The Compendium of Rebecca Oxford’s
“Effects of Sex Differences, Career Choice, and Psychological Type on Adult
Language Learning Strategies”
49782034
鄭詩螢
Professor: Rae Lan
The report is talking about the relationships among learner characteristics
themselves. It wants to discuss about the learning strategies in relation to different
types of people. In order to exam that whether characteristic difference may affect the
learning strategies, the writer holds an experiment. And the writer set the types of
gender, career, cognitive style; and aspects of personality.
To begin with the research, the writer first notices the research that was reported
by others. It is reported that the conscious use of appropriate learning strategies
typifies good language learners. Learning strategies are more specific than cognitive
style or personality traits and can more easily be modified through training. And there
are researches shows that there does have different between men and women in using
the learning strategies. The writer quotes Maccoby, Jacklin, Politzer, Gilligan and
Bardwick’s research. They think that females are better in social skills than males;
females superior to, or at least very different from, males in many social skills, with
females are showing a greater social orientation. Females are more likely to show a
continuing need for social approval and acceptance and are more likely to stay
amenable to cultural patterning. Females reported a significantly greater propensity
than males to engage in second-language social interactions with others outside of
class. Through those research, the writer supposes that females to use social learning
strategies (techniques involving at least one other person) more than males.
Second, about career, from Politzer’s research, it founds that academic field
was a significant factor in some aspects of language learning for intensive ESL
students, contrasting engineers1 scientists with business/social studies/education
students. Another statistics shows that the major subject you study has a big influence
on your choice of second language learning strategies. Career choice may be a proxy
for motivation, which has been widely studied in relation to second language learning.
And motivation was the single most important influence on learning strategy use.
Last, the writer think that cognitive style and aspects of personality can
conclude as psychological type. Psychological type can be viewed as a combination
of a number of personality and cognitive variables. Psychology type can by briefly
classified as: 1. extraversion vs. introversion; 2. sensing vs. intuition; 3. thinking vs.
feeling; and 4. judging vs. perceiving.
The writer use different levels of teachers and students to do the research. The
writer use MBTI and SILL test to do the experiment. MBTI theory posits that
individuals have preferences that affect what they pay attention to in a given situation
and how they draw conclusions or make decisions about what they perceive. SILL is a
test that helps students of foreign or second language to find the right learning
strategies.
After the test, we can observe the result respectively from MBTI and SILL.
From BMTI results, the sample is almost evenly divided between introverts and
extraverts and shows a preponderance of intuitive over sensing types, more thinkers
than feelers, and a majority of judgers over perceivers. As a whole, more than half are
introverted. According to the statistics, the teachers are largely extraverted sensing
types; their backgrounds are very mixed, and they are considerably closer to
representing the population at large than are students or trainers. About the SILL
result, it shows the average.
First, the writer discussed the result about sex difference. It shows that women
definitely report more use of strategies than men. Females show more intuition to
sensing, preference for feeling than men do. It is identical with MBTI that feelers
show a statistically clear superiority in general strategies and a suggestive advantage
in social strategies. Hence, feeling could be a psychological type variable contributing
to the greater female reports of strategy use. The result supports the hypothesis that
females are better in verbal aptitude and social orientation.
Second, the writer discussed the result of career difference. It shows that professional
language trainers report greater use of language learning strategies. Teachers showed
a significant preference for authentic language use when compared with students, but
not when compared with professional language trainers. Variable of motivation can
also be inferred in the career results. FSI language teachers may have mixed
relationship to their own native language and to their use of English. For students who
are government employees, the motivation for learning the other language is likely to
be instrumental in nature; for their spouses, it may be either instrumental or
integrative.
Third, the writer discussed the result about psychological type. It shows that
extraverts significantly prefer visual strategies and affective strategies compared to
introverts. Introversion has a significant relationship to searching for and
communicating meaning and they tend to look for meaning and context before acting.
Intuition is related to the strategies for searching for and communicating meaning,
affective strategies, authentic language use, and formal model building. Surprisingly,
sensing has no significant relationship with any of the SILL factors. Feelers tend to
use more social strategies since they are more people-oriented. Judgers when show
only for general study strategies. Perceivers show preference in searching for and
communicating meaning, it means that they usually stays open to further information
in order to guess at meaning from context, even when there are unfamiliar elements.
After the research and the discussion, the writer set a conclusion that sex and
career difference do affect the difference of learning strategies while psychology type
may only be a element that underlie the effect of sex and career.
Works Cited:
Ehrman, Madeline, and Oxford, Rebecca. “Effects of Sex Differences, Career Choice,
and Psychological Type on Adult.” The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 72, No.
3. (Autumn, 1988): 253-265.
Oxford, Rebecca. Language Learning Strategies