Session 3 The psychology of SLA(2)

3. Differences in learners 3.1 Age

 The central issue is: Are children better learners of language? It is important to keep evaluation criteria (grammaticality, fluency, functional competence) clearly in mind while judging conflicting claims. See Table 4.3 for a comparison between younger and older learners (Savaille-Troike, p.82).

4.3 Age differences in SLA Younger advantage

Older advantage Learning capacity Analytical ability Pragmatic skills

Greater knowledge of L1 Real-world knowledge

Brain plasticity Not analytical Fewer inhibitions (usually) Weaker group identity Simplified input more likely

In terms of learning speed, adults are able to achieve criterion scores on most tests. L2 learning more rapidly than children at least during the early stages of acquisition.

 The Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) Supporting evidence: Genie, an abused girl who was isolated from all language input and interaction until 13. Intensive remediation doesn’t lead to L1 competence comparable to early L1 acquirer, supporting CPH in a weak form (p.83).

Some influential studies:

1) Johnson & Newport’s (19, 1991) studies: learners’ syntactic knowledge was linearly related to age of arrival only up to puberty, no correlation for the postpubescent learners (See Appendix A). 2) Coppieters’ (1987) study: NS and NNS may have strikingly different intuitions about sentences, though they produce essentially the same structures in use 3) Birdsong’s (1992) study: UG provides no basis for predicting on which structures NNSs were like native speakers and on which they were not. 4) Bialystok's (1997) studies: maturational factors are not a determining factor in the success or nonsuccess of L2 learning. But cross-linguistic differences between L1 and L2 are a significant factor. Having noticed differences, children tend to create new categories while adults tend to extend existing categories. Seliger (1978) and Long (1990) argue that there are multiple periods which place constraints on different aspects of language: e.g. different periods relate to the acquisition of phonology versus the acquisition of syntax. Newport (1990) suggests that one reason younger learners develop more native–like grammatical intuitions is that they are in a non-analytic processing mode. Younger learners are probably more successful in informal and naturalistic L2 learning contexts, and older learners in formal instructional settings.

 A consensus: older learners cannot reasonably hope to achieve a L2 native accent.

 The reasons why children are more successful L2 learners than adults: social psychological

factors, cognitive factors, neurological factors, and input.

 Birsong's summary of the possible explanations for adults' failure to become fluent in the L2.

(a) Loss of (access to) the language learning faculty, (b) Loss of neural plasticity in the brain, (c) Maladaptive gain of processing capacity, (d) Use it or lose it, (e) Learning inhibits learning.

3.2. Aptitude (see Skehan 19)

 Standard four components: (a) Phonemic Coding Ability, (b)Grammatical Sensitivity, (c)

Inductive Language Learning Ability, (d) Memory and Learning

 Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) by Carroll and Sapon (1959) with 5 subtests: (1)

number learning, (2) phonetic script, (3) spelling clues, (4) words in sentences, (5) paired associates.

 Findings from the British studies: A correlation has been found between L2 aptitude and

social class and parental education which are factors unrelated to inherent capabilities

 Skehan: aptitude is at least as important, and usually more important, than any other variable

investigated.

3.3. Motivation

 Motivation determines the level of effort which learners expend at various stages in their L2

development, a key to ultimate level of proficiency.  Components of motivation:

Significant goal or need Desire to attain the goal

Perception that learning L2 is relevant to fulfilling the goal or meeting the need Belief in the likely success or failure of learning L2 Value of potential outcomes/rewards

 Early work on motivation by Gardner and Lambert: Motivation involves 4 components: goal,

effort, desire, attitudes. A distinction is made between instrumental and integrative motivation.

 Long-term and short-term effect: it is difficult for attitudes to affect behaviors that have

become habitual.

 Motivation and success: a “chicken-and-egg” matter.

Effect of success on motivation: motivational arousal is greatest for tasks that are assumed to be of moderate difficulty.

arousal difficulty

3.4 Cognitive style

 Cognitive style refers to individuals’ preferred way of processing: i.e. of perceiving,

conceptualizing, organizing, and recalling information. Categories of cognitive style are commonly identified as pairs of traits on opposite ends of a continuum. Table 4.4

Field-dependent Field-independent Global Particular Holistic Analytic Deductive Inductive Focus on meaning Focus on form

 Field independence (FI) vs. field dependence (FD): They are measured by the Embedded

Figures Test, which requires subjects to find a simple shape within a figure apart from the ground (or field) within which it is embedded. Individuals who have difficulty with this test are judged to be relatively FD; individuals who have no difficulty with this test are judged relatively FI.

FD: global, holistic in processing information, more successful via highly contextualized interactive communicative experience;

FI: particularistic, analytic, profiting from decontexutalized analytic approaches and formal instruction.

 Deductive vs. inductive processing: Deductive (top-down) processing begins with a

prediction or rule and then applies it to interpret particular instances of input. Inductive (bottom-up) processing begins with examining input to discover some patterns and then formulates a generalization of rule that accounts for it and that may then in turn be applied deductively.

 Learning styles (see Reid 1987): visual, auditory, kinesthetic (movement-oriented), or tactile

(touch-oriented)

 Extension vs. creation: extending existing categories to include new instances from L2,

creating new categories (e.g. learning phonological structure)

 Criticisms: 1) The embedded figure test is not applicable to language acquisition and

therefore not relevant. 2) a single cognitive trait is often correlated with a single language proficiency measure without taking other influencing factors and complexities of performance into account; 3) lack of consideration given to differences in cultural background, prior educational experiences, possibilities of change over time, and stages of language learning.

3.5 Personality

Personality factors have local effect on learning and are task-specific with uncertain long-term effect.

Table 4.5 Personality traits

Anxious Risk-avoiding Shy Introverted Inner-directed Reflexive Imaginative Creative Empathetic Tolerant of ambiguity

self-confident Risk-taking Adventuresome Extroverted Other-directed Impulsive Uninquisitive Unreative

Insensitive to others Closure-oriented

 Anxiety: Low levels help whereas high levels hurt. Factors causing anxiety: instructional

context or task, cultural differences

 Risk taking: risk-averse when contemplating a gain, but risk-seeking when contemplating a

loss

 Extroversion vs. introversion: benefits depending on tasks: extroverts talk more and

introverts generally do better in school

 Empathy (Guiora et al 1972): To engage in learning a second language is to step into a new

world.

 Correlational research: direction of cause and effect is uncertain.

3.6 Learning strategies

Those processes which are consciously selected by learners and which may result in action taken to enhance the learning or use of a second or foreign language, through the storage, retention, recall, and application of information about that language.

 O’Malley and Chamot (1987) classify learning strategies into three categories:

1) Metacognitive strategies: regulating language learning by planning and

monitoring, e.g self-monitoring of progress

2) Cognitive strategies: making use of direct analysis or synthesis of linguistic

material, e.g. guessing meaning of a new word from context

3) Social/affective strategies: involving interaction with others, e.g. seeking

opportunities to interact with native speakers

 Problems with learning strategy research: (1) Not all behavior can be accepted as strategic, (2)

good or better language learners may self-report actions that all language learners in fact undertake, but only the good learners are somehow aware of. (3) Directionality

 The teaching of strategies is not universally successful. One has to consider the long-term

effect of learning strategies on interlanguage development.

3.7 Locus of control

 How individuals attribute causes to events that affect them. The stability component is more

likely to lead a learner to make subjective predictions about future success or failure.

_________________________________________

Internal External

_________________________________________ Stable Ability Task difficulty

Unstable Effort Luck

_________________________________________

Activities

1. Based on your personal experience, what do you think of the Critical Period Hypothesis? Do

you know others whose experiences would support or refute it?

2. Integrative and instrumental motivation can both play a role in the desire to learn an L2. How

have these two kinds of motivation influenced your L2 learning? Do you think one is more helpful than the other? Why?

3. Some studies define ‘success’ in L2 acquisition per the initial rate of learning, some define

‘success’ per the ultimate achievement, whereas others define it based upon how closely a learner comes to native-like pronunciation, or grammaticality judgment similar to native speaker’s. How do you define ‘success’ in L2 acquisition in general as compared to how you define it for yourself? Is your definition of success in L2 learning the same as the standards by which you are judged, or do the members of your L2 speech community (teachers, classmates, colleagues, friends, etc.) have different definitions of success in L2 learning than you do?

4. It is postulated that younger learners are probably more successful in informal and naturalistic

learning contexts, and older learners are more successful in formal instructional settings. Do you agree or disagree? Use your own experience combined with theoretical support from this chapter to make our argument.

Appendix A

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