Task 1.

According to Ellis (1985) it is field-dependent because there is a close connection between her
and the environment. She happens to sharpen her oral skills in interpersonal, social relationships
and there is no difficulty in achieving this.
On the other hand, she is also field-independent because by engaging herself in a personal
practice involving memory and drilling exercises, she is demonstrating to be quite autonomous.
However, she relies more on social acceptation.
Considering Reid she is the type of visual, auditory learner. She used a grammar book to see
how the rules worked and how she could practice them in a written form. She also used her
aptitude for listening and speaking as a way to practice and improve her use of the language.
Based on Willing, she belongs to three of the categories: concrete learning style, because she
used her interpersonal relationships to build up confidence and knowledge; Analytic learning
style since the grammar book contained more advanced aspects of the language and it was used
by her to make connections and inferences in a logical and didactic presentation;
Communicative learning style because at first she chose to reaffirm and learn language to
survive in a social environment.

My style is quite visual. I feel more confident if I can see a new structure or a word and I can
make an appropriate use of it in a written way before using it orally. Even my pronunciation
seems to rely highly on how the word is represented in phonetic symbols. It is easy for me to
close my eyes and imagine or recall letters or symbols, I can also do this with shapes or images.

Task 1.2

1. Functional Practice Strategies are tactics the learners use to increase their opportunities
to use the language for communication, such as going to the movies, reading books,
talking to native speakers, watching a news program or reading pages in the internet.
The main aim of the activity is to achieve exposure to meaningful language.

2. Positively. There is evidence of input presented in the form of L+1. The affective filter
is low because of the motivation students have for reading. Self-confidence is boosted
and anxiety diminished.

3. That practicality is a measurement to choose the type of text.

That is easier for learners to have texts for reading due to its availability out of the
school.
That criterion for selection is more applied here because there is more variety.
That learners read for pleasure and do not take the texts as a grammar or vocabulary
practice.
That different strategies can be used to meet the comprehension needs.
That interests in reading come out as learners start feeling more attracted for what
happens in everyday life and in the culture of the country.

4. That whenever there are chances to listen to real English coming from the most popular
media – radio and TV – they are taken.
That whenever there is an interesting topic for the learner, he/she will find the way to
approach to the language by listening.
That it is seen as a way to get accustomed to the language
That there is no real economic effort to get access to the language in this way.

5. By decreasing imposition, taking students’ interests into account and suggesting

materials
Suggesting a book he has experienced as matching some needs.
Suggesting a scheduled radio program he knows the learner might enjoy.
 Reading a book, a piece of news, a magazine article appropriate for the learners’ level as
a model.
Listening to music students like.

Task 1.3
TRUE
Even though not theoretically supported or quite consciously, the learners use different ways to
approach the understanding of knowledge.

TRUE
Different factors like stage of learning or degree of awareness can affect the ways students
learn. So we can easily see an advanced learner mastering one strategy the beginner is just
starting to practice.

FALSE
It is a variable that accounts for the way a learner copes with different strategies, but it is not a
general one, therefore it might not be importance for every single learner.

TRUE
The more demanding the task, the more actions the learner will have to use. This means that the
learner has to think and implement different ways to achieve the task.

FALSE
High motivation and a more committed attitude will lead to develop more strategies.

TRUE
The choice of strategies is tightly connected to the culture.

FALSE
Learning strategies vary as learners show differences in personalities, learning styles and
psychological types.

TRUE
Successful learners get the best of their strategies. On the contrary, although unsuccessful
learners do use strategies they do not get the best out of them.

FALSE
There is no general rule. The more strategies will provoke a likely readiness for the learner but
there is not guarantee his English will be better.

TRUE
Teachers are aware of their own students’ use of strategies but fail to plan their classes having
this in mind. Some teachers even teach some way to use strategies.

TRUE
Students can be instructed and trained in learning strategies by means of showing them how to
use some metacognitive strategies.

Task 2.1

Students are most likely to display instrumental motivation because they know what the
proficiency of a second language will mean for them in the future. Better job opportunities,
saving time at the university because they do not have to study English as another subject if they
achieve a high score in exams such as MELICET or TOEFL, having the capacity to access a
wider range of texts, etc.
Teachers can have a direct influence on extrinsic motivation by praising students,
acknowledging their better performance and making them aware of their own improvements
among others.

Task 3.1
Pros
According to Penfield and Roberts (1959) the plasticity of the brain, which is a characteristic of
the first years, allows a more natural and simple L2 acquisition.
According to Larsen and Smalley (1972) young learners have fewer problems in adapting
themselves to a foreign language culture because their personality has not already been
consolidated.
According to Guiora (1972) there is more pronunciation ability at the early stages of
development of the personality consolidation.
Curran (1976) believes that children acquire second languages more easily because they are not
threatened by the sounds and structures of the new language.
Brown (1973) says that children tend to be more flexible to acculturation because they are less
culture-bound than adults.
Neufeld (1978) says that young children acquire the capacity to manipulate complex
grammatical structures and different language styles much better than adults.
Rosansky (1975) believes that the child is more open and flexible towards the new language
than the adult.

Cons
According to Krashen (1982) children are inferior in the rate of acquisition because as you grow
older there are more chances to get more comprehensible input and to have means of producing
language earlier.
Adults may experience more negotiation of meaning which leads to learning.
Children’s attention span is short.
Learning an L2 can slow down the rate of L1 acquisition and can cause interference.

Task 3.2
TRUE
The younger the learner is, the less socially frightened he/she is to try and use a language other
than the native.

TRUE
The flexibility of the brain of a young learner makes him/her adopt features of a second
language attached to pronunciation and sound perception.

FALSE
Exposure time in classrooms is very limited and the atmosphere does not help children to
receive the appropriate amount of individual input.

TRUE
The route of learning a second language is the same for all learners, independently from any
other factor such as age, cognitive characteristics, type of unit and so on.

TRUE
The process of acquiring cognitive skills and self-discipline, which are basic requirements for
achieving concentration, is weak if yet present in the child as learner.