Psychological individual differences in language acquisition

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Conscientiousness has produced consistent results, both in school and college contexts. 
Extraversion, on the other hand, has been found to have a negative relationship with academic 
success due to the introverts’ greater ability to consolidate learning, lower distractibility, and 
better study habits. 
What does this mean for language teachers? If we agree that our task is not only to teach 
but also (or primarily) to assist learning, we cannot escape the conclusion that our main tasks are 
threefold: first, to identify the causes of language anxiety and loss of self-confidence in the 
classroom and eliminate or alleviate them; second, to understand the traits of good classroom 
dynamics; and third, to create a classroom environment in which these traits may flourish.
There are other learner characteristics like anxiety, creativity, willingness to 
communicate, self-esteem and learner beliefs that are significant to consider. As an illustration 
let’s revise the latter, learner beliefs. There is no doubt that learner beliefs greatly affect 
behavior, for example when someone believes in a particular method of learning and therefore 
resists another, perhaps better, approach, but we can easily argue that this is simply an example 
of false cognition that can be changed by rational explanation. Apart from differentiation, you’ve 
probably came across with the student who did not follow or even ignored instructions and 
techniques you advised and did it his own way.
Second language acquisition and second language learning 
First language influence appears to be strongest in complex word order and in word for-
word translations of phrases. Evidence for this generalization comes from several sources.
First language influence is weaker in bound morphology. 
Errors in bound morphology (e.g. omission of plurals on nouns, lack of subject-verb 
agreement, adjective-noun agreement) are not due to first language influence. Some linguists 
suggest inflectional morphology ("except in very closely related languages") belongs to the 
category of structure that performers generally do not transfer in second language performance. 
First language influence seems to be strongest in "acquisition poor" environments. 
The researches of Dulay and Burt (1974) and Gillis and Weber (1976) have demonstrated 
that first language influence is rare in child second language acquisition. On the other hand, 
studies that report a high amount of first language influence are mostly foreign and not second 
language studies, situations in which natural appropriate intake is scarce and where translation 
exercises are frequent. In this regard, it is interesting to note that we can find signs of first 
language influence in immersion bilingual programs where input is often primarily from the 
teacher and not from peers. 
First-language-influenced errors here are also in the domain of word order. This suggests 
that it is not simply the case that adults show first language influence while children do not. We 
would expect to see first language influence in situations where child second language acquirers 
obtain less intake or where affective conditions prevent or inhibit acquisition. 
According to Peter Newmark, one of the main figures in the founding of Translation 
Studies, first language influence is not proactive inhibition, but is simply the result of the 
performer being "called on to perform before he has leaned the new behaviour". The result is 
"padding", using old knowledge, supplying what is known to make up for what is not known. 
Newmark suggests that the "cure for interference is simply the cure for ignorance: learning" (this 
would read "acquisition"). What can be concluded from the above is that the L1 may "substitute" 
for the acquired L2 as an utterance initiator when the performer has to produce in the target 
language but has not acquired enough of the L2 to do this. First language influence may 
therefore be an indication of low acquisition. If so, it can be eliminated or at least reduced by 
natural intake and language use. Perhaps the "silent period" observed in natural child second 
language acquisition corresponds to the period in which the first language is heavily used in 
classroom. 
A list of resources 

273 
1. A Contrastive Study of L1 and L2 Acquisition, Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 
Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 66-70, January 2012 
2. The Psychology of the Language Learner, Zoltán Dörnyei, University of Nottingham, 2005
3. Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning, Stephen D Krashen, 
University of Southern California, 1981
4. Language Ability and Language Behavior, Academic Press, New York, San Francisco, 
London, 1979 
5. Child-Adult Differences In Implicit and Explicit Second Language Learning, Karen Melissa 
Lichtman, 2012 

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