Preview of Ch.8: Affect

Summary
This chapter introduces affective factors that cause individual differences in L2 learning. Nowadays it is viewed that affect and cognition are intertwined, and it is difficult to determine some individual differences come from only one of those two.Throughout the chapter, the question we need to keep in mind is “Where do individual differences in L2 learning exist?” Total of eight affect is concerned with findings and suggestions from research.

• Personality: Stable traits in a person with reference to the cognitive processing of emotion or personal inclination through social experience. Recently, “openness to experience“ has received researchers’attention as an advantageous personality asset.
• Extraversion/Introversion: These traits may show some differences in language learning such as communication fluency for extroverts and accuracy for introverts. But the traits do not determine L2 acquisition. Rather, they affect learners’ behaviors and goals, which in turn have an impact of L2 achievement.
• Foreign language anxiety: High-levels of anxiety hold back learner’s processing and achievement in language learning. Studies indicate that self-perception, self-concept , perfectionist attitudes and high-expectation are strongly related to anxiety. At the same time, some degree of tension affect positively on language learning, which is called “facilitating anxiety”.
• Willingness to communicate (WTC): It’s the self-reported intention to initiate communication when free to do so. Anxiety (more in the SL context) and self-perceived competence (more in the FL context) affect communicative confidence in the L2, which, in turn, affects WTC in the L2. Likewise, the frequency and quality of past L2 contact have an impact on L2 attitudes, which, in turn, affects WTC in the L2. WTC can change over time and across contexts.
• Field dependence and independence: These characters are bipolar dimensions with preferred ways of processing information, Recently, new constructs has been addressed,” field independence and field sensitivity” claiming that successful language learners can integrate information both in and out of the context and therefore are expected to get a high score on both sides.
• Learning style: Studies on learning styles are inconclusive. However, the most recently developed “the synopsis-ectasis dimension” creates research interest, focusing on the degree of conscious control of learning desired or needed.
• Learning strategies: strategies are conscious mental and behavioral procedures that serve people to reach a goal in their language learning. There are no clear lines between cognitive and affective strategies. Language strategies can differ across contexts. “Self-regulation theory” (Dörnyei, 2005) attracts attention as a principled way of theorizing strategic behaviors.
• Self-regulation theory: The theory claims that people are able to self-regulate their behaviors with creative and conscious efforts. Not only actions and thoughts but also feelings can be self-regulated. The strength of this theory is that it can be investigated with not only self-report questionnaires but also multiple methods.

My personal interest : WTC
Although WTC is just a self-reported intention and not supported by actual observation of communication behavior, it has been posited as a predictor of frequency of communication in L2. If communication is a goal in language learning, I think it is interesting to investigate WTC on the grounds that WTC is not a fixed tendency and leaves a room for a change for the better. In the FL context where perceived competence and attitudes towards the target language (TL) seem to have a strong impact on WTC, raising self-perceived competence and providing a pleasurable TL experience for students would be the best shot to boost their actual use of the TL in the long run. I believe that these two attempts are something teachers can carry out in their classroom by using various teaching materials, tasks, and approaches. Of course, none of affective variables alone can guarantee successful language learning, but I hope WTC is one of the factors that teachers can still activate in their students.