1. Nasrin Eftekhari Guilan University
Social Psychological aspects and SLA
What do you think about second language acquisition? Imagine yourself in a foreign country
and acquire their language during one night! If it were so, how fantastic world we would have.
What about your identity, is it fantastic change to another person by learning a new language?!
Have you ever think about the relationship between second language acquisition and learners’
identity? In fact, Norton (1997) supported identity theory with a comprehensive study of language
learning by proposing social psychology concepts like; learners’ motivation, learners’ investment
and learners’ imagined communities.
Motivation plays important role for the second language learners. For one thing, integrated
motivation leads learners to know more people of target language, their customs, cloths, foods and
tastes so; they are motivated to accomplish their goals of learning. For instance, I had a friend who
was very eager to know Canadians’ culture, ceremonies, politics and nature of country. Thus, he
decided to study their language. He always studied strictly and energetically. Another thing,
instrumental motivation is a path to direct learners automatically. For instance, increase their
academic knowledge or increase salaries are the factors by which learners are encouraged to study
more and learn the target language thoroughly.
Learner’s motivation is incomplete without learner’s investment. Investment reveals learners’
endeavors to achieve the goal. The goal was learning second language. As a case of point,
allocating enough time for studying, attending to particular class with professional teachers, using
various sources of studying such as textbooks, movies and other materials all are the principles or
strategies that learners deploy to foster second language studying thus, preserve motivation in
logical way.
At last, the third dimension is learners’ imagined communities. Imagined communities come true
particularly for acquiring foreign language. It is presupposed that there is no face to face
communication so, the learners should visualize themselves in imagined situations like change their
names, suppose talking to natives, etc. In other words, they might prepare content such as target
language content. The more imagined communities, the more investment. So, learners become more
enthusiastic to learn new language.
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2. Nasrin Eftekhari Guilan University
Generally, the teacher’s heavy reliance on the social psychological features of SLA such as;
learners’ motivation, investment and imagined communities would be promoting nature meaning of
learning. How would be great that our educational system utilize and apply learning strategies with
attention to psychological aspects of second language acquisition in all around our country, isn’t it?!
Ref: ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES TO SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION; Edited
by Dwight Atkinson
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