Good Language Learners

[us4-he2-gal2]

- Good Language Learners -

Taking Hebrew this semester has made me realize how challenging it can be to learn a language. German had it's tricky point but that language I had been studying privately for a long time before classes started - taking Hebrew and being faced with a whole new language and writing system and big tests sooner then you'd ever expect I've found a new definition of challenge. So to help get ahead I have also begun some back reading on the ways people learn languages and in this way will learn to be not only study by my own constant instructor, something very prudent at the juncture.

One book I have borrowed is entitled "Lessons from Good Language Learners". This book features 23 contributions from language development scholars (yes there are apparently some people who spend some of their career only concerned with how language is developed and how it is acquired - some may even specialize in things such as motivation for language acquisition). While this book is aimed at language development scholars and at teachers, the information within seems as though it may be useful to language learners as well - it studies the top 5% of language learners and what their focuses are, surely this may be something others can learn from or adapt to..?


I will sample only a few with the most useful sounding titles below. I hope to find something of the attitudes, strategies, and daily habits of the top 5% of language learners in the world - the elite learners who I'm sure share much in common with those who progress to learn such languages as Akkadian and Sumerian. I hope others on the forum who have aspirations toward language learning may use this post.

Contribution 1:
- Personality and good language learners -

This study was conducted by Madeline Ehrman who attempts to discuss the personality type of what is called "level four" language learners - these are the best of good language learners, level four achievement she says is "very rare" and "is almost never done in the classroom alone, though in the case of gifted learners, it may require only a short exposure to a foreign environment together with very advanced classroom work....but of course very few, even of those who spend a long time in a country, reach Level four." Basically this sort of speaker can flawless speak the learned language using the expressions and subtle inflections of a native speaker.

Ehrman uses sample data from language learners who have gone through the FSI (Foreign Services Institute), which is the training arm of the US Department of State. It trains persons of varying ages to as US diplomats basically, so a variety of languages are taught. At the FSI learners undergo a personality test which is based on a test model originally used by Carl Jung - there are four contrasting personality categories:

• Extroversion - Introversion: Focus on the outer or inner world.
  
  
• Sensing - Intuition: Reliance on five senses for confirmation or inner judgment for confirmation.
  
  
• Thinking - Feeling: Logical decision making of deference to personal or social values.
  
  
• Judging - Perceiving: Wanting to come to closure quickly or keeping option open until all information is collected
  

By using these criteria, a person on filling out the test will be called a four letter abbreviation - he is a ISTJ (introvert-sensing-thinking-judging sort) or he is a ENTJ (extrovert-intuition-thinking-judging). Ehrman examined data from the FSI consisting of 3,145 language learners who filled out the personality test - among those, only 2% were level 4 language learners. We want to know: what sort of personality do these 2% have?


Findings/

The author's major finding is that among those 2% of level 4 learners, some 16.5% were INTJ (that is Introvert-intuition-thinking-judging). The other 15 personality combinations (ISFP, ISFJ, ESFJ etc. etc.) were more or level even spread will no significant numerical advantage. This may go some way in indicating that personality type as per Jungian model is itself not important factor in good language learning.
However, Ehrman is able to draw some broad conclusions - E(extroversion) N(intuition) T(thinking) J(judging) was the most common in the non-level 4 achieving sample while I(introversion) N(intuition) T(thinking) J(judging) was most common in level 4 achievers.

Introversion: Ehrman emphasizes the significance this may have for scholarly emphasis on the importance of extroversion versus introversion for language learning - evidently a long list of scholars over the decades have consider extroversion more favorable to language learning while some (including the author) find it the other way around. She says now "Must of the literature to date has indicated extroverts are better language learners..in the case of this study, introversion in combination with intuition is quite significantly over-represented. It appears that the combination of introversion, intuition, and thinking provides something of value. Perhaps introversion brings a sensitivity to archetypal, universal patterns. This is one of the theoretical characteristics of introverted functions: rather than being influenced primarily by outer-world data, they are shaped more by more general and internally accessed archetypes. (Jung, 1974)... It would not be surprising then, that those with both introversion and intuition would be in tune with the universal substratum of language."

[xuchilpaba]

Language can be fun. But you *have to* know the culture too. That part they neglect to tell you, since a lot of the language can be cultural specific.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Contribution 2:
- Motivation and Good Language Learners -

The study of Motivation in language learning in this volume was contributed by Ema Ushioda and she begins by describing the state of research into motivational learning. Apparently, research into motivation was led by Canadian social psychologists in 1972 (Gardner and Lambert), who argued that motivation for language learning is different than other sort of motivation since good language learners must be willing to identify with another ethnolinguistic group - and further to "take on very subtle aspects of their behavior, including their distinctive style of speech.."

According to Ushioda, Gardner and Lambert established the essential of motivational language learning theory, and that emphasizes the attitude of the learner to the target language and culture - those who are interrogative toward the language (having a strong personal interest) will be more motivated (successful) than those who are instrumental toward it. The Gardner/Lambert study has been criticized for overlooking to some extent class room situations (where some may excel with very little interrogative motivation.)



Intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation/



The author discusses different type of motivation and which are most productive: Intrinsic motivation is doing something as an end in itself, for it own self-sustaining pleasure and rewards - extrinsic motivation is that based on getting a job, pleasing a teaching, avoiding punishment etc. Ushioda states that there is "a considerable body of research evidence to suggest that intrinsic motivation not only promotes spontaneous learning behaviors and has a powerful self-sustaining dynamic but also leads to a qualitatively different and more effective kind of learning than extrinsic forms of motivation." Which intrinsic motivation would seem preferable, extrinsic motivation as in some classroom situations may also be effective in some individuals.


A more recent interpretation by Van Lier (1996) states that "motivational factors intrinsic to the learning process (enjoyment, sense of challenge, skill development) and those extrinsic to the learning process (personal goals and aspirations) are best viewed as working in concert with one another in the good language learner."



Motivational Self-Regulation/


An essential problem exists in motivational self-regulation: Ushioda explains that the long path toward linguistic success is "never easy" and "motivation will always suffer unless ways are found to regulate it." She states the essential problem effectively in saying "aside from the inevitable detriments to motivation posed by institutionalized learning (for instance, coursework requirements, examination pressures, competing demands from other courses of study), steady increases in cognitive burden of language learning may also have negative consequences. As language proficiency develops, the learning demands grow exponentially in terms of cognitive linguistic complexity, and skill and activity range, while any pay-off for the learning effort expended in terms of increased mastery becomes less and less tangible. Sadly, research often points to a steady decline in levels of motivation, once the initial enthusiasm and novelty of learning a new language begin to wear off."

The solution comes in the form of motivational self-regulation, a phenomena that researchers have yet to study and understand in any precise fashion - yet which is absolutely essential according to the author. What is self-regulation? The author says little more than the obvious, but at the same time it is clearly that which is essential: The learner must develop certain skills.."these might include setting themselves concrete short term targets, engaging in positive self-talk, motivating themselves with incentives and self-rewards, or organizing their time effectively to cope with multiple tasks and demands." In essential, engaging in intrinsically motivating activity, or "rediscovering your enjoyment as it were by doing something you know you like doing." Self regulation then is a result of recognizing the self as primary motivating force.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Contribution 3
- Strategies and Good Language Learners -

This is what I expect to be the most contribution in the book I am currently reviewing (entitled "Lessons from Good Language Learners"). This book, as noted previously, is aimed at those interested in the field of language development or to teachers of language however I believe language learners themselves may benefit from the analysis presented if they accept some influence. The contribution I am reviewing now is by Carol Griffiths and I hope a discussion of the strategies employed by the top language learners may prove beneficial.

Griffiths starts with some explanation of the state of research concerning learning strategies - experts interested in these questions seem to have stumbled for some decades produces inconclusive studies that were marred by indecision on such questions as what the term"strategy" itself entails. Finally by 1985, a reputable work suggested the definition of a learning strategy as "any set of operations or steps used by the learner that will facilitate the acquisition, storage, retrieval and use of information." (One may point out they had now arrived at the obvious..) One research in the 90s, Oxford by name, crafter a more pointed definition, stating that learning strategies are "specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and more transferable to new situations." This seems to underline how a proactive approach is most fruitful.

Coming in to the new century, Griffiths relates that researchers grew frustrated over the "conceptual ambiguities" of attempting to define and research learning strategies, and decided to abandon the term "strategy" altogether and investigate "self-regulation" instead - giving the study a new coat so to speak.. however as the author points out, with the term self-regulation the first question is how do they regulate, or in other words, what is their strategy? Griffiths therefore resolves to return to the study of strategy and conducts her own research (with hopefully more solid results than those of her predecessors).


Griffith's field research/


In order to formulate her own definition of learning strategies and test it, the author did field research at a school teaching English in New Zealand - she gained the participation of 131 students and monitored their language learning progress for a period; additionally, Griffith made available 32 learning strategy items and had the students record how frequently they made use of each item while learning. She found that while lower scouring students reported using around 5 of the given strategies, among the higher scouring students this number was something closer to 15. Higher level students in fact use about 3 times as many strategies and more frequently then did the lower level students. Some hesitance should be given to this observation in that other studies have found higher numbers of strategies may also be used by students unable to make good of any one of them.

Some of the strategies used by both the lower and higher group (though generally with more frequency in the higher learning group) were organizing to do homework, choosing a study environment where the target language is spoken, keeping a language learning notebook, learning from mistakes, and investing alot of time in the language.
Of strategies such as use of a bi-lingual dictionary and watching tv or movies in the foreign language were also frequent strategies. Listening to native speakers, making high use of the instructor, building large vocabularies and practicing grammar were also among the activities of the higher learners.






_________________________
Still to come... While Griffith's discussion was interesting, I have not picked up anything particularly detailed or impressive in so far as strategy ideas as I would have hoped for - hopefully a further contribution on meta-cognition will make up for tit.