Explanations for differential successGraham Thurgood (English 232) 68 Explanations for differential success 6.1 IntroductionA major focus of debate in the SLA field revolves around the cause for differential success. In thecase of first language acquisition, it is obviously true that some learners use the language better than others,but it is also obviously true that all normal learners achieve a considerable degree of mastery over their firstlanguage. It is equally obvious that second language learners fall considerably short of mastery. While someachieve mastery, many others do not. Various explanations have been offered for this variable success. Thereare native language variables, input variables, and individual variables. Here the focus will be on individualvariables. • First, and foremost is age.• Others include:• language aptitude• social-psychological factors• personality• cognitive style• hemispheric specialization• learning strategies• others6.2 AgeAge is the overriding variable. Despite apparent and puzzling disagreement in the literature, thedata seems incontrovertible about the dominance of age. In some cases, it is argued that adults have anadvantage in the rate at which they learn. However, insofar as it exists at all, the advantage for rate begins todisappear as the learning period increases. Once the focus is put on ultimate attainment, the advantage of ageis clear. Early studies, such as Krashen, Long, and Scarcella (1979) arrived at the conclusion older is faster,but younger is better , with the speed advantage of adults slowly evaporating over time. In fact, the rateadvantage of adults is generally limited to early phonology and morphology and may only last a few months.Younger adults outperform older adults, too. One source of data is the examination of learners of English who have immigrated to this country.If the sample is restricted to individuals that have been in the country at least five years, the ultimate attain-ment correlates, not with length of residence (LOR), but with age on arrival (AO), that is, the younger thatthey were, the better their English ultimately was. Explanations for age-related differences:•Social-psychological explanations (samples)• child are less inhibited• their self-image as speakers of Lx is less set at an earlier ageCognitive explanations• attainment of cognitive development might be interfering with acquisitionInput• input to children might be different than input to adultsNeurological explanationsGraham Thurgood (English 232) 69• hemispheric lateralization (p. 164)Lenneberg (1967) critical period, onset of puberty, cerebral plasticity• Sensitive periodnot totally unrelated to the previous explanationundoubtedly accounts for the differences between FLA and SLA6.3 Aptitude p. 167ff.“Aptitude as a concept corresponds to the notion that in approaching a particular learningtask or program, the individual may be thought of as possessing soem current state of capabil-ity of learnignn that task—if the individual is motivated, and has the opportunity of doing so.That capability is presumed to depend on some combination of more or less enduring charac-teristics of the individual. (1981, p. 84)• the so-called enduring characteristics suggests that aptitude is multidimensional. Carroll,one of the authors of Caroll and Sagon’s Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT), wrotethat foreign language aptitude consisted of four more or less independent abilities:1. phonetic coding ability — the ability to identify distinct sounds, to form associationsbetween those sounds and symbols representing them, and to retain these associations;2. grammatical sensitivity — the ability to recognize the grammatical functions of words (orother linguistic entities) in sentence structures;3. rote learning ability for foreign language materials — the ability to learn associationsbetween sounds and meanings rapidly and efficiently, and to retain these associations; and4. inductive language learning ability — the ability to infer or induce the rules governing aset of language materials, given samples of language materials that permit such inferences. 6.4 Socio-psychological factors• motivation• attitude6.5 Personality• Self-esteem• Extroversion• Anxiety• Risk-taking• Sensitivity to rejection• Empathy• Inhibition•Tolerance of ambiguity6.6 Cognitive style• Field independence/dependence (p. 193)“Naiman et al. administered the Hidden Figures Test (Naiman et al.), in whichsubjects are instructed to find simple geometric figures within complex designs. ...”• Category width• Reflectivity/impulsivityGraham Thurgood (English 232) 70• Aural/visual• Analystic/gestalt6.7 Hemispheric specialization6.8 Learning strategies6.9 Othersmemoryawarenesswill6.10Conclusions (page 207)Diane Larsen-Freeman and Michael H. Long. 1997. Chapter 6: Explanations for differential suc-cess among second language learners. An introduction to Second Language Acquisition Research. Longman.Pp.