When I need to communicate basic needs or important information to parents at the afterschool program, I am not afraid to make mistakes in the language because the need overrides my own feelings of embarassment. I have the motivation to try my best to communicate. However, when I am with someone who speaks the target langauge and English, I do not even attempt to use the langauge. My motivation decreases because the person can translate for me and I overuse my monitor so when I do try to say a word or two, I notice every sylabul that is pronounced incorrectly.
I am a very driven person so when I commit to learning something, like a language, I give it a lot of effort and time. However, because I am currently so overwhelmed with my final semester in graduate school, my cognitive load is too high to take on the added task of a new language. Nothing feels like it's sticking from the langauge learning and I believe it is because even when I am doing my language lessons, I'm distracted by the many tasks I have to complete. I have so many reasons to want to learn Spanish; to communicate with my boyfriend's family, the parents at the after school program, and increase my job opportunities. Yet I am currently so overwhelmed I find it nearly impossible to commit to learning a language right now. This makes me think of my students that are in unstable family situations. They are probably just trying to get by and the idea of psuhing themselves to acquire English can sometimes feel like too much.
I am a very social person, so I think once my cognitive load has decreased I will be able to pick up Spanish by putting myself in situations where I have to interact with people in the target langauge. I could do this by attending meetings at Bayside Community Center or attending their bilingual classes.
Usually, when I commit myself to doing something, I put a lot of effort and time like Ilana. However, my current commitments to school and my two part time jobs are impeding on my ability to fully commit to learning Italian.
Also, I think motivation is a major factor impeding my ability to learn Italian. My only motivation to learn Italian is purely for personal reasons, so I am not 100% committed to learning the language. In addition, I don't live in a situation where I absolutely need to learn Italian in order to communicate and survive. Furthermore, I don't have friends who speak Italian fluently to practice with. As a result, I'm not learning the language. If I had more free time, I would commit myself to an Italian class and I would plan a trip to Italy so I could practice the language after learning enough of the language from Italian classes. My cognitive load and affective filter will be low after I finish grad school, so that might be the best time to pursue an extracurricular Italian class.
I was always the teenager who went straight for the personify quizzes in Teen Magazine and Cosmo so I was looking forward to answering this question as I read through Brown’s chapter 6 on personality factors. Although, I realize for the same reason Brown sites the probable inaccuracy of affective self-assessments (i.e. “self-flattery syndrome”) my own assessment of my personality factors may not be entirely accurate. That said, I’ll do my best to remain unbiased. In terms of global and situational self-esteem, I feel I would rank fairly highly (I was lucky to have nurturing parents who helped instill this in me early on). This of course, is shown to correlate with success in L2 learning, as it takes a certain amount of confidence to initiate and participate in the L2 learning process. However, I must admit that I am particularly fickle in terms of my task self-esteem. There are tasks I would avoid almost entirely (such as competitive sports) due to low task self-esteem in those areas. In terms of task self-esteem and language learning, I am easily demotivated by a task that I don’t deem valuable or achievable. This factor of my personality could likely impede language learning if my preferred style of learning happens to clash with a particular activity. Specifically with livemocha.com I find I am more demotivated because my assessment of their approach to language learning is not favorable. This issue also closely relates to Weiner’s attribution theory. I bring high self-efficacy to those tasks I deem to be worthy but am likely to have unfortunately low self-efficacy in regards to tasks I don’t feel are reasonable or well-explained by the facilitator. I’ll admit this might translate into me being a somewhat “high maintenance” student for some teachers because I will withdraw if I feel that these needs are not being met! This attitude in turn affects my willingness to communicate (WTC) as well. I find that likely due to high global self-esteem and a general predisposition to high self-efficacy, I am often an enthusiastic communicator. In a language class this is really beneficial because, given the opportunity I will maximize my speaking opportunities. However as MacIntyre (1998) proposed, there are cognitive and affective factors which underlie WTC motivation such as motivation. As previously admitted, I may experience low motivation for tasks I don’t find achievable which would then, in turn lower my WTC. The final area I would like to touch on is motivation. This has been deemed to be one of the most influential factors in L2 success. Before discussing whether my motivation is intrinsic or extrinsic, Garner and Wallace (1972) would claim it imperative to state my orientation to language learning. My L2 learning orientations have always been Instrumental. I studied Spanish in high school as a requirement (though I thoroughly enjoyed it), I studied Japanese and Korean while working with guests of these populations at a resort in Guam in order to further my career, and currently I am studying Portuguese as part of the EDUC 541 course requirement (although again, I am personally enjoying it as well). The only “language” I have had an integrative orientation towards is Australian English! I say this because American and Australian English vary hugely and I really had to adapt in order to assimilate into Australian culture when living there for over 3 years. In terms of how my orientation has affected my L2 learning, I think I would have been more motivated had I had more integrative orientations but I don’t think my lack of integrated orientations has impeded my learning. If for example I was studying Portuguese while living in Brazil or with the intention of going to Brazil, I think I would be more motivated and possibly retaining better. Finally, in terms of my motivation style in general, I believe that I am highly intrinsically motivated. I always say that the only person I want to compete against is myself. So mostly I am motivated by competence and self-determination.
I think that my personality factors both greatly impede and enhance my language learning. I tend to have low global self esteem but mostly middle to high self esteem in certain situations and tasks. For example in language learning my situational and task self esteem is middle to high because of the belief that I have that as a bilingual I could learn languages easier than those who just speak one language.
My willingness communicate has always been quite low, which means I won’t volunteer answers or get to practice my oral output with a large group of people. I will though be willing to communicate with a partner or in a small group. If forced to I will communicate in any setting, but never by choice in large setting. I have high inhibitions, not specifically about language, but it does affect my language learning and use. For example, I was in France 8 days and only spoke two sentences of French the whole time…I took French for nearly 7 years. My inhibitions were too high to practice what I had learned and loved for so many years. Although I do consider myself a risk taker, I don’t think I have ever taken a risk with language, although I know I will have to take a risk and speak to native speakers, it’s a risk that I will put off as much as possible. My anxiety with language is much too high when I believe I will be judged (for example when speaking to native speakers). When I am in informal settings with others at my same language level I am usually quite confident and feel that I could speak more and a lot better.
I believe that my personality facilitates comprehension in language learning but not necessarily performance and production. I believe that in order to facilitate my performance and production of language I would have to be in a Humanistic Psychology classroom where the student is empowered and the teacher facilitates and not judges. I also think that by the fact that I realize that some of my personality traits affect my language learning I can take a proactive role in working on weaknesses like willingness to communicate and speaking anxieties and thus strengthen my overall language learning.
According to the Meyer’s Briggs test, I am an INFP (introverted, intuitive, feeling, perceiving). I fit the description of the profile in that I am an idealist and tune into feelings, both my own and those of others. According to research cited by H. Douglas Brown, these characteristics affect my language learning in various ways.
Because I am a moderately expressed introvert, I can see some characteristics of both extroversion and introversion in my language learning. I am willing to take risks in conversations in the target language in certain circumstances, such as a social situation where I have an acquaintance with my conversation partner. However, I am very reluctant to engage in conversation on Live Mocha with total strangers. Like an introvert, I do have a certain amount of self-sufficiency. Aside from the extrinsic motivation of the requirement to take the Live Mocha, I am self-motivated in that I continue with the lessons beyond what is required. In the past, I worked on improving languages on my own with the help of books and tapes just because I wanted to. The tendency toward introversion can be a limiting factor in that I can feel shy at times and can feel reluctant to spontaneously express myself in the target language. I can see where this could be true in Portuguese or in other languages that I do not know as well, such as Italian or Spanish. Since I am a strong speaker of French, I am not apt to feel as much of a sense of shyness.
I am also a “moderately expressed” intuitive. Brown describes the language learning assets for this type as being able to infer and use context. These traits are part of my language learning tool kit. The Live Mocha exercises do not explicitly lay out the rules for grammar. This has worked well for me; I have benefitted from figuring these out from context. If presented with a list of grammatical rules at this point, I would understand and retain them better than if I had seen them at the outset. On the downside, this trait can cause me to be a bit sloppy about the rules at times. Also, I can tend to rebel against “learning the rules” even though at times this can be helpful.
Elizabeth - continued Brown describes language learners with a “feeling” preference as having “integrative motivation, bonding with teachers, [and] good relations lead[ing] to self-esteem” (page 178). I have a “strongly expressed” feeling preference. In this domain, the Live Mocha learning experience might not be a good fit for me. I feel that I am integratively motivated. I love learning about other cultures and interacting with people from those cultures. I do not get that type of experience from Live Mocha. I do not always feel connected to the experience. Also, as a feeling person, part of my self-esteem is rooted in relationships with others, I am not getting the support and feedback that I would have in a class with other individuals. I definitely feel discouraged if I don’t feel that I am getting supportive feedback. Even when the learning setting is one that involves live interaction with others, being a “feeling” personality can make me oversensitive to perceived judgment or criticism, thus raising my affective filter.
As a “perceiving” person, I am flexible and open to new experiences, in other words, I have a high tolerance for ambiguity. I do embrace new experiences and like to try out different approaches, both in my teaching and in my own learning. This has a positive effect on learning languages because I am open to the experience. On the other hand, Brown points out that perceiving personalities can be lazy or show “inconsistent pacing over the long haul” (page 178). I don’t know that I am lazy, but I can lose motivation over the long run after the initial excitement has worn off.
According to the Myers-Briggs character test, I am an ENFJ type. The Extroversion disposition enables me to be willing to take conversational risks and interact with the exterior environment. However, too much dependence on outside stimulation and interaction could be an inhibition. For example, I am not very much motivated to learn a language completely by myself online, without any direct interaction with people. Next, I am good at guessing from context and getting the big idea, but sometime this may lead to insufficient attention to details. The disposition of Feeling indicates that I may depend on building relationships with and getting supports from people around me to promote learning. Additionally, the tendency to judge enables me to work systematically and get everything done in time. However, this disposition may also make me to be too rigid on my work and too hard on myself. I am trying to be more flexible now.
There are a lot of affective factors in SLA that I would say enhance my learning of these new languages, Portuguese and Italian. I started with Italian and couldn't finish due to livemocha issues, then picked up Portuguese, now back to Italian. Anyways, one such factor is that of risk taking. This is an important characteristic of successful learning of a second langauge. I have learned to do this by having to assimilate to a variety of cultures in my life. Without taking risks, it hinders any progression or success. Especially when you rely on the language to communicate, as I did. Learning Italian has also been motivating for me. This ties in with a strong willingness to communicate. My purpose in studying Italian is to be able to communicate to some extent while I'm there for a month this summer. I can't bear the thought of being somewhere and not at least attempting the language or immersing oneself fully in the culture. Therefore, my motivations for learning this langauge are high. This type of motivation would fall under cognitive as this is driven by basic human needs. I would also consider myself to be intrinsicly motivated. I'm motivated by the act of learning the language itself, not for seeking a reward or positive feedback. Although, the motivation is on a need basis in order to communicate, its triggered on bringing about a feeling of competence.
Like Qi, I am identified by they Myer's Brigg's Test as an ENFJ - which was somewhat surprising to me, yet I believe does reflect my learning preferences and experiences. I did find it interesting that this personality type is the type of Teachers! As a slightly expressed extrovert, social interactions are important to me, yet not crucial for my learning. For example, I sometimes prefer individual projects as opposed to group projects. In my current language learning, I obviously felt comfortable with my own internal language growth enough to purchase a CD program, yet as I am doing the program I do find myself longing to talk with someone else in the language and "try it out". As an intuitive person, my learning style aligns with what Brown terms as major assets of this perference: "Inferencing and gussing from context, structuring own training, conceptualizing, and model building." In this sense, I do always try to look at the bigger picture and use the details that I learn to create a broader, more conceptualized understanding. The feeling part of my personality is where I seem to be struggling the most in my language learning. Typically, I am very motivated and this is typically a result of the good feelings I have when I learn. I love learning new things and consider myself to be a lifelong learner. But, as Brown states, a liability associated with Feeling is "disrupted by a lack of interpersonal harmony" With this current program my learning is impededed because I don't feel this harmony between my own motivation and my self-confidence in learning Italian. The personality factor that came as no surprise to me is the Judging part. In my personal life, I always like to have a distinct plan. I don't deal particularly well with change. Where this is a positive for my learning is that I do well with strategies such as projects with a clear timeline, and establishing and following goals. Where this may impede my learning is in the sense that I may become intolerant of ambiguous stimuli thus making me close-minded in my learning. Overall, I think understanding our students' personality factors can help us as teachers create opportunities for them to be successful. If we create a community in which all types of learners can highlight their strengths in a unique way, each learner can grow towards their language learning potential.
I definitely think the “effective domain” influences my language learning experience. As far as self-esteem, I have a high self-esteem at times and a low self-esteem in other situations. I definitely see myself assessing the situation I am in to see how comfortable I feel sharing and discussing information. In this case, I have a higher self esteem, partly because I know that nobody I know is listening or watching me. If I was in a classroom setting I know that I would have a lower self esteem. I sometimes get intimidated. I think that the attribution theory ties in very well with my language learning experience. I do have the ability to learn another language. I put in the effort, sometimes less than others, knowing that I do not need to learn the language, but that I am learning it for a more pleasurable reason. I know it is going to be difficult and I won’t be fluent in the language after this course so I perceive it will be a difficult task, so I am not too hard on myself. But on the other hand, is that the reason my effort may be lower at times? Luck has a lot to do with everything. Some individuals are born with the ability to take on tasks and accomplish them well and to the fullest very easily. I am willing to communicate with the computer, but going along with my self esteem, I would see myself hesitant to communicate in front of other individuals or to people I knew. My own inhibition makes me feel unsure at times. I am good at memorizing words and phrases, but I see myself feeling more self-conscious when speaking. If I was pressured to know this language fluently or that I would be graded on how well I knew the language I would definitely feel anxious. In this experience I don’t feel anxious. I am also more of an extroverted person, so I think that would help develop my language because I would be more willing and looking for more social interactions to learn and use the language.
First of all, personality factors refer to (affective) intrinsic aspects. In other words, the affective or intrinsic (emotions) components contribute in some way to the success of foreign language learning. Based on my own experience, one of the major characteristics of successful learning of a second language is risk taking. I am a risk taker. I am totally aware of the significance of gambling to improve linguistic skills. In other words, unwilling to take risks will probably lead to errors and less progress. In addition to the risk taking factor, self-efficacy, feeling of being able to carry out a task, plays an important role in achieving success as well. In one hand, it is obvious that a high sense of self-efficacy in support of efforts will result in acquiring a second language successfully. On the other hand, a learner with low self-efficacy may attribute failure to an external factor such as luck or may lead to self-fulfillment sense, internalization of negative feeling, of failure.
Moreover, willing to communicate is one of the powerful factors that helped me to enhance my language skills. Based on my experience learning Spanish, I have noticed that risk taking, self-confidence, self-esteem and self-efficacy are closely related to one another and to willing to communicate (WTC). In summary, as described in Brown’s book, the affective domain is the emotional side of human behavior; therefore, human beings most probably experience mixed emotion at one. This nature makes it difficult to give a clear explanation without taking into consideration the interrelated components of the affective domain.
Most importantly, integration of self-esteem, overall self-evaluation of worthiness, which is expressed in the attitude toward self, and self-efficacy, is better definition of the aspect of inhibition. In its simplistic meaning, inhibition is the feeling of worry or embarrassment that prevents us from doing or says what we want. However, I am working on strengthen my ego (one’s opinion about self) and higher my self-esteem so that I can acquire a higher level of second language. The techniques of becoming aware would be used to reach this goal.
Finally, also, I am enhancing my language learning experience by identifying my personality elements to my preferred learning strategies. Obviously, Extraversion (E) is just one of my personality characteristics that help me to improve English oral communication and to enhance Spanish oral skills.
I decided to take the Myers-Brigg test online to get an idea of my personality type. I was not very surprised when the results showed that I am Extraverted Sensing Feeling Judging. I believe that my extraverted nature enhances my learning insomuch as I am very open to sharing my opinions and like to be involved in class discussions. Also, my feeling nature is beneficial in my role as educator because I think that teachers need to be nurturing and caring for their students. With regard to my experience on ItalianPod101.com, I think that my "sensing" qualities are beneficial to me. I notice facts, remember details, and try to find the practical use for everything that I am learning. Because I have had such trouble learning languages in the past, my self-esteem was very low coming into this assignment. However, as I feel my self-efficacy increase, my self-esteem is increasing as well. I also think that my normally anxious personality is set at ease because I am learning Italian in the comfort of my home, so my affective filter is low (Krashen). Finally, my motivation for this assignment is instrumental, as I am not trying to learn Italian to join a community, rather as part of this class. I am intrinsically motivated to succeed, however, because I would like to learn enough that I can apply my knowledge when I go to Italy.
After taking the Myers-Brigg test, I discovered that my personality traits are Extraverted Intuitive Thinking Judging and I believe that this is accurate for the most part. I'm also very excited that I was in the same category with Steve Jobs, another ENTJ, who I admire very much. I feel as though I am extroverted in the classroom because, as the text describes, I need to be reassured by other people that I am performing a task correctly. This is also true in everything that I do. Also, I'm always surrounded by friends in my day to day life because I like the feeling of social interaction (Vygotsky). However, when listening to the Italianpod101 it is hard to do so because it is online. My intuitive qualities are that I see the big picture more than small details and I am interested in doing different things, but there are moments when I think that hands on experience is better. This can be a hindrance in the classroom because I have trouble remember small details and facts. I prefer to look at the big picture. Thinking is next trait I possess. I find that I like to know the basic truth of a situation before diving in. However, I do believe that everyone will always make a personal decision on his or her feelings. I know that logic is important, but sometimes we have to follow our gut feeling. Another personality factor which has impeded my learning is motivation. For me, this is probably the most important aspect. I definitely have instrumental motivation right now, but it is becoming harder and harder to see why I am learning Italian. I think that the more time I spend with ItalianPod101 the less I enjoy it. I am not having any fun with it and for my personality type, it is extremely important that I can make meaningful connections (Ausubel). Overall, my personality has some positive and some negative effects on learning a second language.
When learning a language, I prefer reading compared with speaking or listening. However, I’m not reflective person, I can read fast but sometime I can’t remember the material. Therefore, sometimes I have to read and learn several times and review them often. That is my way to remember a language. And I believe the strategies I choose to learn a language are also based on my purpose and motivation of learning. For example, I learned English because I want to read more books, so I use more strategies about reading and understanding. Compared with that, I learned Japanese because I just want to greeting to Japanese and chat some daily topics, so I more focus on communication skills, listening and speaking.
What is more, I’m training myself to be both field independence and dependence. Actually, my type is field independence. I can easily remember some certain usages of language, but I am not good at summarize grammar rules. Hence I believe I need to learning with text-books when I learning a language, and on the other hand, I should try to be field dependence person.
Attitude is another key to learning a language. Be honest, when I was young I don’t like English, because some personal reason, I didn’t think I will go to the U.S. someday, so I wasn’t try to learning English very well. Compared with that, I chose some other languages by myself only because I liked them. I learned German, Italian and Swedish when I was in high school. Although that was just for fun, I was really enjoying them.
Like some of my other classmates, I decided to take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to help me answer this week’s question. I took the test via an online website http://www.humanmetrics.com and wasn’t very surprised by my results. Although, they do help me understand my language learning experience more effectively. My personality type revealed I am a moderately expressed introvert at 44%, a moderately expressed intuitive personality at 38%, a moderately expressed feeling personality at 50%, and a distinctively expressed judging personality at 67%.
My introverted personality makes me shy away from social strategies in my language learning. Thus, I feel very comfortable using an online system. However, I know that I learn very well by communicating my thoughts with others. Taking a speaking class to learn a second language would be very beneficial for me. Brown suggests that introverts completely reject social strategies. However, because I am moderately introverted I believe I am more open to such strategies because I know that I can gain more knowledge from them and I like to challenge myself (Brown 176).
My judging personality ranked highest on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. This means that I follow the following lifestyle: settled, decided, fixed, plan ahead, run one’s life, closure, decision-making, planned. This very much describes my lifestyle as I like to be overly prepared and always have at least 2 back up plans. This is great for creating a stable lifestyle, but when it comes to second language acquisition it may be a hindrance. For example, if I was taking a speaking class I would find myself constantly caught off guard. I cannot prepare myself for certain questions in advance in such social learning atmospheres. If I was taking an online course like Livemocha or was in a classroom that focused on Behavioristic techniques I would be more comfortable. This is because I probably would have memorized all of the necessary vocabulary and expressions in advance, as well as studied additional material for the next lesson. In this type of classroom, I would be a very good student because of my good memorization and planning skills.
I see some controversial in my character also influences my language learning.
As for me I would love to share my opinions with others and to communicate and interact with others when learning a language. However, anxiety also involves in my language learning. Every time I want to talk online with other Japanese speakers or learners, I feel nervous and afraid of making stupid mistakes. If I feel that the person I talked with cannot understand me or lose patients, I will feel even more nervous and cannot even think a word. Moreover, since my former language learning experience is not so successful (spending 12 years learning English only can have normal communication; spending 1year leaning Japanese, can hardly speak a full sentence), so my self-esteem is low. I always think that I do not have the language talent that I have to work harder than others to get the same level language efficiency. And I am a person who sees the whole picture instead of details. So I am good at learning some theories but fail to memorize vocabulary, phrases and some grammar details. Another personality factor that influences my foreign language learning is motivation. I believe the motivation influences me a lot in learning a language. I feel that if I am interested in the TV series, movies, or music of another language, I will be more motivated and would love to spend more time repeating the dialogues and sentences. So I am now listening some Japanese songs and trying to learn how to sing these songs to inspire my motivation of learning Japanese.
In my opinion, the following factors will impede my language learning. Firstly, I have a high self-esteem and I do not like to speak out in class, because I am afraid of losing face. Secondly, I am a learner of with low self-efficacy; I always attribute failure to external factors, such as the bad luck. Thirdly, the motivation for me to learn L2 is just to pass the examination in China, so it will not push me to learn spoken-English well. However, there are more personality factors enhance my language learning. First of all, I have a high willingness to communicate. When I am learning English, I always want to communicate with foreigners in English. I think I am an extraverted person; I need to express myself to others. What’s more, I have empathy, this helps me to easily understand others’ feeling and communicate with them. I think empathy is very important in L2 acquisition. Empathy can help you better understand people from different culture and make the conversation continuing. Finally, I have both instrumental and integrative orientations. Now I am living and studying in America. The USA is totally different from my own country. I need to use English to communicate with my classmates and teachers; I need to use English to integrate myself into the culture. This will push me to learn English well.
Because I believe that motivation is a strong factor in successful learning, I will start with that. My attitude toward learning Spanish is Integrative. I started to learn it in Peru in order to communicate with the people with whom I shared a community and when I fell in love with a Peruvian I became very motivated to learn the language. This has been a helpful factor in my learning success, but since I have returned to the United States and because my fiance speaks much better English than I do Spanish, I oftentimes feel that my motivational intensity is low. I want to learn Spanish and am excited when I learn new words, phrases or rules, but because I can communicate very well with everyone around me just fine in English, I get a little lazy when it comes to forcing myself to learn more Spanish. Even in Peru, though I learned how to communicate basic needs in Spanish, when it came to in depth conversations, I was limited to speaking to English speakers. I do see assimilative orientations at work within me as I want to feel a part of my fiance's family and culture. I am motivated to learn more Spanish to have more fulfilling conversations with his mother who speaks no English and to impress his friends who speak English, but I know would appreciate me speaking Spanish with them. I am intrinsically motivated for the above mentioned reasons. I feel that I have high feelings of competence and self determination, but when I first began learning Spanish I was very insecure about pronunciation. Learning on line helps me with this, because I can practice a lot alone before sharing myself with others. I agree with the flow theory in that the more practice I get, the more confidant I feel and the better I speak.
I am an INFJ. I lie along the border of the two extremes in myers briggs personality testing, but feel that this assessment that I took over a decade ago in college still holds true. My introversion is great for learning, but can sometimes make me a little anti social when focusing on something, which is not good for language learning. I need to hibernate a little when learning something before sharing it. I think that my intuition positively influences my language learning. I relay heavily on instincts, which is good. Sometimes they can lead me in the wrong direction though, the danger being that mistakes may raise my affective filter and impede learning because of being self conscious.
The only reward I seek in my learning Spanish is the conversations I can have with people the more I learn. I have a highly explorative character and I think this really helps me to learn new things, including language. I do think that my sometimes intense focus can be both positive and negative. I often times get wrapped up in what I am learning and forget all else. Because I am juggling so much right now, it is difficult to focus as I would like to on the many things on my plate. I often feel that because of this I am neglecting important aspects of my learning and experiencing. I think this will be resolved with balance.
There are a number of personality factors that both impede and enhance my language learning experience. From a young age, affective factors have always dominated my learning experiences. As a result of many childhood experiences I developed low global self-esteem and anxiety, which ended up affecting much of my learning experiences from middle school to high school. As mentioned by Brown, it is essential for learners to believe in themselves in order to succeed at a set of task. Brown is completely correct. I found in high school that I never thought I could do a task on my own and believed I was not good enough in every subject. This gravely affected my learning experience. Because my affective filter was incredibly high, I had a hard time participating in class and making the most of my classroom experience. As mentioned in my last blog post, to optimize learning, one must be willing to take more risks. Like Brown suggests (pg. 160) risk taking is an important characteristic of successful learning of a second language. Learners must take the risk of being wrong in order to get the most out of learning. The question is then, how do we as teachers raise global self-esteem and self-efficacy in students?
In terms of my current language learning experience (and graduate experience) I have relatively high self-esteem and self-efficacy. My self-esteem level has enhanced my classroom learning experience and language learning experience. In terms of my anxiety levels, they have decreased significantly over the past few years. Though still apparent every so often in the classroom, I find that this anxiety is not present in my current language learning experience. I believe this is due to livemocha.com being an online experience. I am an extremely motivated person, especially when it comes to academics. I want to do my best and will always do my best. I find however that this motivation is not apparent in my language learning experience. I believe I learn best in an interactive classroom environment as an interactive environment increases my motivation and pushes me to do my best (as long as it is in a non-threatening environment of course!). As mentioned in my last blog post that type interaction is not present on livemocha.com. As a result I find that I am not as motivated. So although my affective filter is relatively low, I don’t find that I am fully engaged during my language lessons ☹
I am a person who is a combination of introversion and extroversion, intuition and empathy. The extrovert side of me helps me to communicate with friends around me more frequently so that it will help me to gain oral proficiency. The introvert part makes me do not rely on so much other’s reflection. For this reason, I won’t be so frustrated if I made some mistakes and made someone laugh at me, and I know what I am going to do next. If I make some mistakes when I am learning Spanish, I won’t be so frustrated and I know that making mistakes is part of the process of success and continue on my own plan unless if there are valuable advices. I am good at interference and guessing from context and making association between similar words or grammar. This is the benefit of intuition. Sometimes I will make mistakes. I know what I wrote was wrong, but I did not know which one is right so I just wrote the sentence which seemed closest to the right. In addition, thanks for my interests in psychology that I found myself an empathy person who can understand others’ situation most of the time. As a result, I can easily accept new information and understand the other person’s affective and cognitive states, which help me a lot in second language acquisition, especially when I am learning English. Because communication with an person from another country needs not only understanding of the information, but also understanding the culture difference, so the empathy in my body helps me to across the culture barrier as well.
Greetings, Ni hao! Meyers Briggs calls me an ENTJ, but for many questions I could have answered either way. Makes me think they could re-evaluate the test and come up with some new categories. A lot of choices are made depending on the context, I may behave one way in one context, and another in a different context. Like Brian said, being in a category with the late Steve Jobs can feel pretty good, although I do think he was pretty extreme in lots of areas of his life. Of course we all want to associate our personality aspects with on the socially positive aspects that relate to him, such as driven and successful. Personality factors that help enhance my language learning are related to awareness, responding, valuing, self-efficacy, willingness to communicate, lack of inhibition. adaptive language ego, low anxiety, empathy, extroversion, motivation, and reward. I am aware of what it takes to study a language and what my learning strategies need to be to ensure success. I need to be responsive to the lessons and to type of instructions for better or worse, and improve where I can. I find learning in general highly valuable, and often can find areas of my life to make learning relevant. as for learning Chinese, I think it would be a valuable language to learn especially given the influx of Chinese students on my local schools. As for self-efficacy, I find it easy to push through learning challenges. I am a person who is always willing to communicate, seek understanding. I have a lack of inhibition, and an adaptive language ego. I understand that to a Chinese person, my Chinese will have a strong English accent. I have low anxiety while learning Chinese, because I know it is for personal pleasure and there is little demand how well I adapt to the new language I will continue to learn Chinese, after this class, as a hobby, therefore it is a pleasure. As for what can impede my learning at this point is the lack of situational practice with another learner of Chinese, which could enhance learning.
Motivation is a huge part of learning; in this case my motivation is purely extrinsic in that a grade is tied to my language learning. However, I am interested in continuing my language learning (Portuguese) after I conclude my masters being that I am passionate about languages and believe they are key to personal and professional success. With that being said, my motivation in a few months will be intrinsic as I will be internally rewarded by doing so allowing for long-term results and consistency in the process. Another thing I am excited to do is the Myers Briggs test which I am doing with my work colleagues in 2 weeks as part of training.
At the moment, specifically in this task of language learning I feel that like Ilana and Jae I am completely overwhelmed by my job and school causing an impediment on my learning Portuguese. Like them, I am very committed to all activities I engage in and at the moment because of this learning a new language has been impacted by this.
This is Ilana...
ReplyDeleteWhen I need to communicate basic needs or important information to parents at the afterschool program, I am not afraid to make mistakes in the language because the need overrides my own feelings of embarassment. I have the motivation to try my best to communicate. However, when I am with someone who speaks the target langauge and English, I do not even attempt to use the langauge. My motivation decreases because the person can translate for me and I overuse my monitor so when I do try to say a word or two, I notice every sylabul that is pronounced incorrectly.
I am a very driven person so when I commit to learning something, like a language, I give it a lot of effort and time. However, because I am currently so overwhelmed with my final semester in graduate school, my cognitive load is too high to take on the added task of a new language. Nothing feels like it's sticking from the langauge learning and I believe it is because even when I am doing my language lessons, I'm distracted by the many tasks I have to complete. I have so many reasons to want to learn Spanish; to communicate with my boyfriend's family, the parents at the after school program, and increase my job opportunities. Yet I am currently so overwhelmed I find it nearly impossible to commit to learning a language right now. This makes me think of my students that are in unstable family situations. They are probably just trying to get by and the idea of psuhing themselves to acquire English can sometimes feel like too much.
I am a very social person, so I think once my cognitive load has decreased I will be able to pick up Spanish by putting myself in situations where I have to interact with people in the target langauge. I could do this by attending meetings at Bayside Community Center or attending their bilingual classes.
Usually, when I commit myself to doing something, I put a lot of effort and time like Ilana. However, my current commitments to school and my two part time jobs are impeding on my ability to fully commit to learning Italian.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think motivation is a major factor impeding my ability to learn Italian. My only motivation to learn Italian is purely for personal reasons, so I am not 100% committed to learning the language. In addition, I don't live in a situation where I absolutely need to learn Italian in order to communicate and survive. Furthermore, I don't have friends who speak Italian fluently to practice with. As a result, I'm not learning the language. If I had more free time, I would commit myself to an Italian class and I would plan a trip to Italy so I could practice the language after learning enough of the language from Italian classes. My cognitive load and affective filter will be low after I finish grad school, so that might be the best time to pursue an extracurricular Italian class.
I was always the teenager who went straight for the personify quizzes in Teen Magazine and Cosmo so I was looking forward to answering this question as I read through Brown’s chapter 6 on personality factors. Although, I realize for the same reason Brown sites the probable inaccuracy of affective self-assessments (i.e. “self-flattery syndrome”) my own assessment of my personality factors may not be entirely accurate. That said, I’ll do my best to remain unbiased.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of global and situational self-esteem, I feel I would rank fairly highly (I was lucky to have nurturing parents who helped instill this in me early on). This of course, is shown to correlate with success in L2 learning, as it takes a certain amount of confidence to initiate and participate in the L2 learning process. However, I must admit that I am particularly fickle in terms of my task self-esteem. There are tasks I would avoid almost entirely (such as competitive sports) due to low task self-esteem in those areas. In terms of task self-esteem and language learning, I am easily demotivated by a task that I don’t deem valuable or achievable. This factor of my personality could likely impede language learning if my preferred style of learning happens to clash with a particular activity. Specifically with livemocha.com I find I am more demotivated because my assessment of their approach to language learning is not favorable.
This issue also closely relates to Weiner’s attribution theory. I bring high self-efficacy to those tasks I deem to be worthy but am likely to have unfortunately low self-efficacy in regards to tasks I don’t feel are reasonable or well-explained by the facilitator. I’ll admit this might translate into me being a somewhat “high maintenance” student for some teachers because I will withdraw if I feel that these needs are not being met!
This attitude in turn affects my willingness to communicate (WTC) as well. I find that likely due to high global self-esteem and a general predisposition to high self-efficacy, I am often an enthusiastic communicator. In a language class this is really beneficial because, given the opportunity I will maximize my speaking opportunities. However as MacIntyre (1998) proposed, there are cognitive and affective factors which underlie WTC motivation such as motivation. As previously admitted, I may experience low motivation for tasks I don’t find achievable which would then, in turn lower my WTC.
The final area I would like to touch on is motivation. This has been deemed to be one of the most influential factors in L2 success. Before discussing whether my motivation is intrinsic or extrinsic, Garner and Wallace (1972) would claim it imperative to state my orientation to language learning. My L2 learning orientations have always been Instrumental. I studied Spanish in high school as a requirement (though I thoroughly enjoyed it), I studied Japanese and Korean while working with guests of these populations at a resort in Guam in order to further my career, and currently I am studying Portuguese as part of the EDUC 541 course requirement (although again, I am personally enjoying it as well). The only “language” I have had an integrative orientation towards is Australian English! I say this because American and Australian English vary hugely and I really had to adapt in order to assimilate into Australian culture when living there for over 3 years. In terms of how my orientation has affected my L2 learning, I think I would have been more motivated had I had more integrative orientations but I don’t think my lack of integrated orientations has impeded my learning. If for example I was studying Portuguese while living in Brazil or with the intention of going to Brazil, I think I would be more motivated and possibly retaining better.
Finally, in terms of my motivation style in general, I believe that I am highly intrinsically motivated. I always say that the only person I want to compete against is myself. So mostly I am motivated by competence and self-determination.
I think that my personality factors both greatly impede and enhance my language learning. I tend to have low global self esteem but mostly middle to high self esteem in certain situations and tasks. For example in language learning my situational and task self esteem is middle to high because of the belief that I have that as a bilingual I could learn languages easier than those who just speak one language.
ReplyDeleteMy willingness communicate has always been quite low, which means I won’t volunteer answers or get to practice my oral output with a large group of people. I will though be willing to communicate with a partner or in a small group. If forced to I will communicate in any setting, but never by choice in large setting. I have high inhibitions, not specifically about language, but it does affect my language learning and use. For example, I was in France 8 days and only spoke two sentences of French the whole time…I took French for nearly 7 years. My inhibitions were too high to practice what I had learned and loved for so many years. Although I do consider myself a risk taker, I don’t think I have ever taken a risk with language, although I know I will have to take a risk and speak to native speakers, it’s a risk that I will put off as much as possible. My anxiety with language is much too high when I believe I will be judged (for example when speaking to native speakers). When I am in informal settings with others at my same language level I am usually quite confident and feel that I could speak more and a lot better.
I believe that my personality facilitates comprehension in language learning but not necessarily performance and production. I believe that in order to facilitate my performance and production of language I would have to be in a Humanistic Psychology classroom where the student is empowered and the teacher facilitates and not judges. I also think that by the fact that I realize that some of my personality traits affect my language learning I can take a proactive role in working on weaknesses like willingness to communicate and speaking anxieties and thus strengthen my overall language learning.
According to the Meyer’s Briggs test, I am an INFP (introverted, intuitive, feeling, perceiving). I fit the description of the profile in that I am an idealist and tune into feelings, both my own and those of others. According to research cited by H. Douglas Brown, these characteristics affect my language learning in various ways.
ReplyDeleteBecause I am a moderately expressed introvert, I can see some characteristics of both extroversion and introversion in my language learning. I am willing to take risks in conversations in the target language in certain circumstances, such as a social situation where I have an acquaintance with my conversation partner. However, I am very reluctant to engage in conversation on Live Mocha with total strangers. Like an introvert, I do have a certain amount of self-sufficiency. Aside from the extrinsic motivation of the requirement to take the Live Mocha, I am self-motivated in that I continue with the lessons beyond what is required. In the past, I worked on improving languages on my own with the help of books and tapes just because I wanted to. The tendency toward introversion can be a limiting factor in that I can feel shy at times and can feel reluctant to spontaneously express myself in the target language. I can see where this could be true in Portuguese or in other languages that I do not know as well, such as Italian or Spanish. Since I am a strong speaker of French, I am not apt to feel as much of a sense of shyness.
I am also a “moderately expressed” intuitive. Brown describes the language learning assets for this type as being able to infer and use context. These traits are part of my language learning tool kit. The Live Mocha exercises do not explicitly lay out the rules for grammar. This has worked well for me; I have benefitted from figuring these out from context. If presented with a list of grammatical rules at this point, I would understand and retain them better than if I had seen them at the outset. On the downside, this trait can cause me to be a bit sloppy about the rules at times. Also, I can tend to rebel against “learning the rules” even though at times this can be helpful.
Elizabeth - continued
ReplyDeleteBrown describes language learners with a “feeling” preference as having “integrative motivation, bonding with teachers, [and] good relations lead[ing] to self-esteem” (page 178). I have a “strongly expressed” feeling preference. In this domain, the Live Mocha learning experience might not be a good fit for me. I feel that I am integratively motivated. I love learning about other cultures and interacting with people from those cultures. I do not get that type of experience from Live Mocha. I do not always feel connected to the experience. Also, as a feeling person, part of my self-esteem is rooted in relationships with others, I am not getting the support and feedback that I would have in a class with other individuals. I definitely feel discouraged if I don’t feel that I am getting supportive feedback. Even when the learning setting is one that involves live interaction with others, being a “feeling” personality can make me oversensitive to perceived judgment or criticism, thus raising my affective filter.
As a “perceiving” person, I am flexible and open to new experiences, in other words, I have a high tolerance for ambiguity. I do embrace new experiences and like to try out different approaches, both in my teaching and in my own learning. This has a positive effect on learning languages because I am open to the experience. On the other hand, Brown points out that perceiving personalities can be lazy or show “inconsistent pacing over the long haul” (page 178). I don’t know that I am lazy, but I can lose motivation over the long run after the initial excitement has worn off.
According to the Myers-Briggs character test, I am an ENFJ type. The Extroversion disposition enables me to be willing to take conversational risks and interact with the exterior environment. However, too much dependence on outside stimulation and interaction could be an inhibition. For example, I am not very much motivated to learn a language completely by myself online, without any direct interaction with people. Next, I am good at guessing from context and getting the big idea, but sometime this may lead to insufficient attention to details. The disposition of Feeling indicates that I may depend on building relationships with and getting supports from people around me to promote learning. Additionally, the tendency to judge enables me to work systematically and get everything done in time. However, this disposition may also make me to be too rigid on my work and too hard on myself. I am trying to be more flexible now.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of affective factors in SLA that I would say enhance my learning of these new languages, Portuguese and Italian. I started with Italian and couldn't finish due to livemocha issues, then picked up Portuguese, now back to Italian. Anyways, one such factor is that of risk taking. This is an important characteristic of successful learning of a second langauge. I have learned to do this by having to assimilate to a variety of cultures in my life. Without taking risks, it hinders any progression or success. Especially when you rely on the language to communicate, as I did. Learning Italian has also been motivating for me. This ties in with a strong willingness to communicate. My purpose in studying Italian is to be able to communicate to some extent while I'm there for a month this summer. I can't bear the thought of being somewhere and not at least attempting the language or immersing oneself fully in the culture. Therefore, my motivations for learning this langauge are high. This type of motivation would fall under cognitive as this is driven by basic human needs. I would also consider myself to be intrinsicly motivated. I'm motivated by the act of learning the language itself, not for seeking a reward or positive feedback. Although, the motivation is on a need basis in order to communicate, its triggered on bringing about a feeling of competence.
ReplyDeleteLike Qi, I am identified by they Myer's Brigg's Test as an ENFJ - which was somewhat surprising to me, yet I believe does reflect my learning preferences and experiences. I did find it interesting that this personality type is the type of Teachers! As a slightly expressed extrovert, social interactions are important to me, yet not crucial for my learning. For example, I sometimes prefer individual projects as opposed to group projects. In my current language learning, I obviously felt comfortable with my own internal language growth enough to purchase a CD program, yet as I am doing the program I do find myself longing to talk with someone else in the language and "try it out". As an intuitive person, my learning style aligns with what Brown terms as major assets of this perference: "Inferencing and gussing from context, structuring own training, conceptualizing, and model building." In this sense, I do always try to look at the bigger picture and use the details that I learn to create a broader, more conceptualized understanding. The feeling part of my personality is where I seem to be struggling the most in my language learning. Typically, I am very motivated and this is typically a result of the good feelings I have when I learn. I love learning new things and consider myself to be a lifelong learner. But, as Brown states, a liability associated with Feeling is "disrupted by a lack of interpersonal harmony" With this current program my learning is impededed because I don't feel this harmony between my own motivation and my self-confidence in learning Italian. The personality factor that came as no surprise to me is the Judging part. In my personal life, I always like to have a distinct plan. I don't deal particularly well with change. Where this is a positive for my learning is that I do well with strategies such as projects with a clear timeline, and establishing and following goals. Where this may impede my learning is in the sense that I may become intolerant of ambiguous stimuli thus making me close-minded in my learning. Overall, I think understanding our students' personality factors can help us as teachers create opportunities for them to be successful. If we create a community in which all types of learners can highlight their strengths in a unique way, each learner can grow towards their language learning potential.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think the “effective domain” influences my language learning experience. As far as self-esteem, I have a high self-esteem at times and a low self-esteem in other situations. I definitely see myself assessing the situation I am in to see how comfortable I feel sharing and discussing information. In this case, I have a higher self esteem, partly because I know that nobody I know is listening or watching me. If I was in a classroom setting I know that I would have a lower self esteem. I sometimes get intimidated. I think that the attribution theory ties in very well with my language learning experience. I do have the ability to learn another language. I put in the effort, sometimes less than others, knowing that I do not need to learn the language, but that I am learning it for a more pleasurable reason. I know it is going to be difficult and I won’t be fluent in the language after this course so I perceive it will be a difficult task, so I am not too hard on myself. But on the other hand, is that the reason my effort may be lower at times? Luck has a lot to do with everything. Some individuals are born with the ability to take on tasks and accomplish them well and to the fullest very easily. I am willing to communicate with the computer, but going along with my self esteem, I would see myself hesitant to communicate in front of other individuals or to people I knew. My own inhibition makes me feel unsure at times. I am good at memorizing words and phrases, but I see myself feeling more self-conscious when speaking. If I was pressured to know this language fluently or that I would be graded on how well I knew the language I would definitely feel anxious. In this experience I don’t feel anxious. I am also more of an extroverted person, so I think that would help develop my language because I would be more willing and looking for more social interactions to learn and use the language.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, personality factors refer to (affective) intrinsic aspects. In other words, the affective or intrinsic (emotions) components contribute in some way to the success of foreign language learning. Based on my own experience, one of the major characteristics of successful learning of a second language is risk taking. I am a risk taker. I am totally aware of the significance of gambling to improve linguistic skills. In other words, unwilling to take risks will probably lead to errors and less progress.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to the risk taking factor, self-efficacy, feeling of being able to carry out a task, plays an important role in achieving success as well. In one hand, it is obvious that a high sense of self-efficacy in support of efforts will result in acquiring a second language successfully. On the other hand, a learner with low self-efficacy may attribute failure to an external factor such as luck or may lead to self-fulfillment sense, internalization of negative feeling, of failure.
Moreover, willing to communicate is one of the powerful factors that helped me to enhance my language skills. Based on my experience learning Spanish, I have noticed that risk taking, self-confidence, self-esteem and self-efficacy are closely related to one another and to willing to communicate (WTC). In summary, as described in Brown’s book, the affective domain is the emotional side of human behavior; therefore, human beings most probably experience mixed emotion at one. This nature makes it difficult to give a clear explanation without taking into consideration the interrelated components of the affective domain.
Most importantly, integration of self-esteem, overall self-evaluation of worthiness, which is expressed in the attitude toward self, and self-efficacy, is better definition of the aspect of inhibition. In its simplistic meaning, inhibition is the feeling of worry or embarrassment that prevents us from doing or says what we want. However, I am working on strengthen my ego (one’s opinion about self) and higher my self-esteem so that I can acquire a higher level of second language. The techniques of becoming aware would be used to reach this goal.
Finally, also, I am enhancing my language learning experience by identifying my personality elements to my preferred learning strategies. Obviously, Extraversion (E) is just one of my personality characteristics that help me to improve English oral communication and to enhance Spanish oral skills.
I decided to take the Myers-Brigg test online to get an idea of my personality type. I was not very surprised when the results showed that I am Extraverted Sensing Feeling Judging. I believe that my extraverted nature enhances my learning insomuch as I am very open to sharing my opinions and like to be involved in class discussions. Also, my feeling nature is beneficial in my role as educator because I think that teachers need to be nurturing and caring for their students. With regard to my experience on ItalianPod101.com, I think that my "sensing" qualities are beneficial to me. I notice facts, remember details, and try to find the practical use for everything that I am learning.
ReplyDeleteBecause I have had such trouble learning languages in the past, my self-esteem was very low coming into this assignment. However, as I feel my self-efficacy increase, my self-esteem is increasing as well. I also think that my normally anxious personality is set at ease because I am learning Italian in the comfort of my home, so my affective filter is low (Krashen).
Finally, my motivation for this assignment is instrumental, as I am not trying to learn Italian to join a community, rather as part of this class. I am intrinsically motivated to succeed, however, because I would like to learn enough that I can apply my knowledge when I go to Italy.
After taking the Myers-Brigg test, I discovered that my personality traits are Extraverted Intuitive Thinking Judging and I believe that this is accurate for the most part. I'm also very excited that I was in the same category with Steve Jobs, another ENTJ, who I admire very much. I feel as though I am extroverted in the classroom because, as the text describes, I need to be reassured by other people that I am performing a task correctly. This is also true in everything that I do. Also, I'm always surrounded by friends in my day to day life because I like the feeling of social interaction (Vygotsky). However, when listening to the Italianpod101 it is hard to do so because it is online.
ReplyDeleteMy intuitive qualities are that I see the big picture more than small details and I am interested in doing different things, but there are moments when I think that hands on experience is better. This can be a hindrance in the classroom because I have trouble remember small details and facts. I prefer to look at the big picture.
Thinking is next trait I possess. I find that I like to know the basic truth of a situation before diving in. However, I do believe that everyone will always make a personal decision on his or her feelings. I know that logic is important, but sometimes we have to follow our gut feeling.
Another personality factor which has impeded my learning is motivation. For me, this is probably the most important aspect. I definitely have instrumental motivation right now, but it is becoming harder and harder to see why I am learning Italian. I think that the more time I spend with ItalianPod101 the less I enjoy it. I am not having any fun with it and for my personality type, it is extremely important that I can make meaningful connections (Ausubel). Overall, my personality has some positive and some negative effects on learning a second language.
When learning a language, I prefer reading compared with speaking or listening. However, I’m not reflective person, I can read fast but sometime I can’t remember the material. Therefore, sometimes I have to read and learn several times and review them often. That is my way to remember a language. And I believe the strategies I choose to learn a language are also based on my purpose and motivation of learning. For example, I learned English because I want to read more books, so I use more strategies about reading and understanding. Compared with that, I learned Japanese because I just want to greeting to Japanese and chat some daily topics, so I more focus on communication skills, listening and speaking.
ReplyDeleteWhat is more, I’m training myself to be both field independence and dependence. Actually, my type is field independence. I can easily remember some certain usages of language, but I am not good at summarize grammar rules. Hence I believe I need to learning with text-books when I learning a language, and on the other hand, I should try to be field dependence person.
Attitude is another key to learning a language. Be honest, when I was young I don’t like English, because some personal reason, I didn’t think I will go to the U.S. someday, so I wasn’t try to learning English very well. Compared with that, I chose some other languages by myself only because I liked them. I learned German, Italian and Swedish when I was in high school. Although that was just for fun, I was really enjoying them.
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ReplyDeleteLike some of my other classmates, I decided to take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to help me answer this week’s question. I took the test via an online website http://www.humanmetrics.com and wasn’t very surprised by my results. Although, they do help me understand my language learning experience more effectively. My personality type revealed I am a moderately expressed introvert at 44%, a moderately expressed intuitive personality at 38%, a moderately expressed feeling personality at 50%, and a distinctively expressed judging personality at 67%.
ReplyDeleteMy introverted personality makes me shy away from social strategies in my language learning. Thus, I feel very comfortable using an online system. However, I know that I learn very well by communicating my thoughts with others. Taking a speaking class to learn a second language would be very beneficial for me. Brown suggests that introverts completely reject social strategies. However, because I am moderately introverted I believe I am more open to such strategies because I know that I can gain more knowledge from them and I like to challenge myself (Brown 176).
My judging personality ranked highest on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. This means that I follow the following lifestyle: settled, decided, fixed, plan ahead, run one’s life, closure, decision-making, planned. This very much describes my lifestyle as I like to be overly prepared and always have at least 2 back up plans. This is great for creating a stable lifestyle, but when it comes to second language acquisition it may be a hindrance. For example, if I was taking a speaking class I would find myself constantly caught off guard. I cannot prepare myself for certain questions in advance in such social learning atmospheres. If I was taking an online course like Livemocha or was in a classroom that focused on Behavioristic techniques I would be more comfortable. This is because I probably would have memorized all of the necessary vocabulary and expressions in advance, as well as studied additional material for the next lesson. In this type of classroom, I would be a very good student because of my good memorization and planning skills.
I see some controversial in my character also influences my language learning.
ReplyDeleteAs for me I would love to share my opinions with others and to communicate and interact with others when learning a language. However, anxiety also involves in my language learning. Every time I want to talk online with other Japanese speakers or learners, I feel nervous and afraid of making stupid mistakes. If I feel that the person I talked with cannot understand me or lose patients, I will feel even more nervous and cannot even think a word. Moreover, since my former language learning experience is not so successful (spending 12 years learning English only can have normal communication; spending 1year leaning Japanese, can hardly speak a full sentence), so my self-esteem is low. I always think that I do not have the language talent that I have to work harder than others to get the same level language efficiency. And I am a person who sees the whole picture instead of details. So I am good at learning some theories but fail to memorize vocabulary, phrases and some grammar details. Another personality factor that influences my foreign language learning is motivation. I believe the motivation influences me a lot in learning a language. I feel that if I am interested in the TV series, movies, or music of another language, I will be more motivated and would love to spend more time repeating the dialogues and sentences. So I am now listening some Japanese songs and trying to learn how to sing these songs to inspire my motivation of learning Japanese.
In my opinion, the following factors will impede my language learning. Firstly, I have a high self-esteem and I do not like to speak out in class, because I am afraid of losing face. Secondly, I am a learner of with low self-efficacy; I always attribute failure to external factors, such as the bad luck. Thirdly, the motivation for me to learn L2 is just to pass the examination in China, so it will not push me to learn spoken-English well. However, there are more personality factors enhance my language learning. First of all, I have a high willingness to communicate. When I am learning English, I always want to communicate with foreigners in English. I think I am an extraverted person; I need to express myself to others. What’s more, I have empathy, this helps me to easily understand others’ feeling and communicate with them. I think empathy is very important in L2 acquisition. Empathy can help you better understand people from different culture and make the conversation continuing. Finally, I have both instrumental and integrative orientations. Now I am living and studying in America. The USA is totally different from my own country. I need to use English to communicate with my classmates and teachers; I need to use English to integrate myself into the culture. This will push me to learn English well.
ReplyDeleteBecause I believe that motivation is a strong factor in successful learning, I will start with that. My attitude toward learning Spanish is Integrative. I started to learn it in Peru in order to communicate with the people with whom I shared a community and when I fell in love with a Peruvian I became very motivated to learn the language. This has been a helpful factor in my learning success, but since I have returned to the United States and because my fiance speaks much better English than I do Spanish, I oftentimes feel that my motivational intensity is low. I want to learn Spanish and am excited when I learn new words, phrases or rules, but because I can communicate very well with everyone around me just fine in English, I get a little lazy when it comes to forcing myself to learn more Spanish. Even in Peru, though I learned how to communicate basic needs in Spanish, when it came to in depth conversations, I was limited to speaking to English speakers. I do see assimilative orientations at work within me as I want to feel a part of my fiance's family and culture. I am motivated to learn more Spanish to have more fulfilling conversations with his mother who speaks no English and to impress his friends who speak English, but I know would appreciate me speaking Spanish with them. I am intrinsically motivated for the above mentioned reasons. I feel that I have high feelings of competence and self determination, but when I first began learning Spanish I was very insecure about pronunciation. Learning on line helps me with this, because I can practice a lot alone before sharing myself with others. I agree with the flow theory in that the more practice I get, the more confidant I feel and the better I speak.
ReplyDeleteI am an INFJ. I lie along the border of the two extremes in myers briggs personality testing, but feel that this assessment that I took over a decade ago in college still holds true. My introversion is great for learning, but can sometimes make me a little anti social when focusing on something, which is not good for language learning. I need to hibernate a little when learning something before sharing it. I think that my intuition positively influences my language learning. I relay heavily on instincts, which is good. Sometimes they can lead me in the wrong direction though, the danger being that mistakes may raise my affective filter and impede learning because of being self conscious.
The only reward I seek in my learning Spanish is the conversations I can have with people the more I learn. I have a highly explorative character and I think this really helps me to learn new things, including language. I do think that my sometimes intense focus can be both positive and negative. I often times get wrapped up in what I am learning and forget all else. Because I am juggling so much right now, it is difficult to focus as I would like to on the many things on my plate. I often feel that because of this I am neglecting important aspects of my learning and experiencing. I think this will be resolved with balance.
There are a number of personality factors that both impede and enhance my language learning experience. From a young age, affective factors have always dominated my learning experiences. As a result of many childhood experiences I developed low global self-esteem and anxiety, which ended up affecting much of my learning experiences from middle school to high school. As mentioned by Brown, it is essential for learners to believe in themselves in order to succeed at a set of task. Brown is completely correct. I found in high school that I never thought I could do a task on my own and believed I was not good enough in every subject. This gravely affected my learning experience. Because my affective filter was incredibly high, I had a hard time participating in class and making the most of my classroom experience. As mentioned in my last blog post, to optimize learning, one must be willing to take more risks. Like Brown suggests (pg. 160) risk taking is an important characteristic of successful learning of a second language. Learners must take the risk of being wrong in order to get the most out of learning. The question is then, how do we as teachers raise global self-esteem and self-efficacy in students?
ReplyDeleteIn terms of my current language learning experience (and graduate experience) I have relatively high self-esteem and self-efficacy. My self-esteem level has enhanced my classroom learning experience and language learning experience. In terms of my anxiety levels, they have decreased significantly over the past few years. Though still apparent every so often in the classroom, I find that this anxiety is not present in my current language learning experience. I believe this is due to livemocha.com being an online experience. I am an extremely motivated person, especially when it comes to academics. I want to do my best and will always do my best. I find however that this motivation is not apparent in my language learning experience. I believe I learn best in an interactive classroom environment as an interactive environment increases my motivation and pushes me to do my best (as long as it is in a non-threatening environment of course!). As mentioned in my last blog post that type interaction is not present on livemocha.com. As a result I find that I am not as motivated. So although my affective filter is relatively low, I don’t find that I am fully engaged during my language lessons ☹
I am a person who is a combination of introversion and extroversion, intuition and empathy. The extrovert side of me helps me to communicate with friends around me more frequently so that it will help me to gain oral proficiency. The introvert part makes me do not rely on so much other’s reflection. For this reason, I won’t be so frustrated if I made some mistakes and made someone laugh at me, and I know what I am going to do next. If I make some mistakes when I am learning Spanish, I won’t be so frustrated and I know that making mistakes is part of the process of success and continue on my own plan unless if there are valuable advices. I am good at interference and guessing from context and making association between similar words or grammar. This is the benefit of intuition. Sometimes I will make mistakes. I know what I wrote was wrong, but I did not know which one is right so I just wrote the sentence which seemed closest to the right. In addition, thanks for my interests in psychology that I found myself an empathy person who can understand others’ situation most of the time. As a result, I can easily accept new information and understand the other person’s affective and cognitive states, which help me a lot in second language acquisition, especially when I am learning English. Because communication with an person from another country needs not only understanding of the information, but also understanding the culture difference, so the empathy in my body helps me to across the culture barrier as well.
ReplyDeleteGreetings, Ni hao!
ReplyDeleteMeyers Briggs calls me an ENTJ, but for many questions I could have answered either way. Makes me think they could re-evaluate the test and come up with some new categories. A lot of choices are made depending on the context, I may behave one way in one context, and another in a different context. Like Brian said, being in a category with the late Steve Jobs can feel pretty good, although I do think he was pretty extreme in lots of areas of his life. Of course we all want to associate our personality aspects with on the socially positive aspects that relate to him, such as driven and successful. Personality factors that help enhance my language learning are related to awareness, responding, valuing, self-efficacy, willingness to communicate, lack of inhibition. adaptive language ego, low anxiety, empathy, extroversion, motivation, and reward. I am aware of what it takes to study a language and what my learning strategies need to be to ensure success. I need to be responsive to the lessons and to type of instructions for better or worse, and improve where I can. I find learning in general highly valuable, and often can find areas of my life to make learning relevant. as for learning Chinese, I think it would be a valuable language to learn especially given the influx of Chinese students on my local schools. As for self-efficacy, I find it easy to push through learning challenges. I am a person who is always willing to communicate, seek understanding. I have a lack of inhibition, and an adaptive language ego. I understand that to a Chinese person, my Chinese will have a strong English accent. I have low anxiety while learning Chinese, because I know it is for personal pleasure and there is little demand how well I adapt to the new language I will continue to learn Chinese, after this class, as a hobby, therefore it is a pleasure.
As for what can impede my learning at this point is the lack of situational practice with another learner of Chinese, which could enhance learning.
Motivation is a huge part of learning; in this case my motivation is purely extrinsic in that a grade is tied to my language learning. However, I am interested in continuing my language learning (Portuguese) after I conclude my masters being that I am passionate about languages and believe they are key to personal and professional success. With that being said, my motivation in a few months will be intrinsic as I will be internally rewarded by doing so allowing for long-term results and consistency in the process. Another thing I am excited to do is the Myers Briggs test which I am doing with my work colleagues in 2 weeks as part of training.
ReplyDeleteAt the moment, specifically in this task of language learning I feel that like Ilana and Jae I am completely overwhelmed by my job and school causing an impediment on my learning Portuguese. Like them, I am very committed to all activities I engage in and at the moment because of this learning a new language has been impacted by this.