1. Learner Differences
Affective Factors

2. Learner Differences
 Motivation
 Anxiety
 Attitudes
 Intelligence and aptitude
 Personality factors

3. Learner differences
 How quickly learners learn a language
 How successfully learners learn a
language

4. Opportunities for learning
 Number of opportunities
 Kind of opportunities

5. Number of opportunities
 More is better
 More listening chances and more
speaking chances result in more
learning opportunities

6. Kind of opportunities
 Learners cannot be passive
 Learners must interact with the language
 Language must be at an appropriate
level

7. Motivation
 The inner drive to do something
 Communicative need

8. Communicative need
 Integrative motivation
 Desire to be part of a group
 Instrumental motivation
 Desire to learn a language so that it can be
used
 Higher motivation results in greater
progress

9. Motivation
 Most important affective factor
 Motivation is needed to
 Start learning
 Continue learning

10. Anxiety
 Learners must be comfortable in their
learning environment
 Anxiety about the environment can
affect learning both negatively and
positively

11. Attitudes 1
 What you think about something
 Positive
 Negative
 Favorable attitudes usually result in
more interaction with a second
language community

12. Attitudes 2
 Language is part of our cultural identity
 Using another language means giving
up part of that identity and adopting
another identity
 Accepting another culture will help
when learning that culture’s language

13. Intelligence and Aptitude
 Higher intelligence usually means
higher language ability
 Intelligence and language ability are
often tested by similar tests
 No surprise that there is a close relation

14. Personality factors 1
 Extroversion / Introversion
 Extroverted learners thought to be better
because they enter into more
conversations
 Self-esteem
 Learners with high self-esteem may be
more ready to risk making mistakes

15. Personality factors 2
 Tolerance for ambiguity
 Learners cannot always understand
everything 100%
 Learners who can handle not always
understanding may be less overwhelmed
 Empathy
 Understanding thoughts and feelings of
others may enable learners to take on a
new identity more easily

16. Conclusions
 Motivation is the only factor that has
shown a clear effect
 Other factors play some role
 Which are most important is difficult to say
 Some factors have a direct role; other an
indirect one