PERSONALITY FACTORS IN LANGUAGE LEARNING

I. INTRODUCTION

Second language learning is related with the students effort to acquire the language in formal
situation. The students need to success in learning second language although there are some factors
that must be faced. The factors that associated with the proccess of second language learning
include age, motivation, culture, environment, intellectual, method of learning, strategies of
learning, and personality.
Personality factors determine the learner success in learning second language. The differences
of the students’ personality also determine the teacher consideration in taking the method in the
proccess of second language teaching and learning. The teachers should identify and respect the
learners’ personality differences.
This paper explains some terms associated with personality factors which influence the
students (second language learners) in learning the language. Hopefully, it can be used as our
consideration as a teacher tobe about how to manage the class and determine the method after we
identify the differences of the students’ personality in language learning because basically,the
learners need to success.

II. DISCUSSION
A. The Notion of Personality Factors in Language Learning

If we were to devise theories of second language acquisition or teaching method that were
based only on cognitive consideration, we could be ommiting the most fundamental side of
human behavior. Ernest Hilgard, welknown for his study of human learning and cognition once
noted that ”purely cognitive theories of learning will be rejected unless role is assigned to
affectivity” (1963:267). In recent years there has been an increasing awareness of the necessity
in second language research and teaching to examine human personality in order to find solution
to perplexing problem.

B. The Affective Domain

Affect refers to emotion or feeling. The affective domain is the emotional side of human
behavior, and it may be juxtaposed to the cognitive side. The development of affective states or
feelings involvels a variety of personality factors, feelings both about ourselves and about others
with whom we come into contact.
 Three decades ago, Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues (Krathwohl, Bloom, and Masia
1964) provided a useful extended definition of the affective domain that is still widely used
today:
1. Receiving is being aware of or sensitive to the existence of certain ideas, material, or
phenomena and being willing to tolerate them. Examples include: to differentiate, to accept,
to listen (for), to respond to.
2. Responding is committed in some small measure to the ideas, materials, or phenomena
involved by actively responding to them. Examples are: to comply with, to follow, to
commend, to volunteer, to spend leisure time in, to acclaim.
3. Valuing is willing to be perceived by others as valuing certain ideas, materials, or
phenomena. Examples include: to increase measured proficiency in, to relinquish, to
subsidize, to support, to debate.
4. Organization is to relate the value to those already held and bring it into a harmonious and
internally consistent philosophy. Examples are: to discuss, to theorize, to formulate, to
balance, to examine.
5. Characterization by value or value set is to act consistently in accordance with the values he
or she has internalized. Examples include: to revise, to require, to be rated high in the value,
to avoid, to resist, to manage, to resolve.

C. Self-Esteem
Self-esteem is probably the most pervasive aspect of any human behavior. It could easyly
be claimed that no sucessfull cognitive or affective actifity can be carried out without some
degree of self-esteem, self-confidence, knowledge of your self, and belief ion your own
capabilities for that actifity. Malinowske (1923) noted that all human beings have a need for
phatic communion- defining oneself and finding acceptance in expressing that self in relation in
valued others.
Three general levels of self-esteem are described as follows :
1. General, or global self-esteem is taught to be relatively stable in a mature adult, and is
ressistance to change except by active and extended therapy.
2. Situational or spesific self-esteem is a second level of self-esteem, refering to one’s
appraisal of oneself in certain life situation, such as social interaction, world, education,
home, or on certain relatively discrately defined traits-intelligence, communicative ability,
athletic ability, or personality traits gregariousness, emphaty, and flexibility.
3. Task self-esteem, relate to particular tasks within spesific situation. For example within
the educational, domain task self-esteem might refer to particular subject matter areas.
D. Inhibition
Closely related to and some cases subsumed under the notion of self-esteem is the concept
of inhibition. All human beings, in their uderstanding of themselves, build sets of defenses to
protect the ego. The new born baby has no concept of its own self, gradually it learn to identify
a self that is disting from others, then in childhood, the growing degrees of awareness,
responding, and valuing begin to create a system of affective traits that individual identify that
themselves. In adolescence, the physical, emotional, and cognitive change of the preteenager and
teenager bring on mounting defensive inhibition to protect a fragile ego, toward of ideas,
experiences, and feelings, that three terms to dismantle the organization of values and beliefs on
which appraisal of self-esteem have been founded. The process of building the defenses
continous on into adulthood. Some persons those with higher self-esteem and ego strenghth are
moreable to withstand threats to their existance and thus their defenses are lower. Those with
weaker self-esteem maintain walls of inhibiton to protect what is self perceived to be weak or
fragile ego, or lack of self confidence in a situation.

E. Risk Taking
Risk taking is an important characteristic of sucessful learning of a second language.
Learners have to be able to “gamble” a bit, to be willing to try out hunches about the language
and take the risk of being wrong. Risk taking variation seems to be a factor in number of issues
in second language acquistion and pedagogy. The silents students in the classroom is one who is
unwilling to appear foolish when mistakes are made. Self-esteem seem to be closely connected
to a risk taking factor: when those foolish mistake are made, a person with high global self-
esteem is not daunted by the possible consecquences of being laughed at.
F. Anxiety

Intricately intertwined with self-esteem and inhibition and risk taking the construct of
anxiety, as it has been studied in the psychological domain plays an important affective role in
SLA. Anxiety is almost impossible to define in a simple sentence. It is associated with feelings
of uneasiness, frustrasion, self doubt, apprehension, or worry. Schovel (1978:134) defined
anxiety as “a state of apprehension, a fague fear...........”. How does this construct relate to
second language learning? Any complex tasks we undertake can have elements of anxiety in it,
aspects in which without our own abilities and wonder if we will indeed succed.second language
learning is no exception to along list of complex tasks that are susceptible to our human anxities.

G. Emphaty
 Emphaty, like so many personality variables, defies adequate definition. In common
terminology, emphaty is the process of “putting yourself into someone else’s shoes”. Of reaching
beyond the self and understanding and feeling what another person is understanding or feeling. It
is probably the major factor in the harmonious coexistence of individuals in society. Language is
one of the primary means of emphatizing, but non verbal communication facilities the process of
emphatizing and must not be overlooked.

H. Extroversion
Extroversion and its counterpart, introversion, are also potentially important factors in the
acquisition of a second language. We are prone to think of an extroverted person as a gregarious,
“life of the party” person. Introverted people, conversely are thought of as quite and reserved,
with tendencies toward reclusiveness. On the other hand, introverts are sometimes tauhgt of as
not being as bright as extrovert. Extroversion is the extend to which a person has a dit-seated
need to receive ego enhancement, and sense of wholeness from other people as opposed to
receiving that affirmation within one self. Extrovert actually need other people in order to fill
“good”. However, extrovert are not necessarily loudmouthed and talk active. They may be
relatively say money but still need the affirmation of others. Introversion, on the other hand is
the extend to rich a person derives a sense of wholeness and fulfilment a part from a reflection of
the self from other people. Contrary to our stereotype, introvert can help an inner strenghth of
character, that extrovert do not have.

III. CONCLUSSION

Based on the discussion above, we can conclude that there are some personality factors that
influence the second language learners to success , they are self-esteem, inhibitation, risk-taking,
emphaty, anxiety and extroversion.

References:

1. Brown, Douglas. 1994.Principle of Language Learning and Teaching (3rd ed.). San Fransisco:
Prentice Hall Regents.