Capitalizing on Language Learners' Individuality

From Premise to Practice

Tammy Gregersen, Peter D. MacIntyre

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781783091195
• eBook ISBN: 9781783091225
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book closes the gap between theory and classroom application by capitalizing on learners' individuality in second or foreign language learning. The book examines the existing literature and theoretical underpinnings of each of the most prominent learner characteristics including anxiety, beliefs, cognitive abilities, motivation, strategies, styles and willingness to communicate. This strong foundation, coupled with the wide variety of activities that are suggested at the end of each chapter, arms the reader with ideas to conquer the problems created by negative affect and to capitalize on positive, facilitative emotions. The tasks are unrestricted by language and can be modified for use with technology, emergent learners and large classes, making this book a useful resource for both in-service teachers and pre-service teachers in university language teacher education programs.

1 Anxiety

From Premise…

Unchecked debilitating foreign language anxiety has destructive consequences on the language learners who suffer from it. Negative self-comparisons, excessive self-evaluations, worry over potential failures, concern over thoughts of others: these are some of the self-related thoughts that have anxious language learners focusing on their flaws rather than on their achievements, thus limiting the positive interaction and community-building that characterizes supportive language learning environments. In the following story, the ‘cracked pot’ is somewhat analogous to language anxious learners. He feels distress and shame over his flaws and even with evidence of the positive outcomes in the form of beautiful flowers, still needs to be encouraged.

A water bearer had two large pots, one hanging on each end of a pole he carried over his shoulders. The two pots were equal in size and splendor, except for the small crack along the side of one of the pots. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the master's house, the cracked pot always arrived only half full. For two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering one-and-a-half pots full of water to his master's house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, knowing it had fulfilled its purpose each day. But the miserable cracked pot was ashamed of its imperfection, and that it was only able to do half the work of the perfect pot.

After two years of enduring this bitter shame, the pot spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. ‘I am ashamed of myself and I want to apologize to you.’

‘Why

’ asked the bearer. ‘What are you ashamed of

’

‘For these past two years I have only been able to deliver half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your master's house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don't get full value from your efforts,’ the pot said.

The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion, said, ‘As we return to the master's house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path.’

Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and was cheered somewhat. But at the end of the trail, it still felt the familiar shame losing half its load, and so again, the pot apologized to the bearer for its failure.

The bearer said to the pot, ‘Did you not notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, and not on the other pot's side

That's because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we've walked back from the stream, you've watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master's table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house.’

To make an even stronger connection with how foreign language anxious students feel, take a moment to think about how you projected yourself in your TL as compared to your L1 as you first attempted to communicate. If you were like many other beginning TL speakers, while you probably considered yourself somewhat articulate in your first language – kind of funny … sort of intelligent … authentically you – you may have feared that others thought your jokes were not quite as funny, that they questioned your intelligence, and that the ‘self’ you communicated in your TL was somehow not the same person you were in your L1. It is this very awareness of the inability to authentically communicate who we are in our first languages when using our second languages that is the impetus for foreign language anxiety. These feelings can leave learners apprehensive about communicating, fearful of negative evaluation, and suffering from test anxiety (Horwitz et al., 1986). In the classroom context, anxious students have reported that the greatest source of their anxiety comes from speaking in front of peers (fearing being laughed at or ridiculed), making errors, and not communicating effectively (Price, 1991).

This self-realization might not be so bad if the manifestations of it were not so influential in the language learning classroom. There is nowhere for learners to hide when they freeze up during oral classroom activities, experience memory loss, or refuse to participate (Horwitz et al., 1986). Anxious students do not seem to handle language errors as effectively as more relaxed peers (Gregersen, 2003) partly because of the tendency to engage in negative self-talk and brood over poor performance. Doing so takes up space in working memory, which tends to reduce information-processing abilities (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1991c). Anxious learners exhibit avoidance behaviors by skipping class or putting off assignments. Some language learners tend toward perfectionism, adding unrealistically high personal performance standards to an already challenging learning process (Gregersen & Horwitz, 2002). Over time, the effects of language anxiety may culminate in lower proficiency and course grades, or in dropping out of language learning all together.

Although few specific classroom activities for reducing anxiety are outlined in the literature, researchers do give general guidelines for teachers to follow. Among these are the creation of student support systems and encouraging classroom environments that focus on sensitively correcting errors (Horwitz et al., 1986); encouraging the overhaul of unrealistic expectations and counter-productive beliefs about language learning; incorporating more supportive, small group activities, and focusing on the meaning of the message rather than accuracy (Price, 1991). Language methodologists have also tried to remedy the maladies of debilitating anxiety by creating specific approaches that target negative affect. For example, the method, Desuggestopedia, attempts to ‘de-suggest’ the psychological barriers that are erected against the language learning process, and still another method, The Natural Approach, is designed to mimic as accurately as possible the way that children acquire their first language.

Throughout this chapter, we will examine what language classroom anxiety is, where it comes from, and by assessing its stigmatizing effects, draw some conclusions about the importance of this variable to language learning. After appraising how anxiety influences the four skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening, the chapter will conclude with what research suggests are general guidelines to consider for lessening anxiety's debilitating effects, followed by the introduction of specific activities teachers can implement in their classrooms.

Exploring Foreign Language Anxiety, Its Origins and Its Significance

What language anxiety is

Self-expression is intimately linked to self-concept. Language anxiety reflects the worry and negative emotional reaction aroused when learning and using a second language and is especially relevant in a classroom where self-expression takes place. Horwitz et al. (1986: 128) identify this phenomenon as ‘a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feeling and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process.’ To understand its origins, MacIntyre and Gardner (1991c: 297) propose that ‘initially, anxiety is an undifferentiated, negative affective response to some experience in language class’ and that ‘with repeated occurrences, anxiety becomes reliably associated with the language class and differentiated from other contexts.’ In other words, foreign language anxiety is situation-specific; learners may be anxiety-free in other environments, but upon entering the language classroom, they become anxiety-ridden.

Horwitz et al. (1986) discuss three interrelated concerns that work together in the specific milieu of the language classroom: communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation, and test anxiety. The interacting parts consist of the realization that target language (TL) messages often are incomplete at best and incomprehensible at worst, leading to frustration and aborted communication. This tendency is exacerbated by the apprehension that nuanced self-expression in the TL is limited by impoverished vocabulary and inexperience with the nonlinguistic aspects of intercultural communication; self-expression is not as authentic as it would be in one's native language. This recognition of disparity is further intensified by frequent and often unreliable evaluations of learning, particularly the performance-based type of testing that occurs in the language classroom.

With this network of negative arousal jockeying for attention with plans to escape the misery, it is no wonder that language anxiety interferes with acquisition, retention and production of the TL. In its infancy, research into language anxiety centered mostly on speaking, as this was the skill that seemed to generate the most worry and concern for language learners. However, with further investigations and the realization that input and processing were also negatively impacted, researchers also began to look at anxieties in listening and reading as receptive skills providing input to the rest of the system, and writing skills that are linked to speaking as another avenue for language production.

At the input stage, anxiety arousal can produce shortfalls in attention and distraction as learners divide their energies between emotional drama and cognitive engagement, limiting the amount of linguistic information that is received and available to be processed. Thus, we encounter learners who hear or read new words but because of their inability to concentrate and encode, those words do not become part of their working vocabularies – the words seem to bounce off a wall of negative emotion and never enter the cognitive system. The effects of anxiety on processing the input are relative to the complexity of the task at hand – if the learners’ abilities are commensurate with the task, little interference is likely to occur; but if the task is cognitively taxing, the combination of challenging task and high anxiety will result in difficulties during processing. In this case, learners may receive input in the form of a new word, but interference at processing does not allow them to mentally rehearse it or connect it to prior experience, again resulting in ineffective learning. Finally, interference occurring during the act of retrieving previously stored information typifies problems at the output stage (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1989). In these situations, learners may have processed the input and ha...

Table of contents

• Coverpage
• Titlepage
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1 Anxiety
• 2 Beliefs
• 3 Cognitive Abilities: Aptitude, Working Memory and Multiple Intelligences
• 4 Motivation
• 5 Language Learning Strategies
• 6 Language Learning Styles
• 7 Willingness to Communicate
• Epilogue
• References
• Index