Individual Differences in Second Language Acquisition:

Motivation and Strategies

REPORTER: Ruth Klaribelle C. Villaceran

• Who is Rod Ellis?

*Professor Rod Ellis is the deputy head of the Department of Applied Language Studies and
Linguistics at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. In addition, he is a Cheung Kong Scholar Chair
Professor at Shanghai International Studies University, and also a TESOL Professor and Chair of the
Graduate School of Education at Anaheim University, where he teaches various online courses in
the Master of Arts in TESOL. He has also taught in positions in Zambia, the UK, and atTemple
University in Japan and the United States. He is currently editor of the journal Language Teaching
Research,and is also a senior advisor to the Asian EFL Journal.
• How is individual differences categorized?
*Ellis (1985) categorizes these differences into: personal factors and general factors.
The following attributes fall under each category:
*Personal factors: Group dynamics, Attitudes to the teacher and learning materials,
Individual learning techniques.
*General factors: Age, Intelligence, Aptitude, Cognitive Style, Motivation and Personality
• Define motivation.
*Motivation involves the attitude and affective states that influence the degree of effort that
learners make to acquire an L2.
• What are the different categories/kinds of motivation?
Instrumental motivation, integrative motivation,resultative motivation and intrinsic motivation.
• How can we motivate learners in the classroom?
*The content needs to be relevant to their age and level of ability, and the learning goals need to
be challenging yet manageable and clear.
*Vary the activities, tasks, and materials to increase students’ interest levels.
*Use cooperative rather than competitive goals to increase students’ self-confidence
• What is language aptitude?
*Aptitude: a natural ability for learning an L2. It is believed to in part related to general
intelligence, but also to be in part distinct. It is thought to predict success in learning.
• What is the four-factor model of language aptitude?
*Modern Language Aptitude Test (Carroll and Sapon 1959) and Pimsleur Language Aptitude
Battery (Pimsleur 1966) used to measure language aptitude. These are based on a four-factor
model of language aptitude:
-phonemic coding ability (i.e. ability to code foreign sounds in a way they can be
remembered later)
-grammatical sensitivity (i.e. ability to recognize grammatical functions of words in
sentences)
-inductive language learning ability (i.e. ability to identify patterns of correspondence and
relationships involving form and meaning).
-rote learning ability (i.e. ability to form and remember associations beteen stimuli, as in
vocabulary learning).
/rkvillaceran 9.25.16