COGNITIVE INFLUENCES ON LANGUAGE LEARNING.

COGNITIVE INFLUENCES ON LANGUAGE LEARNING.

1. Refer to the mental condition, strategies or processes which the learner has access to while learning a foreign languages.

2. INTELLIGENCE OR THE "G" FACTOR.

   • Intelligence is also referred to in SLA studies as the "G" FACTOR, standing G here for 'general'.
     • If we turn to First Language Acquisition, we will see that intelligence in this case is not a determining facto, taking into account that almost everybody learns their own language.
       • Gardener (1985) reformulated previous theories of intellingece and referred to seven different form, we are multiple intelligences:
         • LOGICO-MATHEMATIC
         • LINGUIISTIC
         • SPATIAL
         • MUSICAL
         • BODILY-KINESTHETIC
         • INTERPERSONAL
         • INTRAPERSONAL
         • NATURALISTIC
         • SPIRITUAL

3. LANGUAGE APTITUDE

   • There is a subtle difference between intelligence and aptitude; is considered to be the 'natural ability' which we have to learn languages, and people possess it to varying degrees.
     • Ellis (1895) claims, language aptitude is difficult to define precisely because its measurement and definition depend to a large extent upo underlying language teaching theories and interpretations.
       • They have been interested in aptitudes as a prediction of successful language learning, to define the different components of aptitude in order to then 'test' learners on these to see whether a high aptitude score. Identifing 4 main components in language aptitude
         • PHONEMIC OR PHONETIC CODING ABILITY
           • To descriminate and recall new sound
         • GRAMMATICAL SENSITIVITY
           • To recognise the different grammatical function.
         • INDUCTIVE LANGUAGE LEARNING ABILITY
           • To identify patterns of relationships and differences between grammatical forms and meaning.
         • ROTE LEARNING ABILITY
           • To make associations between native language words and target language words.

4. COGTIVE STYLE

   • Refers to the manner in wich the learner perceive, monitors, conceptualises and recalls linguistic information.
     • Brown (1973) as a combination of affect and cognition and he groups the following specific variables as:
       • reflective-impulsive thinking
       • broad-narrow categorizing
       • skeletonizing-embroidering
       • belief congruence-contradiction
       • Most scholars when referring to cognitive style focus in particular on the duality field:
         • DEPENDECE
           • PERSONAL ORIENTATION
           • HOLISTIC
           • DEPENDENT
           • SOCIALLY SENSITIVE
           • Learners will learn more effectively in a naturalistic setting as the learner will come into contact with other speakers of the L2 more easily.
         • INDEPENDENCE
           • IMPERSONAL ORIENTATION
           • ANALYTIC
           • INDEPENDENT
           • NOT SO SOCIALLY AWARE
           • Learners will try to analyse language more naturally .

5. LEARNING STRATEGIES

   • Step taken by the learners to aid the acquisition, storage and retrieval of information (1989:404)
     • Characteristics or features of language learning strategies.
       • ... contribute to the main goal: communicative competence .
       • .. allow learners to become more self-directed and autonomous.
       • .... expand the role of teacher.
       • ... are specific actions taken by the learner.
       • .... support learning both directly and indirectly.
     • Different typologies were established for the classification of languages learning strategies.
       • COGNITIVE STRATEGIES
       • MEMORING STRATEGIES
       • COMPENSATION STRATEGIES
       • METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES
       • SOCIAL STRATEGIES
       • AFFECTIVE STRATEGIES

6. IEXPRO University (2020). Individual Factors in the Learners' Development Class Anthology.

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