Cognitive and Affective Variables Impacting Second Language Acquisition
Amanda Moore
ESOL 4242
Section 01
6/11/09
It is believed that different personality traits affect the way a second language learner acquires
language. These traits can play a key role in the success of failure one has in learning a second language.
There are two types of personality traits in second language acquisition: affective and cognitive.
Affective traits consist of emotional personality characteristics. Cognitive traits consist of intelligence
and academic personality characteristics. If teachers can understand and identify how these
characteristics affect one’s learning, then they will be better able to help the ELL students in their
classrooms acquire the new language. It is also beneficial to teachers to evaluate their own personality
in order to understand how they would fare in a classroom environment where they were the ELL.
In evaluating my own personal characteristics, I have found that I have many positives as well as
negatives in both my affective and cognitive traits. There are few affective traits that would benefit me
as an ELL. I am very outgoing and would be considered an extrovert. Based on my readings, I have found
that extroverts tend to have more success in learning a second language. This is because extroverts tend
to be willing to take more risks in learning the language. I myself am one of these types of learners. In
high school, when taking Spanish, I was willing to try to say the phrases and words without caring how I
sounded while practicing the word. I was also willing to do so in front of others. I was not shy by any
means when it came to producing the new language in front of others. I am also not afraid to ask
questions when I do not understand something. I am also very motivated. When I want to learn
something or do a task, I will practice that task until I get it right. When learning Spanish, I would take
my list of words and phrases, and study these words every night until the test. If I was unsure of how to
pronounce a word or phrase, I would meet with my teacher in the morning or after school to get
clarification. This motivation factor helped me succeed in learning Spanish. My attitude toward the
Spanish culture also helped me succeed in learning the language. I have always had an interest in the
Spanish culture and language. I thought that this culture was very interesting and their language would
benefit me in communicating with Spanish speaking persons that I encountered. I always felt that
Spanish was important because there were so many countries that have Spanish as an official language.
There are a few affective traits that can inhibit my learning of a second language. One factor is my
anxiety. I have very high anxiety levels. I get stressed and frustrated very easily. When I was learning
Spanish, I sometimes have overwhelming anxiety and felt that I would never be able to learn the
content. This could cause me to get frustrated and give up with learning this language. Another factor
that could inhibit my second language acquisition is my self-esteem. I tend to exhibit very low selfesteem. I often felt that I would not be capable of learning all the language components of Spanish. Even
though I had much success in learning the language, there were times when I experienced failure. This
failure affected my self-esteem and caused me to feel that I was incapable of learning the language.
The cognitive factors that helped me learn the Spanish language with some success. My aptitude
in the classroom allowed me to perform well on tests. However, this aptitude was only shown in the
classroom. When it came to actually using the language, I met with failure because I did not learn this
language in a naturalistic way. I did not learn this language in a contextualized way. Also, in evaluating
my cognitive personality traits, I feel that I am a field dependent learner. I tend to have problems seeing
the small parts of the language field. I want to learn the whole phrase at first, rather than breaking the
phrases down and learning each individual aspect of the phrase that I am learning. Even though this trait
caused me to experience some difficulties in learning the language, it was also beneficial to my learning.
I was able to do well in tasks that required the use of interpersonal skills. I also did not mind listening to
someone speak Spanish when I only knew a few words. I felt that if I knew some of the words, I would
be able to understand what they were saying. Sometimes my field dependent nature would cause me to
want to know every word that the person was saying, however. This would cause me to listen to intently
on the words and not what the person was trying to convey to me.