Summary_PLLT_chapter 5_part 1

 

 

Chapter 5 Individual Differences

 

 

Some Historical Background

1970s: Knowledge of SLA increased

Individual differences among successful and unsuccessful learners were believed to successive learning

1) Rubin(1975), Stern(1975) : Tried to find employed attributes(techniques, approaches) of “good” language learners

2) Rubin and Thompson(1982) : Speculated successful language learners’ characteristics by comparing with unsuccessful learners

*Characteristics of successful learners

1.       Take charge of their own learning, seeking out opportunities to use the language.

2.       Unafraid to creatively experiment with their intelligent guesses.

3.       Learn chunks and conversational gambits to help them perform “beyond their competence”

4.       Use various memory strategies, production tricks, and comprehension techniques.

5.       Monitor and allow errors to work for them and learn from mistakes by themselves.

 

- Successful learners tend to use language with various methods

- Interest for detailed classifications and strategies-based instruction(SBI) were grown up

- Help teachers provide proper strategic options for their learners

 

3) Recent perspectives: Sociocultural approach

-         Consider learners as participants of community of local language and context (local context help learners make learning motivation) > based on ‘identity’ (social context > invest learning process individually > create roads for success)

-         Cognitive linguists who adopted sociocultural approach

: Vygotsky(1978) + Bakhtin(1986) > Norton and Toohey(2001)

-         Fundamental of their view: identity, which make them invest their learning process and success

-         Criticized supports by unempirical research

-         Teachers need to consider common strategies + individual differences + cultural context

 

Learning Styles

1) Meaning

-         What a learner ‘brings to the table’ in learning a language [brings to the table = facilitating components]

-         Consistent, make learner endure tendency or preferences

-         Different from ‘Learning strategies’

Learning style	consistent	General characteristics of intellectual functioning	Individually different regardless other components
Learning strategy	inconsistent	Methods for solving a problem Techniques, have a particular end	Vary from moment

-         When addressing a problem: amorphous(unformed) link between personality & cognition = cognitive style

-         Intermingled with affective physiological factors = learning styles

-         Stable indicator for how learners respond to the learning environment

-         Brings variables to the forefront

-         Peter Skehan: “general predisposition, voluntary or not, toward processing information in a particular way”

2) Property

-         Mediate between emotion and cognition

Ex. Reflective or impulsive style evokes from a personality or a mood. The style is known for a stable trait, but that differing contexts will evoke differing styles in the same individual: one person can be bi-cognitive

-         Educators and psychologists identified salient styles just about factors among possible styles

∙       Field independence vs. field dependence (sensitivity)

∙       Random (nonlinear) vs. sequential(linear)

∙       Global (big picture) vs. particular (attention to details)

∙       Inductive vs. deductive

∙       Synthetic (integrative) vs. analytical(systematizing)

∙       Concrete (attention to physical, literal) vs. abstract

∙       Impulsive vs. reflective

∙       Left-brain vs. right-brain dominance

∙       Ambiguity tolerance vs. intolerance

∙       Visual vs. auditory vs. kinesthetic modalities

-         Identification and measurement of styles has not met with universal acceptance

-         Dornyei(2005, 2009) admitted that styles is seemingly straightforward and intuitively convincing unrealized potential, but posed problematic issues in conceptualizing styles

 

Field Independence and Field Sensitivity

1) The meaning of ‘field’ in psychology 

: perceptual, abstract, pertaining to a set of thoughts or feelings that are distinguished as specific relevant subsets

-         Field independence: dependent on the total field so that the parts embedded within the field are not distracting

A.      Can distinguish parts from a whole

B.      Can analyze separate variables without around

C.      Can concentrate on sth in noisy environment

D.      “Tunnel vision”: can’t apprehend the relationship to the whole

-         Field sensitivity(dependence): independent on the total field

A.      Can perceive whole picture

B.      Can make general configuration of a problem

C.      Apprehend the relationship of parts

2) research on FI//FS

-         Predominantly FI: Generally more independent, competitive, self-confident

-         Predominantly FS: tended to more sociable, derive their self-identity from persons around them, empathic and perceptive of the feelings

-         FI/FS: More stable in adulthood than before

*Problem: learner manifests just one side of the continuum with no utilization, but researchers cannot define the construct correctly

3) Conflicting hypothesis about FI/FS

A.      FI closely related to analysis, attention to details, mastering exercises/drills (focused activities)

B.      FI successes in deductive lessons and pronunciation accuracy

= FI is related to rational ability

A.      FS associates with empathy, social outreach, perception of other people

B.      FS success in acquisition of communicative aspects

= FS is related to sensible ability

*Problems

①     Evidence was composed with only visual perception (can’t be measured correctly)

②     The results are not always inversely proportional to each other (High FI /> Low FS, vice versa)

③     “Theoretically flawed”- because of absence of a true test > recommended “re-conceptualizations” and new measurement tools that can measure the result correctly

4) Aid of FI/FS

-         Natural, face-to-face communication (rare in language classroom) … aided by FS

-         Drills, exercises, test (common in language classroom) … aided by FI

= But both styles facilitate within appropriate contexts(cooperate)

 

Left-Brain (LB) and Right-Brain (RB) Dominance

1) Association by development

Left-Brain and Right-Brain Dominance: significant theory for developing SLA

When brain matures, functions become lateralized to the left or right hemisphere

-         Left: logical, analytical, mathematical thoughts/ good for processing linear processing info.

-         Right: visual, tactile, auditory(sensible)/ good for processing holistic, emotional info.

	LB Dominance	RB Dominance
Reliance	Intellect	Intuitive
Remember	Name	Face(image)
Respond to	Verbal instruction, explanations	Illustrated or symbolic instructions
Experiment	Systematical with control	Randomly and less control
Make judgement	Objective	Subjective
Planned	Planned and structured	Fluid and spontaneous
Prefer info.	Established and certain info.	Elusive and uncertain info.
Reading trait	Analytic ability	Synthesis
Thinking and remember from	Language	Images
Strength	Talking, writing and communication	Drawing images and manipulating objects
Test preference	Multiple-choice test	Open-ended question
Controlling feeling	Control	Freer with feelings
Decode by	Lexical cue and verbal communications	Body lang., nonverbal communications
Description	Empirical	Metaphor and imagery
Favor	Logical problem solving	Intuitive problem solving

 

2) operation

-         LB and RB operate together > best solutions to the problem

-         “Neurological bimodality”: Language teaching should not focus solely on the left-brain process

-         Krashen, Seliger, Hartnett (1974) founded preference of teaching method

∙       LB dominant L2 learners: deductive approach

+ separate/gather/carry out sequence/classification/labeling/reorganization [Stevick(1982)]

∙       RB dominant L2 learners: inductive approach

+ dealing with images/generalization/metaphors/emotional reaction/artistic expression [Stevick(1982)]

3) Relation with FI/FS (Field independent, sensitivity)

-         Few explicit studies exist, just intuitive observation

-         LB/RB and FI/FS show a strong relationship

 

Ambiguity Tolerance

: about tolerate ideas that are counter to our own belief or structure

1) Type

-         Ambiguity tolerance (AT): open-minded, entertain receiving contradictory items

-         Ambiguity intolerance (AI): close-minded, reject contradictory items, wish to see every proposition fit

2) Features and supplementation

	Advantages	Disadvantages (if too much)
Ambiguity Tolerance (AT)	Not cognitively disturbed by uncertainty	Can be a ‘wishy-washy’ person
	Help successful language learning	Inefficiently subsuming necessary facts
	Have a chance to solve problems from differences of L2 characteristics	Concepts that need to be discarded can be encompassing conceptualizations

*wishy-washy: 어정쩡한, 미온주의의

-         With optimal level of AI (AI: close hopeless possibilities / reject contradictory materials, dogmatic to incongruent system)

∙       guard against wishy-washiness

∙       if ambiguity is perceived as a threat > close mind and the result can be rigid, dogmatic, narrow to be creative

= harmful in second language learning (↔AT)

-         There are few research findings on style in second language learning

-         Naiman(1978) and Chapelle & Roberts(1986): Learners with high AT were slightly more successful in certain L2 tasks, suggesting > speculated that AT may be an important factor in L2 learning

-         AI: sees everything in black and white > don’t have tolerance accepting concepts

Hard to imagine that they are successful in learning L2