatical, memory and analytical language ability but also the learner`s capacity to communicate meanings.
   • The Natural ability to learn languages
     • is the most successful predictor of language learning success
       • Caroll and Sapon`s MLAT identified four components in language aptitude
         • Grammatical sensivity
         • Rote learning
         • phonetic coding ability
         • inductive language learning

2. Intelligence or the "G" factor

   • No se
   • Gardner (1985) claimed that there are multiple intelligences
   • Intelligence may influence the acquisition of some skills.
   • Intelligence seems to be a strong factor when it comes to learning second languages in classrooms

3. Cognitive style

   • the manner in which the learner perceives, monitors, conceptualises, and recalls linguistic information.
     • Witkin designed the Group Embedded Test (GET)
       • To measure field dependence/ independence
         • independence
         • dependence
     • Brown considered that cognitive style is a combnation of affect an cognition
       • Reflective- impulsive thinking
       • Broad narrow categorizing
       • Skeletonizing-embroidering
       • belief congruence-contradiction
   • cognitive styles include
     • The interference- prone

4. Learning Strategies

   • Steps taken by the learner to aid the acquisition, storage and retrieval of information (Oxford and Crookall definition)
   • According to Ellis strategies are the particular approaches or techniques that learners employ to try to learn L2
   • Features
     • contribute to the communicative competence
     • allow learners to become more self-directed
     • expand the role of teachers
     • are problem oriented
     • are specific actions taken by the learner
     • involve many aspects of the learners not only cognitive
     • support learning directly and indirectly
     • they are not always observable, to the human eye
     • can be taught
     • are often councious
     • are flexible
     • are present in all learners
     • can be influenced by degree of awareness, stage of learning, task requirements, teacher expectations, age, sex, nationality/ethnicity, general learning style, personality , motivation, and learning purpose.
   • Ellis, Wenden and Rubin, Willing, Oxford and Crookall stablished a language learning strategies
     • affective
       • lowering anxiety, self-reinforcement, positive talk, etc
     • communication
       • formal, functional reduction, compensatory and retrieval achievement, etc.
     • compensation
       • guessing intelligently, avoidance, circumlocution.
     • Social
       • counting on friends help, group conversation, emphatasing with others, etc.
     • Metacognitive
       • Evaluating leaning, advance organizers, directed and selected attention
     • Cognitive
       • practising, alnalysing and reasoning, receiving and sending, generalising, note taking, etc.
     • memory
       • applyingimages and sounds, creating mental linkages

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