Individual Learner Differences in SLA

Janusz Arabski, Adam Wojtaszek, Janusz Arabski, Adam Wojtaszek

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781847694362
• Topic: Langues et linguistique
• Subtopic: Psycholinguistique

Beginning from the conflict between individual learner differences and the institutionalized, often inflexible character of formal language instruction, Individual Learner Differences in SLA addresses the fact that despite this apparent conflict, ultimate success in learning a language is widespread. Starting with theoretically-based chapters, the book follows the thread of learner differences through sections devoted to learner autonomy; differentiated application of learning strategies; diagnostic studies of experienced learners' management of the learning process; and reports on phonological attainment and development of language skills. Rather than providing an overview of all individual variables, the book reveals how some of them shape and affect the processes of language acquisition and use in particular settings.

Part 1

Background Assumptions

Chapter 1

Individual Learner Differences and Instructed Language Learning: An Insoluble Conflict?

D. WOLFF

Introduction

For quite some time now, second language acquisition (SLA) researchers have shown interest in the individual differences that can be identified in the learning processes of learners acquiring a second, a third or a fourth language. Researchers have come up with a large number of such features, which reach from differences that are identifiable fairly easily, such as age or gender, to features that are more difficult to grasp, such as motivation and learner preferences. They have shown that these differences influence the results of second language learning processes and lead to different linguistic abilities and skills in the foreign language.

Although these findings have been taken into account by theoreticians, they are not favoured so much by practitioners in the foreign language classroom. This is rather disappointing, because the empirical evidence that such differences exist should be sufficient to support new proposals of approaching practical language teaching issues. In fact, in the mainstream foreign language classroom, teachers focus on the abilities and skills of a virtual learner who represents the average norm – Helmke (2008: 8) calls him the ‘imaginary average pupil' – and do not accept that learners are different in approaching language learning tasks. This is true not only for the foreign language classroom but also for all the other subjects taught in school as well: It leads to large numbers of students being left alone because they do not fit into this hypothetical construct of an average norm that has never been described or specified by anyone. The learning abilities of the individual student are assessed by most of the teachers on the basis of this imaginary norm. Individual learner differences are taken into account by foreign language teachers only marginally, although the terms ‘learner orientation’ and ‘individualisation’ are not unknown to language teaching methodology any more. So my claim at this stage is – maybe somewhat daringly – that the lack of considering the individual learner and his distinctive learner features is not the result of too large numbers of pupils in the classroom, as teachers generally maintain, but rather results from the unconditional belief in the hypothetical norm.

Despite all the progress that has been made in foreign language teaching during the last 20 years, despite the introduction of communicative language teaching and its different models, the mainstream language classroom is still determined by a form of classroom discourse that English foreign language theoreticians describe – somewhat mockingly – as teacher-controlled interaction, a form of discourse which is planned and directed by the teacher and gives the students only the opportunity to react. During the interaction the teacher assesses the student's utterances only with respect to their compatibility with his own views (language and content wise) and rejects them if they do not correspond. In a lesson that is designed in this way, the teacher will rarely take care of the individual student.

I do not want to conceal the fact that teaching and learning are different in some schools, but in general they take place in an environment in which the teacher directs and controls the students in their learning processes. Only in the context of the so-called ‘internal differentiation’ (in German Binnendifferenzierung), ideas of individualisation are put into practice, which relate to our knowledge of individual learner differences. Overstating my argument one could say that teacher-controlled interaction is the approach that teachers choose, because it fulfils their expectations with respect to the hypothetical norm and keeps alive their beliefs in the imaginary average student.

In my contribution I would like to come up with some ideas as to how this problem can be dealt with and how it might even be solved in the long run. I will first discuss, very briefly, the concept of individual learner differences. In the second part of my chapter I will take up some fundamental assumptions of cognitive psychology that are, in my opinion, suited to clarify the aspect of individuality inherent in this concept. In the third part I will show that in foreign language teaching we require approaches that do justice to the individual differences of each learner and are thus fundamentally different from the ones commonly used in the classroom. The assumptions discussed in the second part will be helpful here. In the last part I will sketch out such an approach.

Individual Learner Differences: A Very Brief Description of the State of the Art

There can be no doubt that humans learn languages in a similar way. In the 1970s and 1980s of the last century it could be shown that both the acquisition of the first and of a second (third or fourth) language can be described as a similar sequence of specific stages (for first language acquisition cf. Brown, 1973; for SLA Dulay et al., 1982). For both types of acquisition individual differences are noticeable, which are accounted for by individual learner features. It is interesting to note that explanations are available only for SLA. Differences in early first language acquisition are explained on the basis of the child's socialisation and bodily inflictions such as deafness, blindness and motor deficits. For the later stages of first language acquisition research does not seem to exist with respect to other individual differences. For SLA the number of individual learner differences mentioned in the literature is much higher; they include cognitive, social and psychological features. I will come back to this issue in somewhat more detail in the beginning of the next section.

In my short summary of the individual learner differences discussed in SLA research, I will particularly refer to the works of Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991), Skehan (1991), Ellis (1994) Naiman et al. (1995) and Grotjahan (1998).

When looking in more detail at the taxonomies that were developed in SLA research to account for individual learner differences, it becomes obvious that they are very similar and can be distinguished only according to the different orders they are presented in or the lack of one or the other category. Ellis (1994: 522), for example, draws a distinction between seven categories: beliefs about language learning, affective state, age, aptitude, learning style, motivation and personality. In the introductory handbook by Lightbown and Spada (1999), which refers to Naiman et al. (1995), a category intelligence is introduced that does not exist in Ellis' taxonomy but is part of the category personality, which is, however, a category of its own in the handbook. Motivation, beliefs about language learning and age are part of their categorisation as well; motivation, however, is part of attitudes. A new category – learner preferences – is introduced; its definition is very similar to the category learning style in Ellis' taxonomy.

The very detailed taxonomy developed by Larsen-Freeman and Long already in 1991 is clearly an expansion of the two very similar categorisations just discussed. The authors provide six categories, some of which are further subdivided: age, sociopsychological factors (subdivided into motivation and attitudes), personality (subdivided into self-esteem, extro-/introvertedness, fear, empathy, timidity, cognitive style etc.), hemispheric specialisation, learning strategies, other factors (gender). Ellis is not satisfied with these categorizations; he calls them ‘often vague and overlapping in different ways’ (Ellis, 1994: 524).

It is interesting to note that Larsen-Freeman and Long introduce a category that does not appear in Ellis' taxonomy as an individual learner feature, that is learning strategies. Ellis deals with learning strategies as a specific learner characteristic that operates on the basis of individual learner differences and situational factors (Ellis, 1994: 530), but is not part of his taxonomy of learner differences. He regards learning strategies as dynamic individual characteristics the choice of which decides on the success of the learning process. This is undoubtedly a valid interpretation that does not take into account, however, that the development of learning strategies itself is determined by individual learner features (e.g. socio-psychological factors or the learner's personality).

On the whole, it becomes clear when comparing these classificatory systems that the concept of individual learner differences is not so well established that it could be called a safe concept. The list of categories is open and is characterised by overlaps which, although he is critical about it, also show in Ellis' categorisation. It is also surprising that individual learner differences are not at all focused upon in SLA research for the time being: The most important research is found in the latter half of the last century.

In my summary it does not become clear that individual learner features could be differentiated according to one important aspect: the way in which they are influenced by the environment. However, this aspect is not being discussed in the literature, although it cannot be assumed that individual learner differences should be considered as static predispositions that are available in the same form, unchanged, over the lifespan. I would rather believe that they are features that develop dynamically in the process of interaction with the environment. However, there are differences with respect to the strength of the environmental influences. A feature like hemispheric specialisation is less accessible to the environment than a feature like motivation. This is probably true as well for a feature like gender compared to attitudes. But what about aptitude and intelligence? Are they less accessible to the environment than, for example, the feature memory? This question could be asked as well with regard to cognitive style. Does cognitive style change during socialisation or does it belong to the unchangeable predispositions that humans bring along when they are born? I have not found an answer to any of these questions although I believe that answers are very important also from the point of view of foreign language teaching and learning. In the following section I will try to deal with this issue at least theoretically.

Individual Learner Differences: Some Considerations with Respect to Cognitive and Learning Psychology

I mentioned already that individual learner differences do not play an important role in explaining the acquisition of a person's first language but SLA has dealt with them quite extensively. This fairly surprising fact can be explained in at least two different ways: It is possible that individual learner differences have no influence on the acquisition of the first language and are therefore not taken into consideration. Equally possible, on the other hand, is the interpretation that individual learner differences already exist in a rudimentary form when the child is born and that they develop dynamically through interaction with the environment. I rather tend to take up the second position and will try to explain it.

I will make use of the results of cognitive psychology and cognitive learning theory to support my explanation (for the following cf. Wolff, 2002). It is not necessary to discuss in detail here the main ideas of cognitive and constructivist psychology; just let me remind you of the following: Cognitivists and constructivists regard human beings as information processors who are able to process and to store, in interacting with the environment, both declarative or factual and procedural knowledge, that is knowledge about processes and sequences of events (abilities and skills). It is important to keep in mind that both knowledge and skills are stored in different forms in the human mind: as concepts and propositions (in which factual knowledge is stored), and as schematic structures (in which both knowledge and skills are stored). Schematic structures exist in the form of scripts, schemata, frames, plans and so on (Wolff, 2002: 56; Rumelhart & Norman, 1978). It is also important to remember that all new concepts and schemata alter the existing memory structures: The already-existing knowledge is modified, expanded, generalised, reduced and so forth on the basis of the incoming new constructions. Here I cannot deal with the complex cognitive operations responsible for this; doubtlessly they are driven by strategies that guide processes of both comprehension and learning.

These few remarks on cognitive psychology and its assumptions are sufficient to make the following arguments understandable. But before I can explain the changes in individual learner features, I will have to move to another field of cognitive psychology; I will have to bring back to your memory what cognitive psychology has to say about nature and nurture, that is the relationship between predispositions and environment. As we all know, linguists and psychologists have made interesting assumptions with respect to this topic. Cognitive psychologists argue that a human being cannot be considered to be a tabula rasa at birth: while Piaget (1979) takes the image of the noyeau fixe to account for the human's predisposition which by interacting with the environment becomes an increasingly complex and efficient instrument to effect these interactions, Neisser (1979) assumes that even the unborn child already has some innate instruments enabling it to perform such interactive processes (instruments that include rudimentary cognitive schemata enabling the child to control its perceptions). And as we all know, Chomsky attributes to the newborn child an innate language learning capacity.

If these assumptions are correct, it is possible to explain developmental processes in individual learner features and even a differentiating dynamic in the development of different individual features. The pre-condition is that all individual learner features mentioned in the literature are principally dynamic, that is they change, and the changes are dependent on the interaction with the environment (cf. Piaget & Neisser). The experiences that humans gain in the interaction with the environment and that make them change their concepts, propositions and schemata also change the individual features that characterise them as learners, because they are stored in schematic structures as well. A new learning experience makes them change a specific schema: For example, they change a schematic structure in which their beliefs about language learning are stored when they realise that a certain strategy does not work when dealing with a specific learning problem. Similarly, motivation or the lack of motivation are driven by the learner's experiences with his environment and can be modified when other experiences are gained.

It is a decisive factor, however, that each individual not only during his cognitive development, but also during his adult life, is confronted with different aspects of reality. Due to their social origin, some people live in fairly closed social contexts; others live in rich environments in which they have many different experiences. Moreover, every individual belongs to one or more social groups, lives in a big or a small family and has a specific professional life. In all these environments he takes up his role as information processor, interacts with his environment and constantly modifies his experiences with this environment. His knowledge base changes continuously and this is true as well, of course, in relation to all the features that characterise him as a learner. Every human being pictures his environment differently, and th...