Personal variation in language learning

1. Personal variation in language learning 1. Styles and strategies

2. Style - Field dependence - Left and right-brain dominance - Ambiguity tolerance - Reflexivity and impulsivity - Sensual orientation Strategy - Learning - Communication Personality - Self –esteem - Inhibition - Risk-taking - Anxiety - Empathy - Extroversion - Motivation Types of variation

3. Learning styles • Field dependence

5. Field dependence ability to form a complete picture - general view - female feature - sociability, empathy good at the social/interactive aspects of LL Field independence ability to see the details even among disturbing factors increases with age male feature independent, competitive, self-confident analysis, classroom learning, focus on details

6. Left-brain dominance Intellectual Verbal Objective Planned and structured Analytic reader Talking and writing Controlled feelings Good at logical problem-solving Not good at interpreting body language Right-brain dominance Intuitive Visual Subjective Fluid and spontaneous Synthesizing reader Drawing, drama, objects Free with feelings Good at intuitive problem- solving Good at interpreting body language Left and right-brain dominance

7. Tolerance Not disturbed bt uncertainty Free to entertian alternative creative possibilities Good in FLL at the beginning Later might result in superficial or unsuccessful learning Intolerance Guards against wishy-washiness Reject hopeless solutions and contradictory ideas May result in a rigid, dogmatic mind Prevents creativity Ambiguity tolerance

8. Reflexivity More calculated, considerate and thorough Slower but accurate Make fewer mistakes in reading Benefit from inductive learning Impulsivity Act on impulse, often gamle, speak before thinking Faster but less accurate Faster readers, good at global comprehension Benefit from deductive learning Reflexivity and impulsivity

9. Sensual orientation Please, look it up in your book! • Visual • Audial • Kinesthetic

10. Learning strategies Good language learners (Rubin, 1975; Stern, 1975) • take charge of their own learning. • organise info about language. • creative, experimenting. • find opportunities to practice. • live with uncertainty. • use conscious memory strategies for recall.

11. learn from errors. • rely on their L1 and other lingusitic systems. • use contextual cues in comprehension. • make intelligent guesses. • learn chunks and formulas to improve performance. • learn to keep the conversation going. • learn different styles and vary them according to context.

12. Metacognitive Advance organisers Selective/directed attention Self-management Self-monitoring Self-evaluation Socioaffective - Cooperation - Clarification Cognitive Repetition Resoucring Tranlsation Grouping Note-taking Imagery Keyword Transfer Inferencing Learning strategies

13. Communication strategiesOxford (1990), Dörnyei (1995) Avoidance • Message abandonment e.g.: - I lost my road. - You lost your road? - Uh, … I lost. I lost. I got lost. - Topic avoidance

14. Compensation • Circumlocution e.g. „ the thing you open the bottle with” • Approximation e.g. ship for sailboat • All-purpose words e.g. „Could you pass me that thingie?”

15. Word coinage e.g. vegetarianist • Prefabriacted patterns e.g. „Could you tell me the way to …?” • Non-linguistic signals • Literal translation e.g. „one-and-a-half room flat”

16. Foreignizing e.g. „löncsölni”, „Hozd már ki a hoovert a bedroomból!” - Code-switching e.g. „Where is posta?” • Appeal for help e.g. „What do you call…?” • Time-gaining e.g. „now, let’s see”, „as a matter of fact”

17. Ten commandments for good language learning • Don’t be afraid. • Take risks. • Believe in yourself. • Find (and seek!) pleasure in learning. • Cooperate. • Get the big picture. • Cope with the chaos. • Go with your hunches. • Learn from your mistakes. • Set your own goals.