Factors affecting second language learning

According to Patsy M. Lightbown and Nina Spada there are five main characteristics that can make you a good language learner: motivation, aptitude, personality, intelligence and learning style.

Intelligence

That’s right. The bigger your IQ is, the bigger is your chance of being a successful learner. Some recent studies have shown that intelligence may be more strongly related to certain kinds of second language abilities than others. In other studies, intelligence was highly related to performance on reading, dictation and writing task, but not on listening comprehension and free oral production tasks. These findings suggest that intelligence is more related to those second language skills which are used in the formal study of a language, such as reading, language analysis, writing and vocabulary study, but that intelligence is much less likely to influence the way in which oral communication skills are developed. Therefore, intelligence seems to be a strong factor when it comes to learning second languages in classrooms, particularly if the instruction is formal. When the classroom instruction is less formal, however (i.e. more communicative), so called ‘intelligence’ may play a less important role.

Aptitude

When investigating aptitude, researchers developed tests which can predict how successful a language learner will be. The most widely used aptitude tests are the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) and the Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery. Both of the measure characteristics such as : (1) the ability to identify and memorize new sounds; (2) the ability to understand how words function grammatically in sentences; (3) the ability to figure out grammatical rules from language samples; and (4) memory for new words. It is thought that learners will be more successful if they have these abilities.

Personality

It is often argued that an extroverted person is well-suited to language learning. However, research does not always support this conclusion.

Another aspect of personality which has been studied is inhibition. It has been suggested that inhibition discourages risk-taking which is necessary for progress in language learning.

Several other personality characteristics such as self-esteem, empathy, dominance, talkativeness, and responsiveness, have also been studied. However, in general, the available research does not show a clearly defined relationship between personality and second language acquisition.

Motivation and attitudes

The overall findings show that positive attitudes and motivation are related to success in second language learning. Unfortunately, the research cannot indicate precisely how motivation affects learning. That is, we do not know whether is the motivation that produces successful learning or successful learning that enhances motivation.

Learning Styles

Different learners approach a task with a different set of skills and preferred strategies. Some people are ‘visual’ learners (those who need to see), some are ‘aural’ learners (those who need only to see), some need to memorize and some need to add physical action to the learning process. Of course we all can benefit from a variety of learning experiences and some approaches are more successful for one person than for another. What is important is to give the students freedom to choose their own way of learning, that way they will do better than those who find themselves forced to learn in styles which do not suit them.