PERSONALITY FACTORS CLASSROOM INTERACTION 2 LG 637 WEEK 4 PERSONALITY FACTORS CLASSROOM INTERACTION 2

APTITUDE The problem for teachers may be how to respond to results of aptitude tests, once given or known. Select students who are likely to succeed in the classroom Stream students into different classes for levels of aptitude Provide different types of teaching for different types of aptitude Excuse students with low aptitude from compulsory foreign language requirements.

APTITUDE FOR L2 LEARNING. Most aptitude tests can predict success in L2 academic classrooms, but what to do about it is a largely unsolved question such as eliminating//streaming//exemption all may have negative consequences. Different teaching for different aptitude may be difficult to arrange. Aptitude may be broken down into different factors, such as phonemic processing etc. Aptitude unrelated to level. A class all at the same level will not progress at exactly the same pace, due to aptitude and other factors. All the learners will have different aptitude in one class. The strong help the weak?

Do you straighten crooked pictures?   Field dependent thinkers: their thinking relates to their surroundings. Field Independent think independently of their surroundings. The Embedded Figures test relies of distinguishing shapes in pictures; Those who can pick out shapes despite confusing backgrounds are field are field independent; those who cannot are field dependent. In language learning field dependence/independence could be related to the ability to analyse the linguistic material one is exposed to, identify its components, and explore relationships between the components.

PERSONALITY . Perhaps an outgoing, sociable person learns a second language better than a reserved shy person? The connection is not usually so straightforward. Intelligence. Intelligence does have some connection to school performance Gender Differences. Research found that English girls were better than boys in all aspects of French except speaking Level of First language. Some studies support the common teachers view that that children who are more advanced in their first language will better at their second language.

CLASSROOM INTERACTION   The term classroom interaction refers to the interaction between the teacher and learners , or learners and learners in the classroom., Recent studies in classroom interaction have looked at what shapes interaction in the classroom,>>Teacher and Learner beliefs; social and cultural background of the teacher and the learners, psychological aspects of second/foreign language learning L2 classroom interaction research began in 1960s with the aim of evaluating the effect of different methods in foreign language teaching in hopes that the findings would show the ‘best’ method and its characteristics

Classroom Talk Descriptions of classroom interaction focussed initially on language use by the teacher, especially teacher questions and learner responses elicited, teacher feedback, and turn allocation behaviour (T>S, S<>S); These features were examined in the light of how they affected interaction the opportunities for learners to engage in language production. Recent studies have paid more attention to learner talk, examining not the language produced by learners in response to the teacher. Comparisons were also made between talk at home and talk at school, which showed that the latter was impoverished .

Participation The types of task in which learners engage and the number of participants in a task also affect learners participation. Studies have been conducted on learner participation in tasks involving pair work, group work, and the whole class. It was found that compared to teacher fronted interaction in whole class work, both pair work and group work provide more opportunities for learners to initiate and control the interaction, to produce a much larger variety of speech acts and to engage in negotiation of meaning

Current trends Some recent research has been investigating the more unobservable aspects of classroom interaction. While some learn better by actively participating , others may learn better by listening and internalising the input. Another factor may be the learners psychological state. Learning a new language can be psychologically unsettling process, threatening learners self esteem as a competent communicator. To cope with this anxiety many learners adopt the avoidance strategy of being reticent. Research has found a close relationship between learners oral participation, their foreign language learning anxiety and their self esteem as a competent speaker of English

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REFERENCES 3 Dickinson, L. (1995) “Autonomy and Motivation: A Literature Review”, System 23: 165-174. Dörnyei, Z. (2001) Teaching and Researching Motivation, London : Longman. Dörnyei, Z. (2005) The Psychology of the Language Learner: Individual Differences in Second Language Acquisition, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Gardner, R. C. & Lambert, W. E. (1972) Attitudes and Motivation in Second-Language Learning, Massachusetts: Newbury House Publishers. Horwitz, E. K., Horwitz, M. B., & Cope, J. (1991) “Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety”, in Horwitz, E. K. & Young, D. J. (eds.) Language Anxiety, NJ: Prentice Hall. Spratt, M., Humphreys, G., & Chan, V. (2002) “Autonomy and Motivation: Which Comes First?”, Language Teaching Research 6: 245-266. Ushioda, E. (2003) “Motivation as a Socially Mediated Process”, in Little, D., Ridley, J., & Ushioda, E. (eds.) Learner Autonomy in the Foreign Language Classroom: Teacher, Learner, Curriculum and Assessment, Dublin: Authentik Language Learning Resources. Vandergrift, L. (2005) “Relationships among Motivation Orientations, Metacognitive   Cook, V. 1986. Experimental Approaches to Second Language Learning. Oxford, Genesee 1976. The role of intelligence in 2nd language learning. Language Learning. 26 . 267-80.

References 3 Skehan, P. 1989. Individual Differences in second Language Learning. London.     Van Lier, L. 1996. Interaction in the Language Curriculum. London. Tsui, A. 1995. Introducing Classroom Interaction. London. Horwitz, E. 1991. Language Anxiety: from theory and research to Classroom implications. Skehan, P. 1986. Cluster Analysis and the Identification of Learner Types. In Cook, V. Experimental Approaches to Second Language Learning.