1. Topic: Issues in Second Language Acquisition
- cognitive and affective domain -
Yoon-Hee Na, Ph. D
Department of English Language and Literature
Chonnam National University

2. linguistic domain affective domain
Framework for Second Language Acquisition
universal learning principles
first language acquisition / age
cognitive variables (styles/strategies)
intrinsic side:
affective factors
extrinsic side: sociocultural variables
affective domain
cognitive domain
linguistic domain
contrastive analysis (interference)
error analysis (interlanguage)
communicative competence

3. Cognitive: Universal Learning Principles
The process of perceiving, attending, storing, and recalling are central to human learning. 4
social
constructivism
Zone of proximal development
Adult scaffolding, interactive discourse
peer collaboration, group work
Anticipation of immediate reward: praise for correct responses (“Very good, Maria! “Good job!”), stickers
Shortcomings: dependence on short-term rewards 3
humanistic
psychology 1
behaviorism
Therapeutic help to individuals
Moving away from “teaching” toward “discovery earning”
Flaws: too non-directive, non-threatening
The process of anchoring new material to relevant entities in cognitive structure
Avoid too much drilling and memorizing 2
meaningful
learning

4. Cognitive: First Language Acquisition
It’s important to address issues in first language learning as a foundation on which you can build an understanding of principles of second language learning.
Historical development in theories of first language acquisition
Behavioristic
Nativist
Functional
tabula rasa
stimuli: linguistic responses
conditioning
reinforcement
habit formation
overlearning
rote practice
innate language acquisition device
systematic, rule-governed acquisition
“pivot” grammar (S): pivot + open word
(mommy sock, my cap, all gone milk, that horsie)
social interaction (the language-developing child and the competent language user)
functions of language in context (mommy sock)

5. Cognitive: First Language Acquisition
Can we draw direct analogies between first and second language acquisition?
Common recommendations for L2 teaching on the basis of L1 acquisition
You must practice and practice again. A small child learning his mother tongue repeats things again and again.
You must be a mimic. A small child imitates everything.
You must practice the separate sounds, then words, then sentences.
You do not have to speak at the initial stage. Watch a small child’s speech development. First he listens, then he speaks.
You do not have to read and write at the early stage. A small child listens and speaks and no one makes him read or write.
You do not have to translate. You were able to learn your own language without translation.
You do not have to learn grammar. A small child simply uses language. He does not learn formal grammar.
T/ F
T/ F
T/ F
T/ F
T/ F
T/ F
T/ F

6. Cognitive: Age and Acquisition
L1 acquisition starts in very early childhood, but L2 acquisition can happen in childhood, early or late, as well as in adulthood.
Types of comparison and contrast
CHILD
ADULT L1 C1 A1
Accent
critical period hypothesis
Cognitive
“Henry Kissinger effect” L2 C2 A2
Affective
inhibitions, anxiety, motivation
L1-L2 difference
L1-L2 difference
physical, cognitive & affective differences between child and adult

7. Cognitive: Styles and Strategies
While we all exhibit inherently human traits of learning, every individual approaches a problem from a unique perspective. Learning styles are cognitive variables that differ across individuals.
Field independent /dependent
“cognitive, affective, and physical traits that are relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with, and respond to the learning environment”
“A general predisposition toward processing information in a particular way”
Left-brain dominant/ right-brain dominant
introverted/ extroverted
Learning styles
Ambiguity-tolerant / intolerant
Visual / Auditory
Reflective / Impulsive

8. Cognitive: Styles and Strategies
What can teachers do with learning styles?
Developing student self-awareness of styles
Check one box in each item that describes you.
A B C D E
I don’t mind if people laugh I get embarassed if people laugh at at me when I speak me when I speak
I like to try out new words I like to use only the language that and structures. I am certain is correct.
I feel confident in my ability I feel uncertain about my ability to to succeed in learning L2. succeed in learning L2.
I want to learn L2 because of I am learning L2 only because what I can personally gain from it. someone else is requiring it.
I really enjoy working with other I would much rather work alone people in groups. than with others.
I like to “absorb” language and get I like to analyze the many details of the general gist of what is said. language and understand exactly.
Note: No one side is necessarily good or bad, but (a) if you are too dominant on one side, you may profit from allowing the other side of the continuum to operate, and (b) most learners incline to the right side of the chart, which is not the best learning style.

9. Cognitive: Styles and Strategies
Strategies: Moment-by-moment techniques that we employ to solve “problems” posed by second language input and output.
Learning strategies : relate to input – to processing, storage, and retrieval, to taking in messages from others (receptive domain)
metacognitive
socioaffective
cognitive
“executive” function
planning, thinking, monitoring, evaluating
advance organizer, direct/selective attention, self-management, functional planning, self-monitoring, self-evaluation
limited to specific learning tasks
involve more direct manipulation of the learning material itself
repetition, translation, grouping, note-taking, deduction, inferencing,
O’Malley et al. (1985)
relate to social-mediating activity and interacting with others (communication strategies)
cooperation, question for clarification

10. Cognitive: Styles and Strategies
Strategies: Moment-by-moment techniques that we employ to solve “problems” posed by second language input and output.
Communication strategies: pertain to output, how we productively express meaning, how we deliver messages to others. (productive domain)
Avoidance Strategies
Compensatory Strategies
message abandonment
syntactic / lexical avoidance
(I lost my road -> way -> I got lost)
phonological avoidance
(rally -> hit the ball)
topic avoidance
(avoid talking about what happened yesterday if the past tense is unfamiliar)
circumlocution
approximation
use of all-purpose words
word coinage
prefabricated patterns
nonlinguistic signals
literal translation
foreignizing
code-switching
appeal for help
stalling or time-gaining strategies

11. Cognitive: Styles and Strategies
What can teachers do with learning and communication strategies?
Strategies-based Instruction (SBI)
embed strategy awareness and practice into pedagogy (communicative games, rapid reading, fluency exercises, error analysis
help students to become awareness of the strategies they use (checklists, tests, interviews)
SBI Models
certain compensatory techniques are sometimes practiced to help students overcome certain weaknesses
textbooks include strategy instruction as part of a content-centered approach

12. Affective: Intrinsic Side
Affect: refers to emotion or feeling
Affective domain : the emotional side of human behavior
Development of affective states: involve a variety of personality factors, feelings, both about ourselves and about others with whom we come into contact
Extended definition of the affective domain (Bloom, 1964)
Stage 5
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4
receiving
responding
valuing
organizing
value system
Human Behavior
willing and able to place a certain value on the communicative act of interpersonal exchange
Stage 1
responsive to persons and to the context of communication
receptive to those with who they are communicating and to the language
Second Language Learners

13. Affective: Intrinsic Side
Affective factors
Self-esteem
Orientation
Inhibition
Myers-Briggs character types
Motivation
Extroversion
Risk-taking
Empathy
Anxiety
How is each factor relevant for successful SLA?

14. Affective: Intrinsic Side
Self-esteem
Importance: No successful cognitive or affective activity can be carried out without some degree of self-esteem, self-confidence, knowledge of yourself, and belief in your own capabilities for that activity.
Definition : “A personal judgment of worthiness that is expressed in the attitudes that individuals hold towards themselves”
General or global self-esteem
Task self-esteem
Situational or specific self-esteem
relatively stable, prevailing
self-appraisal in particular life situations or traits
relates to particular tasks within specific situations
Effects of the three levels of self-esteem
All three levels correlated positively with performance on the oral production (highest correlation between task self-esteem and oral production measures
Self-esteem appears to be an important variable in SLA
Suggestions: Does high self-esteem cause language success or does language success cause high self-esteem? Both are interacting factors. Teachers can have a positive and influential effect on both the linguistic performance and the emotional well-being of the student.

15. Affective: Intrinsic Side
Inhibition / Language ego
Concept: All human beings, in their understanding of themselves, build sets of defenses to protect the ego. Those with weaker self-esteem maintain walls of inhibition to protect what is self-perceived to be a fragile ego.
Language ego : The human ego encompasses language ego. Meaningful language acquisition involves some degree of identity conflict as language learners take on a new identity with their newly acquired competence. An adaptive language ego enables learners to lower the inhibitions that may impede success.
Alcohol (Guiora)
inhibition and pronunciation ability
Valium (Guiora)
Studies of learners with “thin” and “thick” ego boundaries (Ehrman)
Language learning as involving many forms of “alienation” (Stevick)
Experiments
& Studies
Suggestions: Create contexts in which students are made to feel free to take risks, to orally try out hypotheses, and in so doing to break down some of the barriers that often make learners reluctant to try out their new language.

16. Issues related to risk-taking
Affective: Intrinsic Side
Risk-taking
Importance: Risk-taking is important in successful SLA. Learners have to be able to gamble a bit, to be willing to try out hunches about the language and take the risk of being wrong.
Degree of risk-taking : High risk-taking will not always yield positive results in SLA. Successful language learners make willing and accurate guesses.
Silent student is one who is unwilling to appear foolish when mistakes are made
Fossilization may be due to a lack of willingness to take risks.
Issues related to risk-taking
When those foolish mistakes are made, a person with high global self-esteem is not daunted
In a few uncommon cases, overly high risk-takers may need to be “tamed” a bit.
Suggestions: Create a climate of acceptance that will stimulate self-confidence, and encourage participants to experiment and to discover the target language, allowing themselves to take risks without feeling embarrassed.

17. Affective: Intrinsic Side
Anxiety
Concept: Intricately intertwined with self-esteem, inhibition, and risk-taking, anxiety is associated with feelings of uneasiness, frustration, self-doubt, apprehension, or worry.
Levels of anxiety : At the deepest, or global, level, trait anxiety is a more permanent predisposition to be anxious. At a more momentary, or situational level, state anxiety is experienced in relation to some particular event or act.
Three components of foreign language anxiety: focuses more specifically on the situational nature of state anxiety.
Communication apprehension
Fear of negative social evaluation
Test anxiety
arising from learners’ inability to adequately express mature thoughts and ideas
arising from a learner’s need to make a positive social impression on others
apprehension over academic evaluation
Suggestions: There’s a distinction between debilitative (harmful) and facilitative (helpful) anxiety. The feeling of nervousness before giving a public speech is, in experienced speakers, often a sign of facilitative anxiety, a symptom of just enough tension to get the job done. Both too much and too little anxiety may hinder the process of successful SLA.

18. Affective: Intrinsic Side
Empathy / Extroversion
Transactional variables: Transaction is the process of reaching out beyond the self to others. A variety of transactional variables may apply to SLA: imitation, modeling, identification, empathy, extroversion, aggression, styles of communication, and others.
Empathy : the process of “putting yourself into someone else’s shoes,” of reaching beyond the self to understand what another person is feeling; the projection of one’s own personality into the personality of another in order to understand him or her better.
Extroversion: the extent to which a person has a deep-seated need to receive ego enhancement, self esteem, and a sense of wholeness from other people
Empathy & SLA
Extroversion & SLA
In SLA, the problem of empathy becomes acute
Not only must learner-speakers correctly identify cognitive and affective sets in the hearer, but they must do so in a language in which they are insecure.
Learner-hearers, attempting to comprehend an L2, often discovers that their own states of thoughts are misinterpreted by a native speaker.
It is not clear that extroversion or introversion helps or hinders SLA
Extroversion may be a factor in the development of general oral communicative competence, but not listening, reading, and writing.
Teachers need to be sensitive to cultural norms, to a student’s willingness to speak out in class, and to optimal points between extreme extroversion and introversion.

19. Affective: Intrinsic Side
Myers-Briggs Character Types
Background: the relationship between personality type and one’s success in a job, in management of time, in academic pursuits, etc.
The Myers-Briggs test : four dichotomous styles of functioning
Either turning inward or outward for our sense of wholeness
Extroversion (E)
Introversion (I)
Either data-oriented or relying on hunches for perceiving reality
Sensing (S)
Intuition (N)
Thinking (T)
Feeling (F)
Either cognitive (objective, logical) or affective (empathetic, compassionate) for arriving at conclusions
Either wanting closure (planning, organization) or spontaneous (flexible, comfortable with open-ended contexts in attitude toward the outer world
Judging (J)
Perceiving (P)
Myers-Briggs types and SLA
Depending on their Myers-Briggs type, foreign language learners exhibited some differences in strategy use, but we should not be too quick to conclude that psychological type can predict successful and unsuccessful learning.
Successful learners know their preferences, their strengths, and their weaknesses, and effectively utilize strengths and compensate for weaknesses regardless of their “natural” preferences.

20. Affective: Intrinsic Side
Motivation
“dictionary definition”: the extent to which you make choices about (a) goals to pursue and (b) the effort you will devote to that pursuit
Three views of motivation
Behavioristic
Cognitive
(Social) Constructivist
anticipation of reward
driven to acquire positive reinforcement
external forces
individual’s decision
driven by innate needs (Ausubel’s six needs: exploration, manipulation, activity, stimulation, knowledge, ego enhancement)
internal, individual forces
emphasis on social context
individual acts are carried out within a cultural and social milieu
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (physical needs, safety, communal needs, self-esteem, self-actualization)
Internal, interactive forces
Motivation and SLA
Like self-esteem, motivation can be global, situational or task-oriented. SLA requires some of all three levels of motivation.
In SLA, motivation is typically examined in terms of the intrinsic and extrinsic motives of the learner.
Studies of motivation in SLA often refer to the distinction between integrative and instrumental orientations of the learner.

21. Affective: Intrinsic Side
Instrumental and Integrative Orientations
Gardner & Lambert’s dichotomy (1972)
Gardner & MacIntyre’s orientation (1991)
Instrumental motivation: acquiring language as a means for attaining instrumental goals: furthering a career or academic success.
Integrative motivation: acquiring language to integrate themselves into the culture of the second language group and becoming involved in social interchange in that group
Orientation: the dichotomy as a learner’s context or orientation
Variation: Within either orientation, one can have either high or low motivation. One learner may be only mildly motivated to learn within a career context, while another learner with the same orientation may be highly driven to succeed.
Suggestions
There is no single means of learning a second language.
The two orientations are not necessarily exclusive. Most situations involve a mixture of each orientation.
Motivational intensity can have varying degrees within any of the orientations (integrative, assimilative, career, and academic orientation) or contexts.

22. Affective: Intrinsic Side
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
Which form is more powerful?
Intrinsically motivated behaviors....
are aimed at bringing about certain internally rewarding consequences, namely, feelings of competence and self-determination
Extrinsically motivated behaviors....
are carried out in anticipation of a reward from outside and beyond the self. Typical extrinsic rewards are money, prizes, grades and feedback
Piaget: “disequilibrium” as motivating
Krashen: i+1 (a reasonable challenge)
Maslow’s self-esteem and self-actualization
Brunner: Autonomy of self-reward
Intrinsic motivation
Does the technique appeal to the genuine interests of your students?
Do you present the technique in a positive, enthusiastic manner?
Are students clearly aware of the purpose of the technique?
Do students have some choice in choosing some aspect of the technique and determining how they go about fulfilling the goals of the technique?
Does the technique encourage students to discover for themselves certain principles or rules rather than simply being told?
Does it encourage students to develop or use effective strategies of learning?
Does it contribute to students’ ultimate autonomy and independence?
Does it foster cooperative interaction with other students in the class?
Does the technique present a “reasonable challenge”?
Do students receive sufficient feedback on their performance?
Checklist of intrinsically motivating techniques