Transcript PERSONALITY AND LANGUAGE LEARNING

1
PERSONALITY AND
LANGUAGE LEARNING
Drs. H. Suparman, M.A., Ph.D.
Magister Pendidikan Bhs. Inggris
Program Pascasarjana Universitas Prof. Dr. Hamka
Jl. Limau II, Kebayoran Baru Jakarta
Lampung University
Email: [email protected]
AFFECTIVE DOMAIN OF SLA
1. Intrinsic factors of affectivity:
personality factors within a person
that contribute to the success of
language learning
2. Extrinsic factors: sociocultural
variables that emerge as the SL
learner brings not just two
languages into contact, but two
cultures
3
AFFECTIVE DOMAIN
• Affect refers to emotion or feeling.
• Affective Domain is the emotional side of
human behavior and it may be put side by
side to cognitive side.
• The development of affective states or
feelings involves a variety of personality
factors, feelings both about ourselves and
about others with whom we come into
contact.
4
Extended definition of Affective
Domain
• Benjamin Bloom et al (1964) provided an
extended definition of affective domain,
outlining 5 levels of affectivity:
1. Receiving: a person must be aware of the
environment surrounding him, be
conscious of situations, phenomena,
people, objects; be willing to receive,
willing to tolerate a stimulus, not avoid it,
and give a stimulus his controlled or
selected attention.
5
2. Responding: committing himself to a
phenomenon or a person, a person is willing to
respond voluntarily without compelling, and to
receive satisfaction from that response.
3. Valuing: placing worth on a thing, a behavior or
a person. A person does not only accept a
value to the point of being willing to be
identified with it, but commit himself to the
value to pursue it, seek it out, and to want it,
finally to the point of conviction.
6
4. Organization of values into a system of beliefs,
determining interrelationships among them,
and establishing a hierarchy of values within
the system.
5. Finally, an individual becomes characterized by
and understand himself in terms of his value
system. The individual acts consistently in
accordance with the values he has internalized
and integrates beliefs, ideas, and attitudes into
a total philosophy or world view. At this level,
the problem solving, for example, is
approached on the basis of a total, selfconsistent system.
7
Personality Factors in Human
Behavior
1. Egocentric factors – one’s view of self
and its relevance to language learning
2. Transactional factors – how the self is
transacted to others
3. Motivational factors
8
Egocentric Factors
1. Self-Esteem
2. Inhibition
9
1. Self-Esteem - Definition
• Carl Rogers defines self-esteem:
The self-concept or self-structure may be thought of
as an organized configuration of perceptions of the
self which are admissible to awareness. It is
composed of such elements as the perceptions of
one’s characteristics and abilities; the precepts and
concepts of the self in relation to others and to the
environment; the value qualities which are perceived
as associated with experiences and objects; and goals
and ideals which are perceived as having a positive or
negative valence. (Carl Rogers, 1951: 136-37)
10
Another definition of self-esteem by
Coopersmith (1967: 4-5):
• The evaluation which the individual
makes and customarily maintains with
regard to himself;
• it expresses an attitude of approval or
disapproval,
• and indicates the extent to which an
individual believes himself to be capable,
significant, successful and worthy.
11
Definition of self-esteem (cont)
• Self-esteem is a personal judgment of
worthiness that is expressed in the
attitudes that the individual holds towards
himself.
• It is a subjective experience which the
individual conveys to others by verbal
reports and other overt expressive
behavior.
12
Types of self-esteem:
1. General or Global
2. Situational or Specific
3. Task self-esteem
13
General or Global selfesteem
• General or global SE is thought to
be relatively stable in a mature
adult, and resistant to change
except by active and extended
therapy.
14
Situational or specific selfesteem
• Refers to one’s appraisal of oneself in
 certain life situations, such as social
interaction, work, education, home,
 or on certain relatively discretely
defined traits (intelligence,
communicative ability, athletic ability),
 or personality traits (gregariousness,
empathy, and flexibility).
15
Task self-esteem
• Relates to particular tasks within specific
situations (eg. Within educational domain: refers
to particular subject matter areas).
• In athletic context, skills in a particular sport or
even a facet of a sport (eg. net play in tennis).
• Specific self-esteem might refer to SLA in
general, and task self-esteem might refer to
one’s self evaluation of a particular aspect of the
process: speaking, writing, or a special kind of
classroom exercise.
16
Research on self-esteem
• Little research has been carried out on the
relationship between SE and SLA.
• Adelaide Heyde (1979) studied the effects of the
three levels of SE on performance of an oral
production task by American college students
learning French as an FL.
• She found that all three levels of SE correlated
positively with performance on the oral production
measure, with the highest correlation occurring
between task SE and performance in oral production.
• That is students with high SE actually perform better
in the foreign language.
17
2. Inhibition
• The concept of inhibition is related to and
subsumed under the notion of self esteem.
• All human beings build sets of defenses to
protect the ego.
• The newborn baby has no concept of his own
self; gradually he learns to identify a self that is
distinct from others.
• In childhood, the growing degrees of awareness,
responding and valuing begin to create a system
of affective traits which the person identifies with
himself.
18
Inhibition (cont)
• In adolescence, the physical, emotional, and
cognitive changes of the pre-teenager and
teenager bring on mounting defensive inhibitions
to protect a fragile ego, to turn aside ideas,
experiences, and feelings that threaten to take to
peaces the organization of values and beliefs on
which appraisals of SE have been founded.
• The process of building defenses continues on
into adulthood.
19
Inhibition (cont)
• Some people – those with higher SE and ego
strength – are more able to withstand threats to
their existence and thus their defenses are
lower.
• Those with weaker SE maintain walls on
inhibition to protect what is self-perceived to be a
weak or fragile ego, or a lack of self-confidence
in a situation or task.
• The human ego encompasses language ego to
refer to the very personal n, egoistic nature on
SLA.
20
Transactional Factors




Transaction is the process of reaching out
beyond the self to others.
The tools of language help to accomplish
these feats.
A variety of transactional variables comes to
bear on second language learning: imitation,
modeling, identification, empathy, extroversion,
aggression, styles of communication
Three of these variables is discussed here
chosen for their relevance to a global
understanding of SLA
21
3 types of Transactional
Factors
1. Empathy
2. Extroversion
3. aggression
22
1. Empathy
• It is a process of “putting yourself into someone
else’s shoes,” of reaching beyond the self and
understanding and feeling what another person
is understanding or feeling.
• It is the major factor in harmonious coexistence
of individuals in society.
• Language is one of the primary means of
empathizing , but non-verbal communication
facilitates the process of empathizing and must
not be overlooked.
23
Definitions of empathy
• “A process of comprehending in which a
temporary fusion of self-object boundaries
permits an immediate emotional
apprehension of the affective experience
of another,” (Guioria, 1972b: 142)
• Hogan (1969: 309) defines empathy as “a
relatively discrete social phenomenon
recognizable in the experience of laymen
and psychologists alike.”
24
2 aspects necessary for
empathy
• There are 2 necessary aspects to the
development and existing of empathy:
 First, an awareness and knowledge of one’s
own feelings
 Second, identification with another person
 In other words, you cannot fully empathize –
or know someone else – until you adequately
know yourself.
25
empathy (cont)
• Communication requires a sophisticated degree of
empathy
• In order to communicate effectively you need to be able
to understand the other person’s affective and cognitive
states
• Communication breaks down when false presuppositions
or assumptions are made about the other person’s
states
• From the very mechanical, syntactic level of language, to
the most abstract, meaningful level, we assume certain
structures of knowledge and certain emotional states in
any communicative act.
26
2. Extroversion
• Extroversion and its antithesis, introversion, are also
interesting and outstanding variables in the acquisition of
a second language.
• It is a common belief among Western society that
introversion is an undesirable behavior.
• The outgoing, good tempered, kind hearted, talkative
personality tend to be held up as axiomatically desirable
and ideal.
• This valuing of extroversion carries over into the
language classroom as well.
• Quiet, reserved personalities are treated as “problems”
and language teachers seeks ways of encouraging
extroversion.
27
3. Aggression
• Aggression can be defined in a number of
ways ranging from “a sequence of
behavior the goal of which ... is injury of
the person toward whom it is directed” to
more general definitions that include
inference to responses that could injure if
aimed at a vulnerable object.
• There is some debate about the
relationship of frustration to aggression.
28
Aggression (cont)
• For example, Freud’s early theory of
aggression mentioned that aggression is a
“primordial reaction” to frustration (Freud,
1920)
• Aggressive behavior appears in every
human organism, and depending on the
individual and his society, different
manifestations and expressions of
aggression will be observed.
29
Aggression (cont)
• But aggression should not be defined only in a
negative context.
• Aggression, even in the “injurious” sense, is a
behavior necessary for survival; e.g., consistent
refusal to the aggressive in self- defense,
physically and emotionally, could result in
physical or mental illness and/or death.
• Assertiveness is perhaps a more positive notion
related to the construct of aggression.
30
QUESTIONS:
• In what sense is aggressive behavior
important in second language acquisition?
• Do you have any experience in your
environment in which aggressive behavior
has positive and/or negative effects?
31
MOTIVATION
• It is easy in SLA to claim that a learner will
be successful with the proper motivation.
• But this claim requires detailed
understanding of what motivation is, what
the sub-components of motivation are;
what does it mean to say that someone is
motivated? How do you create, foster and
maintain motivation?
32
Basic Needs and Drives
• Motivation is thought of as an inner drive,
impulse, emotion, or desire that moves
one to a particular action.
• Human beings universally have needs or
desires that are more or less innate, yet
their intensity is environmentally
conditioned.
33
6 desires or needs of human
organisms
1. The need for exploration, for seeing “the
other side of the mountain,” for probing
the unknown
2. The need for manipulation, for operating
on the environment and causing change
3. The need for activity, for movement and
exercise, both physical and mental
34
6 desires (cont)
4. The need for stimulation, the need to be stimulated
by the environment, by other people, or by ideas,
thoughts and feelings
5. The need for knowledge, the need to process and
internalize the results of exploration, manipulation,
activity, and stimulation, to resolve contradictions,
to quest for solutions to problems for-self consistent
systems of knowledge
6. Finally, the need for ego enhancement, for the self
to be known and to be accepted and approved of
by others.
(Ausubel, 1968: 368-79)
35
2 Types of Motivation
1. Instrumental
2. Integrative
36
Instrumental Motivation
Refers to motivation to acquire a
language as a means for attaining
instrumental goals:




furthering a career,
reading technical material,
translation,
etc.
37
Integrative Motivation
• Is employed when a learner wishes to integrate
himself within the culture of the second language
group, to identify himself with and become a part
of that society.
• Spolsky (1969) found that integrative motivation
generally accompanied higher scores on
proficiency tests in a foreign language.
• The studies can be concluded that integrative
motivation may indeed be an important
requirement for successful language learning.
• Some teachers and researchers claim that
integrative motivation is absolutely essential for
successful L2 learning.
38
Other studies of motivation
• Yasmeen Lukmani (1972), however,
demonstrated that among Marathi-speaking
Indian students learning English in India, those
with higher instrumental motivation scored
higher in tests of English proficiency
• Braj Kaschru (1977) noted that Indian English is
one example of a variety of Englishes which
(especially in the Third World Countries where
English has become an international language)
can be acquired very successfully for
instrumental reasons alone.
39
Other studies of motivation (cont)
• The more recent findings point out that
once again that there is no single means
of learning an L2: some learners in some
contexts are more successful in learning a
language
40
THANK YOU
41