II. You are going to hear some advice on how to be a good language learner.

Complete
the outline according to the information you hear. (10pts)

What makes a Good Language Learner

I. Motivations
A. 1____________________ motivation: to learn a foreign language for passing
B. 2____________________ motivation: to learn a foreign language for practical
Purposes (e.g. as an 3_____________________or when marrying a speaker of
another language)
II. Personality: 4 ________________________to make mistakes
III. Learning skills
A. having a good ear
B. Efficient 5________________________
C. being able to 6_____________________ your own speech
D. suitable 7______________________ of learning generally
IV. Independence
A. not depending on teacher and 8________________learning
B. making use of 9__________________a day for learning
C. accepting 10 ____________________ for learning

Answer:

1. instrumental 6.moniter
2.intergrative 7. organization
3. immigrant 8.classroom
4. confidence 9.24 hours/twenty-four hours
5. revision 10. responsibility

Tape script (II)

The topic I’d like to deal with this morning is ‘What makes a good language learner’. This
is an eternal problem, and one to which there’s no real solution. I would, however, like you
to think about the situation of learners outside the classroom because in many ways, it
would be true to say that there are more people in the world who speak a foreign language
or the second language who didn’t learn it in classroom than there are who did, and I think
this awareness of the success of out-of-classroom learning provides us with a key to how in-
classroom learning can be successful.

Let us look then at the characteristics of a good language learner. I think motivation is
certainly going to be very high on our list. Obviously, there are different kinds of
motivation; there is what we call instrumental motivation, this is the kind of motivation
which in theory persuade a school pupil to learn a language in order to pass an examination-
it’s external motivation, something which is imposed on the learner. The opposite of this is
integrative motivation, the kind of motivation which gets an immigrant in a country or
someone who’s married to a speaker of another language to master the tongue much more
rapidly than someone learning in a classroom. Arguably, most people possess mixed
motivation although it would appear from research that integrative motivation does get
much better result, certainly as far as speed of learning goes.

Personality is obviously another major factor to be borne in mind – not necessarily, I’m not
necessarily saying that you need – er, how shall I say – extroverts to learn a foreign
language, but someone who has the confidence to make mistakes is always going to learn
much more quickly than someone who is afraid to experiment.

Intelligence isn’t a factor, I feel, in language learning – I would prefer to use the term
‘learning skills’. Learning skills are those abilities which make one person progress at a
faster speed than the others; they include having a good ear, efficient revision, being able to
monitor your own speech, suitable organization of learning generally.

However, if we go back to our starting point, which was the great the much greater number
of speaker of languages who have learn outside classroom, I think it gives us the key to
what I believe is the most important factor, and that’s independence. A learner who frees
himself or herself from the tyranny of the teacher and the classroom and who makes use of
twenty-four hours a day for learning, who, in a word, accepts responsibility for learning, is
always going to be not just a good language learner but the best. Conversely, someone who
won’t accept this responsibility is always going to remain at what we call a plateau –
they’ve failed to make progress and blame their teachers. In reality, it is themselves that
they should blame.