Will They Fly...or Not? The Factors Which Might Contribute to the Success of a Second Language Learner
Anna Schiffer, UK
Anna Schiffer works for OISE Bristol. Her specific interests include English for Aviation Professionals and English for Business Purposes. She much enjoys 'teaching the teachers' and coaching long-stay students. She has worked in Portugal, Turkey and Poland.
E-mail: penny-anna2010@hotm-0i9
Menu
Introduction
Learner preferences
Personality
Motivation and attitudes
Intelligence and aptitude
Learner beliefs
References
In 2008, I read a fascinating article by Lightbown and Spada called ‘Factors Affecting Second Language Learning’; factors which contribute to the success of a second language learner. I found three of those factors – personality, motivation and attitudes and learner preferences- especially interesting, drawing on my own experiences as a teacher and as a learner as well as on the experiences shared by my colleagues and fellow students on my M.Ed. course at that time. My reflections led me to be confirmed in my view that these have crucial implications for classroom teaching style and lesson planning.
In ‘Factors Affecting Second Language Learning’, Lightbown and Spada want to evaluate how far one can forecast the level of success that a language learner could reach, given information about that student’s personality, age, motivational level, learning styles, aptitude/intelligence, beliefs and age. They ask whether, in language learning, success or lack of it can be attributed to these personal factors.
We are all aware that people who learn by seeing are visual learners, those who learn by hearing are aural learners and learning by doing or by other physical action is kinaesthetic learning. The field dependent and field independent categories refer to the learner’s propensity for dividing details off from the background behind them or viewing the situation as a more organic unit. The latter has been the most researched, while learner preferences and successful language learning has been explored much less.
One colleague states:
'My classroom experience has largely been marred by a lot of poor teachers. There were one or two exceptions - although nothing like the Edith Piaf sessions in Anna's (school total-immersion French) class - but overall, I hate the formal classroom learning environment, and especially resent it if I feel I am not learning anything new. In my former university, I also feel I wasted 3 years because there was literally nothing being taught.'
Smith (E841 Tutorial Forum 2008)
It is not a complex task or target to include some listening, maximum STT, some reading or DVD or picture-oriented material in one learning session in order to accommodate each learning style at least for a few moments.
We should, according to Lightbown and Spada, be wary of applying a uniform methodology or material-base to all our learners, as they have a right to their preferences. We as teachers should simply encourage them to consider and attempt to use other methods than their own favourites. This can frequently be much easier said than done, but the rewards when it succeeds are immense both for the student and the teacher.
My own teaching experience over twenty-plus years has taught me that an adult student who appears to be reluctant to speak in class is often very successful in a one-to-one speaking test, for example. Conversely, my outgoing adult African students are, with careful preparation, quite ready and happy to go and interview strangers in the street for an interview project very successfully and are ready to make a public presentation of their findings.
According to Lightbown and Spada, findings are inconclusive about any connection between a person’s extrovert nature (or otherwise) and his success at learning a language. This may well, though, be a factor contributing to communicative ability rather than to structural accuracy.
When (to my embarrassment) a friend of mine was told by a native Portuguese speaker that I spoke ‘more’ (better) Portuguese than she did, her reply was that I would speak ‘more’ than she did in any language!
In response to my own story of a total immersion learning of Portuguese as an adult, I had this response from a fellow MEd student, and she had understood completely correctly:
'From your comment it seems to me that these two points, rather than being separate, are completely intertwined with one another: to practice regularly in informal settings requires a learner to relinquish part of their identity and to become “immersed” in the language before mastering it to an extent to which they can make it “their own” and find new resources to express their identity.' (Davies: Open University E841 Tutorial Forum 2008)
Generally, Lightbown and Spada conclude, research indeed reveals a connection between motivation and success in language learning. Less clear is which of these is the cause and which the effect. However, this might be said of anything one tries to learn, as success certainly breeds success for most people.
Motivation is classified as (a) the needs of the learner to communicate, and how, or (b) the attitude of the learner to the second language native speakers with whom he has contact.
Some examples of both sides of this argument, from my own professional experience, are:
- The wish to live more comfortably in the country where one is working
- The student who has learned Norwegian and is now studying English have fled Somalia.
And conversely, as negative motivators,
- The French business student who told me she had genuine problems with English as the dominant world language.
- The French air traffic controllers who reacted so negatively to Air France’s 2003 ruling about only using English that Air France was forced to retract the ruling.
- My own difficulty with learning Turkish as, within days of my arrival to teach English in Turkey, I saw no future for myself there after that academic year. I had felt very differently the previous year in Portugal.
Lightbown and Spada emphasise that language exists in a social environment, and this cannot be ignored when we investigate the factors which lead to success in language learning. This is a very good reason for foreign students who come to Britain to study English living with host families and the network of friends and extended family that the host family, in theory, can offer them. It is also the reason, for example, for my African students’ going out into the streets of Bristol to interview ‘real’ people.
Lightbown and Spada offer three ways a teacher can make his classroom a positive and motivating place for students; be positive about the tasks that the lesson will include, offer a variety of tasks and materials and encourage co-operation rather than competition. Certainly with my ESP/Professional English and exam classes I am very careful to explain to them exactly how every activity we do relates to the targets that they have.
Lightbown and Spada pin-point and accept three difficulties facing the researcher who attempts to collect data for this research by using a questionnaire to reveal the kind and level of motivation and then an aptitude test to measure proficiency in the second language. These are (a) the impossibility of measuring levels of motivation (b) the difficulty of defining and measuring language proficiency and (c) how to determine whether a link exists between two factors; e.g. does motivation lead to success or vice versa?
Regarding intelligence, they report that studies which directly related IQ scores to successful language learning were followed by others which conclude that intelligence could be more clearly related to success in vocabulary learning, reading and grammar in L2, but, interestingly, that it did not relate as clearly to ability in speaking.
They propose that the next factor, aptitude, can be clearly seen in a student who learns quickly. The two most used aptitude tests are based on the student’s demonstrating an ability:
- to remember and recognise new sounds
- to understand the role of particular words within a sentence
- to deduce grammatical rules from examples and
- to remember new vocabulary.
The capable student does not have to be equally good at each of these four elements, and a teacher can at least tailor his learning activities to accommodate all four elements, even if he does not know exactly what his students’ individual strengths are. I have found this breakdown especially useful in recognising where a student might need specific and material help and to use each student's strengths within the classroom context.
Learner beliefs, i.e. how the student believes he should be taught, can impact strongly on his life in the classroom, especially with an adult learner who has brought a whole story of learning with him into our classroom. His learning strategies are often determined by these opinions, for better or worse, and the teacher could use knowledge of these beliefs to help the student extend or adapt those strategies for greater success. It can, I have found - and I am not alone in this, I am certain - take some rather agonising weeks (for teacher and student!) and considerable skill to reach a point of compromise between two adults with strong personalities.
In conclusion, Lightbown and Spada's article mainly reports the results of others’ research, and concludes that it is difficult precisely to quantify the influence of any of these factors on language learning success. However, I have found that it is a very useful instrument for considering and consolidating the factors it addresses. None of this is rocket science, but it confirms much of what I have discovered as a learner of languages and as a teacher of EFL. It has also directly and significantly helped me to help students both inside the classroom and with their self-study.
Open University E841 Tutorial Forum 2008
Lightbown P., Spada N. (2001) ‘Factors Affecting Second Language Learning’ in Candlin C.N.,
Mercer N. eds (2001) English Language Teaching in its Social Context: A Reader; The Open University Routledge [Chapter 2]
Please check the How the Motivate your Students course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Teaching English Through Multiple Intelligences course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the How to be a Teacher Trainer course at Pilgrims website.
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