Week 10: The Social in SLA Ⅰ

The theme of the week is “The Social in SLA”, which approaches language learners from sociocultural and poststructural perspective. Whereas traditional SLA understand language learners as a static object, Nortion (1995), Toohey (2001), and Norton and Toohey (2001) attempt to explain why sometimes language learners are motivated, extroverted, and courageous but sometimes unmotivated, introverted, and anxious.

On Tuesday, studies of Norton (1995) and Toohey (2001) were addressed in class. Norton (1995) suggests that language learners possesses social identity which is “multiple, a site of struggle, and subject to change” (p. 9). She investigates five immigrant women in Canada, especially Martina and Eva, both of who succeeded to generate counter discourse in order to reframe power relations with native speakers. She argues that language learners become to be able to speak up even with high affective filter as long as they have investment reflected on multiple, changing, and sometimes contradictory identities. Toohey (2001) unpacked children’s dispute in relations of power. She investigates two children, Julie, a successful learner, and Surgeet, an unsuccessful learner. She suggests that teachers should assist students’ progress considering power relations in classroom. In order to explain two learners’ different levels of success in SLA, she hints that racism had a big impact on Surgeet’s failure of building relationship with her classmates. Through drawing activity, four focal language learners’ social identities were clearly explained visually and the concept of social identity seemed to be understood well by all folks.

On Thursday, Norton and Toohey’s (2001) study was explored. They attempt to reconceptualize good language learners because traditional SLA does not explain why not all learners with good personality and strategies succeed in language acquisition. Focusing on successful two language learners, Eva and Julie, from their previously addressed studies, they argue that both human agency and positive reception to resources from communities of practice are necessary for successful L2 learning. In the activity, we talked about what kind of resources we made visible in order to gain access to members of target community. Reflecting on this discussion, I assume that successful language learners are those who are good at making resources visible. Meanwhile, it might be important that teachers encourage minority students to take advantage of their resources and support them to generate situations where weak they can display their resources in front of peers.

Whereas I believe that there are what teachers can do to support students, I wonder whether the implications which Norton (1995) and Toohey (2001) addressed, especially “classroom-based social research” (Norton, 1995, p. 26), were feasible because through my experience as a high school teacher it is too much pressure to ask schools to challenge social power relations. Schools function involved in a social community where racism, politics, money, authority, and all other massive power factors exist. I suppose that it is important to ask not only teachers to challenge those issues but also researchers to continue to address unfairness for minority language learners and to appeal to public.

As Dr. Ortega suggested at the end of class, we as teachers should enact our power as much as possible to facilitate minority students to reframe power relations. At least, we, teachers can reconceptualize language learners in power relations as multiple, sometimes contradictory, and changing over time in order to shine students in respective ways.

Week 9: Individual differences II

Individual Differences II:

Motivation, and Affect and Other Sources of Individual Differences

Last week we learned that there are three concepts to understand the study of individual differences in L2 learning, and we have already examined “language aptitude”, the issue of cognition (thinking). This week we have investigated “motivation” and “affect and other sources of individual differences,” covering the issues of conation (trying or wanting) and affect (feeling).

On Tuesday, we were divided into five groups, and each group worked on a different topic within motivation, (a) traditional approach vs. the most recent approach (the L2 motivational self-system), (b) theoretical renewal: self-determination and dynamic motivation, (c) contexts; and within affect and other sources of individual differences, (d) personality, anxiety, and willingness to communicate, (e) cognitive styles, strategies, and self-regulation.

Traditional approach on motivation focuses on its quantity than quality. Then it faced the crisis during the 90’s because Gardner’s AMTB model does not work in EFL context although it works in Canadian French-speaking context, and there was a call for research on motivational quality. The most important finding is that L2 motivation is not static, but dynamic, considering the issues of time, context, and behavior. It looks at learner’s future: the ideal self. Also, related to affect, it is important to keep in mind that affect cannot be separated from cognition and from conation, since they influence one another.

We discussed Gan, Humphreys and Hamp-Lyons’s (2004) study, “Understanding successful and unsuccessful EFL students in Chinese universities” and Lamb’s (2008) study, “The impact of school on EFL learning motivation: An Indonesian case study”on Thursday.

In Gan, Humphreys and Hamp-Lyons’s (2004) article, we investigated the successful learners and the unsuccessful learners within six themes emerged from the collected data such as conceptualizing English language learning, perceptions of the college English course, learning and practicing strategies, self-management, internal drive, and English proficiency tests. The study shows the interaction of learner difference factors (strategies, attitudes, and motivation) and contextual factors (instrumental importance of English, teacher’s teaching styles, and graduation requirement). Also, successful learners generally showed a broader view of English learning than unsuccessful learners did. From this study, we language teachers can teach students not only the language knowledge, but also the strategies characterizing their more successful peers.

Furthermore, in Lamb’s research, we examined how Indonesian students’ reported motivation change and how internal and external factors are related with the changes, focusing on Dornyei’s (2005) L2 motivational self system (ideal L2 self, ought-to L2 self and L2 learning experience). The data shows that two contrasting results. One is that enthusiasm for the process of formal learning in school fall down; the other is that attitudes toward language and of actual learning activity in informal contexts stay very positive. Since the main problems reported by learners are English teachers related to their monotonous classroom procedures and incomprehensible lessons, it provides us how important teachers’ roles are.

Two studies have important pedagogical advice for teachers to help students. Language teachers may pay attention to the students’ needs in order to achieve high academic standards and provide more integrative and personally relevant curricula and learning assessment along with learners’ language learning and strategy training. Also, teachers need to provide simple explanations, supportive feedback, and advices on independent ways to learn. Based on my experience, considering myself as an EFL learner and an EFL teacher, students’ positive feelings toward a teacher and instruction really influence students’ motivation in learning and interest in classes. In this respect, we have really important roles to play as a teacher.

Chapter 7 Foreign Language Aptitude

This week we have dealt with individual differences. When we discuss individual differences, we have to be aware that there are three areas in this domain as psychologists have traditionally made a distinction: cognition, conation and affect. In this chapter language aptitude, an issue of learners’ cognitive feature is mainly discussed. With respect to the two contrastive cases of Kaplan, a successful L2 French learner and Watson, who is judged as an unsuccessful learner despite his high L2 literacy, it is persuasive that some people are born with gifts in language learning ability. However, should language aptitude be prioritized as the absoluteness in language leaning? The answer is that it is not necessarily be so, but it could predict L2 learning rate, which was revealed by the result of MLAT (Modern Language Aptitude Test). It has been acknowledged that most privileged component of L2 aptitude is memory capacity although the emerged picture of memory and differential L2 facility is complex.

Regarding age and aptitude, the most striking finding is that language aptitude only matters to adults and adolescents, but not for young learners and that difference in proficiency among younger learners correlated to individual differences in memory ability, whereas for older learners, proficiency differences were more related to individual differences in analytical ability.

On Thursday, we read two articles regarding this issue and had discussions facilitated by a group leader. The study conducted by Fitzparick et al. (2006) investigated the effectiveness of L2 memorization in a real conversation. Although memorizing as one of the strategies to enhance learners’ idiomaticity has been considered to be effective, what they found is that despite their well-prepared memorized strings, there existed some hindrances in real conversations, depending upon personality, motivation, identity, and preferences to a specific strategy, which impeded learners from displaying their memorized materials. Given the fact that higher level learners tend to modify memorized materials in a real conversations, we can acknowledge that the degree of deviation from memorized material can be predictive of learner’s language proficiency.

The study of Irena O’ Brien et al. (2007) examined the correlation between development of aural fluency, phonological memory and learning context. Based on the theoretical framework of phonological loop and working memory, ample studies have been conducted focusing on the impact of phonological memory on children’s oral production skills. Given that, this study shed light on the degree of contribution of phonological memory to adults’ L2 learning. The finding was that those with better phonological memory in an immersion environment made even greater gains in L2 fluency development than those who stayed at home. Further, this relationship between phonological memory and L2 learning is not constrained by age but extends into adulthood.

Reflecting common issues in both studies in discussion, we concluded that learners’ individual differences, namely biological factors such as phonological memory, learning context and learners’ motivation and personality are tightly intertwined and each of these factors equally plays a significant role in language learning. In the future, based on the findings from the ample studies, what is expected to be examined is that how instructional approaches can be designed to facilitate L2 learning, taking individual differences into consideration.

Lastly, on behalf of the group leaders, I would like to express our deepest gratitude for everyone that you were all well-prepared, contributing to the activities and discussions that we had in the class. Hopefully everyone enjoyed the time and the content we presented.