Differences in learners

Differences in learners age, sex, motivation, aptitude

1. Differences in learners by Liseth Chica

2. AGE People think that younger learners can learn more faster tan adults in L2, that is totally FALSE, in the following table you will see advantages and disadvantages for child and adults. Child Adults Strong accent X - Plasticity X but is not enough to acquire the L2 - Learning capacity - X it is important for acquiring the L2 Ability to understand grammatical rules - X Knowledge of L1 that allow complexity in tasks - X Inhibit, native. Like grammatical intuitions X -

3. SEX It is totally false that women are better than men at learning the L2, both have different forms of acquisition. In the following table the symbols mean that either women or men are better in different forms of acquisition. Women Men Test of verbal fluency ♀ -- Speech -- ♂ Memorizing ♀ --- Computing compositional rules --- ♂

4. APTITUDE The talent is the main constitute of making aptitude tests. Aptitude tests Phonemic coding ability Ability to learn and restore different phonemes and morphemes. It begins in the early age. Inductive language learning ability It is linked with central processing as Grammatical sensitivity. Grammatical sensitivity Ability to recognize functions and rules of grammatical. Associative memory capacity It all about how memory restore linguistic forms.

5. MOTIVATION It is the impulse that people have of learning a specific thing in this case the L2., it has components, (goal, desire, perception, belief, value). There are two types of motivation: integrative( it is emotional) instrumental (it is for practical uses) but this motivations didn`t have advantages in L2 achievement. As conclusion the motivation is an important factor for people who want to learn L2 faster than others .

6. COGNITIVE STYLE It is about process and Interaction with personality and learning strategies. There are the cognitive styles that include the Field dependent (global, holistic, deductive) and the field independent (particular, analytic, inductive). The age is a difference of cognitive style because Option 1 extending categories or Option 2 creatio n of categories. The sensory preference (visual, kinesthetic) is more an age-related. There are many criticism about the cognitive style in the fields dependent, independent. One of them the lack of consideration of different cultural background.

7. PERSONALITY It is added to the cognitive style Imaginative, empathetic, tolerant, self confident, risk taking, adventuresome all of them indicate a relation of getting better in the L2. Personality Anxiety Anxiety is an important factor in SLA and goes with lower levels of success, it has to deal with the self confidence. Introverts Better in school Extroverts Talk more

8. LEARNING STRATEGIES The age , sex, aptitude are very important at the moment of selecting a strategy, as the same the motivation, cognitive style and personality are learner influential factors. Self- reporting is based in collecting information on what kind of strategies the learners select Good learners are self confident Not all the strategies are the same, some work better than others but the ones that are the best of teaching a language are : Metacognitive Regulate the language by planning and monitoring Cognitive Synthesis of linguistic material. Social/affective Interaction Factors that influence learning strategies Age Young (repetition) Adults(synthesis) Sex Females use social/affective strategies than man