ELT 361

FOREIGN LANGUAGE
TEACHING AND
LEARNING
 Individual language learners: some differences
◼ Introduction

◼ The Cognitive variables

◼ The Affective variables

◼ Finding out about affect

◼ Conclusion
What do you think makes a good language
learner?
 What do you think makes a good language learner?
◼ Good Language Learners Aren’t Afraid To Take Risks.
◼ Good language learners are willing to face the fear of making
mistakes.
◼ They experiment and take risks.
◼ For example, they try out different ways of learning vocabulary
until finding the way that suits them best.
◼ Good Language Learners Find A Style Of Learning That Suits
Them.
◼ Every language learner has their own style of learning that suits
them best.
◼ It is important to figure out how you learn best and apply your
preferred learning styles to your language learning.
◼ Good Language Learners Are Actively Involved In Their Learning
Process.
◼ Good language learners take responsibility for their own learning.
◼ Besides regular language classes, they create opportunities to use
the language.
◼ They know practice is very important. And they are willing to take
risks and to appear foolish if necessary.
 What do you think makes a good language learner?
◼ Good Language Learners Try to Figure Out How The Language
Works.
◼ Good language learners try to understand the language as a
system. They pay attention to form and look for patterns.
◼ They develop good techniques for improving their pronunciation,
learning grammar and vocabulary.
◼ They welcome mistakes as a way of learning more about the
language.
◼ Good Language Learners Know That Language is Used to
Communicate.
◼ Good language learners pay attention to meaning.
◼ They have good techniques to practice listening, speaking,
reading, and writing.
◼ They push themselves to speak and try to become fluent. They
look for opportunities to talk with native speakers.
◼ Good Language Learners are Like Good Detectives.
◼ Good language learners are always looking for clues to help them
understand how the language works.
◼ They make guesses and ask people to correct them if they are
wrong. They compare what they say with what others say.
◼ They keep a record of what they have learned and think about it
while they monitor themselves.
A Good Language learner
 What do you think makes a good language learner?
◼ Good Language Learners Try To Think In The Language.
◼ It may not be easy at first, but thinking in English is worth cultivating as a vital skill that will improve
all areas of your language learning.
◼ To help you think in English, carry on a dialogue with yourself in English when walking along, sitting
on a bus, or taking a break from other studies.
◼ Use English whenever and wherever you can.
◼ Good Language Learners Realize That Language Learning Is Not Easy.
◼ Good language learners know that it takes time and effort to become proficient, and that there will
be periods where progress seems very slow.
◼ They are realistic in setting learning goals. They are able to assess their own strengths and
weaknesses, and to evaluate their own approach to learning.
◼ Good Language Learners Are Also Good Culture Learners.
◼ Good language learners have a good attitude toward the culture where the language is spoken. They
know that learning a language means learning the culture as well.
◼ They learn the customs of nonverbal behavior and the important values of the culture. They learn
how to behave in stores and restaurants, how to behave with strangers, and how to behave in
society.
◼ A good language learner knows that language and culture are two sides of the same coin.
◼ Good Language Learners Have A Long Term Commitment To Language Learning.
◼ Good language learners work through their feelings of frustration and their lack of confidence. They
are able to cope with the challenges of language learning; they can live with having good language
days and bad language days.
◼ They don’t let themselves give up, instead reminding themselves how important it is to keep going –
even when they don’t feel like it.
What do you think makes a bad language learner?
 What do you think makes a bad language learner?
◼ Don’t look up every word in a dictionary.
◼ One of the worst study habits you can develop is looking up every
new word in a dictionary.
◼ When you’re reading a text or listening to a podcast, there will be
words you don’t know – and this happens even in your own
language.
◼ However, if you use a dictionary to search for every new word,
studying will start to feel like wading through treacle.
◼ Instead, try to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from the
context.
◼ Don’t write every new word in a notebook
◼ Many people seem to think that each new word must be recorded in
a notebook, but you should avoid this for a couple of reasons.
◼ You don’t need it in a book, you need it in your memory – and
writing it down doesn’t mean you’ll remember it.
◼ You don’t need to remember every new word, so why waste time
recording them all?
◼ The fact is, after they’ve filled a notebook with words, people rarely
go back and review them, and even if they do, it isn’t a natural way
to learn – as we’ll see in a moment
 What do you think makes a bad language learner?
◼ Don’t try to learn everything
◼ One reason people like to write down every new word is that they think they have to
remember everything.
◼ Choose vocabulary that will be most useful for you at your level – and let everything else go.
◼ Don’t get hung up on grammar
◼ If you want to learn a new language, torturing yourself with grammar shouldn’t be a part of
it.
◼ Just like vocab, we don’t learn to speak by memorizing grammar rules, we learn to speak
by…speaking.
◼ You can’t say anything with grammar, but you can say everything with words, even if it’s not
completely correct.
◼ So when it comes to grammar, just relax – and it will come naturally with time and practice.
◼ Don’t translate
◼ In language learning, translation is a specific activity, but as language learners, it’s not our
goal.
◼ You shouldn’t think in English and translate in your head – you need to think directly in the
target language.
◼ You don’t have time to translate when you speak, and if you try, your speech will be slow,
hesitant and broken.
◼ Instead, learn complete phrases or chunks of language without breaking them down into
individual words.
 What do you think makes a bad language learner?
◼ Don’t project your language onto the new one
◼ Different languages express concepts in different ways, so you shouldn’t project ideas from
your own language onto the one you are learning.
◼ Avoid making the mistake of projecting your language onto the one you are trying to learn.
Instead, just accept things the way they are.
◼ Don’t ask “why?”
◼ In learning process, it is important not to ask “why?” but instead just to ask “how?”
◼ When we learn a language, we don’t need to know why something is said the way it is, we
just need to know how to say it.
◼ If you find yourself asking “why?” all the time, you are asking the wrong question.
◼ Don’t wait until you’re good enough to start talking
◼ A huge mistake that many people make is waiting until they’re “good enough” to start talking.
◼ If you do this, you will never be good enough because the only way you can improve is by
opening your mouth and having a go.
◼ So don’t wait, start speaking now!
◼ Don’t be afraid of making mistakes
◼ Naturally, people don’t like making mistakes, but this is something else that holds rookie
language learners back.
◼ Everyone makes mistakes, it’s natural and it’s an important part of the learning process.
◼ When you make a mistake, you can correct it and then get it right next time. But if you never
make mistakes, you will never learn.
◼ This means you need to stop being afraid of making mistakes.
Are you a good or a bad language learner?
Four Ways to Get Better at Languages
 Individual language learners: some differences
◼ Introduction.
◼ We are aware of the fact that not all language learners pick up language
at the same pace.
◼ Why are they different?
◼ The variables that contribute to individual differences are usually divided
into three broad categories. They are:
1. Cognitive variables
2. Affective variables
3. Personality variables
◼ Cognitive variables are related to the mental make-up of the person.
◼ Intelligence is one such factor.
◼ Another is language aptitude, it refers to an ability specific to language
learning and different from general intelligence.
◼ Other variables are called affective.
◼ Psychologists and applied linguists use this adjective and the associated
noun affect to mean ‘to do with the feelings’ and ‘feelings’ respectively.
◼ The most commonly studied affective variables are motivation and
attitudes.
◼ The third set of factors we shall look at are the personality variables.
◼ The one that springs most readily to mind is ‘extroversion/introversion.’
 Individual language learners: some differences
◼ 7.2 The Cognitive Variables.
◼ 7.2.1. Intelligence

◼ Early in the twentieth century, intelligence was considered an important factor for FL
learning.
◼ It was believed that a certain degree of intelligence was useful, if not essential, for
success.
◼ This was a reason why learning foreign languages was often left until university level, so
that only the most intelligent would take it on.
◼ SLA researchers commonly believed that L1 learning, at least as far as speaking and
listening were concerned, is relatively unrelated to cognitive development.
◼ At the time language acquisition takes place, the child is at a rather low level of mental
development.
◼ It is a fact that almost everyone learns to speak their L1 irrespective of intelligence.
 Individual language learners: some differences
◼ 7.2 The Cognitive Variables.
◼ 7.2.2. Aptitude
 Individual language learners: some differences
◼ 7.2 The Cognitive Variables.
◼ 7.2.2. Aptitude
◼ How can this be? How can individuals like Christopher, with such gross cognitive deficits, be so
good at just one thing – FL learning?
◼ This case seems to provide strong evidence for the idea that there is such a thing as an
aptitude for FL learning that is separate from general cognitive ability.
◼ Christopher’s case proves the Chomskyan way of thinking, because – at least as far as the L1 is
concerned – acquisition is not seen as intimately connected with general cognitive growth.
◼ A second reason for this upsurge in interest is the purely practical desire to predict – to be able
to recognize who will succeed at language learning before they do any.
◼ To understand this idea, you need to distinguish aptitude from achievement and proficiency.
◼ Achievement and proficiency tests measure ‘how well you have done’. However, an aptitude
test looks at ‘how well you would do’. It has a strong predictive element to it.
◼ What is language aptitude?
◼ According to Carroll (1973: 5) it is the ‘rate at which persons at the secondary school, university
and adult level [will] successfully master a foreign language’.
◼ Carroll (1965) identified four major areas of language aptitude. They are:
1. Phonetic coding ability
2. Grammatical sensitivity
3. Rote learning ability
4. inductive learning ability
◼ Here, the focus will be on two most important of these – phonetic coding ability and
grammatical sensitivity.