1) Personality traits, age, and motivation affect how learners acquire a second language through three internal processes - the filter, organizer, and monitor. 2) The filter screens language input based on affect, motivation, and emotional states. The organizer gradually structures the language system. The monitor enables conscious processing and editing. 3) Younger learners generally attain more native-like pronunciation while older learners do better in grammar. However, rate of acquisition depends on individual cognitive and biological factors as well as language environment.

1. INTERNAL PROCESSING AND EFFECTS OF
PERSONALITY AND AGE ON SECOND
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
Defry Azhari Nyoman
Mega
Yuwinda Ismail

2. Language
Environment Filter Organizer Monitor
Subconscious Conscious
Learner’s verbal
performance
INTERNAL PROCESSING

3. THE FILTER
Which target language models the learner will select
Which parts of the language will be attended to first
When language acquisition efforts should cease
How fast a learner can acquire a language
It screens
incoming
language
based on what
psychologists
call “affect”

4. • Relaxation
- Students’ relaxed
mental state
- “twilight state”
• Anxiety
Emotional
States
• Integrative Motivation
The desire to achieve proficiency
in a neew language in order to
participate in the life of
community that speaks the
language
• Instrumental Motivation
The desire to achieve proficiency
in a new language for utilitarian
reasons, such as getting a job.
• Social Group Identification
The desire to acquire proficiency
in a language or language variety
spoken by a social group with
which the learner identifies
Motivation
High motivation acts to let
the learner absorb a
maximal amount of the
target language
Motivation acts to filter out
parts of the language that
are not important to the
learner
The less anxious the learner,
the better language acquisition
proceeds; Relaxed and
comfortable students can learn
more in shorter periods of
time

5. THE ORGANIZER
The learner’s
gradual
organization of
the new
language system
It is the “cognitive”
principles:
Analytical and logical
criteria for the
organization of
knowledge and
behaviour
Transitional constructions that
learner use before a structure
finally acquired
The errors that systematically
occur in learner speech
The common order in which
mature structures are learned

6. The structures learners regularly
use during acquisition of a
particular language structures
TRANSITIONAL
CONSTRUCTION
LEARNERS’
ERRORS
It is the most indicator of the force
of the organizer in controlling the
language acquisition process
The development of these
structures can be characterized by
general linguistic principles
Error
The flawed side of learner speech or writing
Function
 provides data from which inferences about
the nature of the language TL process can be
made
 indicates which part of the target language
students have most difficulty and which error
types detract learner’s ability to communicate
Types
Ommiting grammatical morphemes
Double marking
Regularizing rules
Using archiforms
Using two or more forms in random alternation
Misordering

7. Case
(Nominative/
Accusative)
Singular Auxiliary
Progressive
Singular copula
Plural Auxiliary
Word Order
In simple
declarative
sentence
Past Irregular
Possessive
Conditional Auxiliary
Long Plural
Perfect Auxiliary
Past Participle
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4
A guide for the acquisition process, limiting what can be learned to new
material that fits into the growing organization of the new language
system
So, the Organizer.......
A regulatory mechanism which permits the gradual and systematic growth
that has been observed for L2 acquisition in natural and formal settings

8. THE MONITOR
Whenever
conscious linguistic
processing takes
place, the learner is
said to be using the
monitor
Conscious
linguistic
processing
 Learning
The monitor
as the editing
function
Part of learner’s
internal system
that appears to
be responsible
for conscious
linguistic
processing
Underlie
the first
language
structure

9. Personality
Verbal task
performance
Experience
of formal
instruction Learner’s
age
THE DEGREE
OF MONITOR
USED

10. Organizer and
monitor are
agents for the
acquisition of
linguistics
knowledge.
Organizer is
probably
language specific,
it processes only
language.
(Chomsky, 1964,
1975)
Monitor is a
general cognitive
processor
responsible for
conscious
learning in other
areas. (Felix,
1981)
• No conscious awareness
• Acquire language easily and well.
• Elaborate conscious knowledge
• Complete loss when attempting to use
the language
Children Adults

11. MONITORING AND THE ONSET
OF FORMAL OPERATIONS
• Emerge at about puberty and result
of adolescent’s new ability to think
abstractly
• Has the ability to manipulate
verbally
• Acquire new concepts from verbal
rather than concrete experience
• Develop general solutions to
problems
• Conceptualize thought
Formal operations
1
• Arrive at abstract concepts but still
derive directly from experience with
concrete objects
Concrete operations
2

12. Depended on those abilities that
develop with formal operations.
Related to the onset of other developmental
changes.
Children have a certain awareness of the language.
The scope of monitor use depends on
a variety of factors.
Cont.

13. EFFECTS OF
FORMAL
INSTRUCTION ON
MONITORING
LINGUISTICS
DOMAIN OF THE
MONITOR
APTITUDE,
METALINGUISTIC
ABILITY AND THE
MONITOR
FOCUS ON
LINGUISTIC TASK
MONITORING
Cont.

14. LINGUISTIC MANIPULATION TASK
• Directs the student’s attention to the
linguistic operation required by the
task
NATURAL COMMUNICATION TASK
• Focuses the student’s attention on
communication
When individual are focused on the
form of the language, they may apply
formally learned.
FOCUS ON
LINGUISTIC
TASK

15. Self-corrections in free
speech, while helpful in
increasing accuracy,
occurred on only about
10% of all errors.
EFFECTS OF FORMAL
INSTRUCTION ON
MONITORING
LINGUISTICS DOMAIN OF
THE MONITOR
Implicit and explicit
learning
APTITUDE,
METALINGUISTIC ABILITY
AND THE MONITOR
• Grammatical
sensitivity
• Inductive ability

16. Effects of
Personality
Empathy
02
Self confidence
01
Analytical Tendencies
03
EFFECTS OF PERSONALITY AND AGE ON
SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
Personality defined as :
aggregate of traits
characteristics of a
particular individual
Personality and monitor use
04

17. Self-Confidence
Two measures of self-
confidence : anxiety level and
extroversion
Empathy
Define as : capacity for
participation in another’s
feelings or ideas
Researcher have concluded that lower
anxiety levels and a tendency to be
outgoing were connected with
successful L2 acquisition (Dulay et al,
1982)
Learning a language requires
careful listening to others and
caring more about
communicating ideas than about
avoiding speech errors.

18. Analytical Tendencies
Analytic
personalities :
Field independent
Field dependent
Analytic, field
independent
 conscious learning
Field dependent
 subconscious
learning

19. Over users
Under users
Optimal users
Monitor :
the only fully
conscious
internal
mechanism
learners use as
they acquire a
second language
Personality and Monitor Use
Types of monitor users:

20. Sources of
age
differences
Rate of
acquisition
Biological
factors
Proficiency and
Age of Arrival :
Pronunciation
 Grammar
Effects of
age

21. Pronounciation
“Almost everyone learns the
sound patterns of a language
perfectly as a child, and yet,
almost no one can learn the
sound patterns of a language
perfectly as an adult” (Scovel,
1969:245 in Dulay et al, 1982)
Oyama (1976), Seliger et al
(1975), and Garcia (1969)
conducted research on the
relationship of age of arrival
and pronunciation proficiency
which resulted…..
Proficiency and Age of Arrival

22. Grammar
Based on Oyama’s research, those who arrived
earliest did best in the grammar test and years
spent in the US had no effect.
Oyama did several test involving the syntactic and
semantic component of the grammar.
Patkowski (1980) found the evidence that age of arrival is
related to syntactic proficiency through several test on
67 immigrants who had come to US before age 15.

23. The younger the learner upon arrival, the more likely
that native-like pronunciation will be attained, and
the available data suggest that this is also true for
syntax (Patkowski, 1980)

24. 1
Children are not always faster
than adult in learning L2
Rate of acquisition
Children are quickly in
acquiring phonological system 2
Adult are quickly in the areas
of syntax and morphology
3

25. Source of
age
Differences
Cognitive factors
Affective factors
Differences in language
environment
Biological factors

26. Lenneberg(1967) :
by increasing of
age, the left
hemisphere
assumes more
and more of te
responsibility for
language until
around puberty
Lateralization
and the ability
to acquire a
second
language
completely are
not directly
directed
The
developmental
of cerebral
dominance is
probably not
responsible for
the changes in
L2 acquisition
ability
Lateralization
does not set up
a rigid obstacle
to adults’ L2
achievement
The mechanism
of language
acquisition in
adult’s and
children’s brain
are different
Biological factors

27. The onset of
“formal
operation” ( the
ability to
formulate
abstract
hypotheses) is
major of child-
adult differences
The formal
operations
relate directly
to conscious
language
learning Adults are
better and
faster conscious
learners than
children
In learning
language,
subconscious
learners can
surpass
conscious
learners
Cognitive factors

28. Affective factors
Adult filter out more of
available language
input than children do
Adolescent can
conceptualize the thought
of other people which can
strengthen their filter

29. Children receive
much more
concrete “here-and-
now” input.
Adult are exposed to
conversation about
topics whose
referents are not
obvious from the
nonlinguistic context.
The older students
may better at
“managing
conversation”.
Differences in language
environment