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 creation 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