Principals of language

learning and teaching 5th

edition
H. Douglas Brown

Chapter 06 : Personality Factors

Members :
Douza Asma G: 03
The Affective Domain
The affective domain refers to the emotional side of the human behavior. It is
very difficult to be described scientifically since it implies a large number of
variables in considering the emotional side of the human behavior. It comprises
two facets of effectivity Intrinsic and extrinsic, this chapter is concerned with
the former one which is among personality factors within a person that
contribute in some way to the success of language learning for example, self-
esteem, risk taking, motivation…. etc..

Self-Esteem
It claimed that no successful cognitive or affective activity can be carried out
without some degree of self-esteem . According to Coopersmith self-esteem is
a judgement of worthiness that is expressed in the attitudes that individuals
hold towards themselves.

People derive their sense of self-esteem from the accumulation of experiences

with themselves and others and from assessment of the external world around
them.

There are three general levels of self-esteem :

General/Global self- Situational /specific self- Task self-esteem

esteem esteem

The general assessment One’s self-appraisals in Relates to particular

one makes of one’s particular life situations tasks within specific
own worth over time such as social situations.
and across a number of interaction, work, education
situations. , home… etc.

Many scholars studied the effect of self-esteem and its levels on students
performance in learning a second language and all the results point to the
importance of these factors in the success of language learning.
Attribution theory and self-efficacy
Attribution theory: Focuses on how people explain the causes of their own
success and failure.

Weiners and others describe this theory in terms of four factors for
success or failure in achieving a personal objective :

Internal Factors External Factors

Ability Difficulty of task
Effort Luck

Example : Learners tend to attribute their failure in exams to these

factors . And here comes self-efficacy ; learners with high self-efficacy
(who feel they are capable of carrying a given task) may attribute their
failures to not enough efforts expended but rarly to external factors . In
contrast ,learners with a low level of self-efficacy tend to attribute their
failure to external factors (Not necessarily).

The conclusion can be drawn here is that learners need to believe in

themselves in order to succeed in learning a language.
Instrumental and Integrative Orientations
In a study trying to investgate the attitudinal and motivational factors
affected language learning success Lambert and Gardner identified two
motivational orientations which are the instrumental and integrative
orientations.

1- Instrumental: Referred to acquiring a language as a means for attaining

instrumental goals (learners want to learn a language because of
practical reasons such as getting a job or getting into university).
2- Integrative: Describes learners who want to integrate themselves into
the culture of the second language group and to become involved in
their social interchange.

Many investegations held to decide on which orientation is more important

and more required to the success of language learning to finally draw a
conclusion that there is no single means of learning a second language, most
situations involve a mixture of both, and that the degree of impact of either
orientation will depend on individual learners ,educational context, cultural
milieu, teaching methodology, and social interaction.