Introversion and Extroversion in SLA

Introversion and Extroversion in SLA

The purpose of this essay is the extroversion and introversion in the acquisition of a second language. To begin it must be known what is meant by the extroverted and introverted concept, so it will be discussed some different definitions to contrast and understand them Afterwards, it has been defined the ‘Affective filter hypothesis’ so as to understand the examples that we are going to comment later. Finally to support the extroversion and introversion idea we have collected different examples of studies in which the results reflect the importance of the personality of the participants with respect to their academic performance.

Many people tend to confuse the fact of being an introverted person with shyness. Philip Zimbardo and Bernardo Carducci, psychologists who study shyness, state that introverts refer to those people who have both social skills and self-esteem even though they tend to prefer loneliness instead of being surrounded by a big group of people. In the case of shy people, they lack social skills and self-esteem, what makes it more difficult for them than for the rest of the community, to interact with people they do not know. In fact, they want to socialise but their low or not even present self-esteem makes it difficult to meet new people.

According to Myers (2003), extrovert people are those who prefer to receive stimulation from the outside world. Eysenck (1967) describes extroverts as sociable, expressive, interactive, outgoing, that they act first, and then think about it, they do not like being alone, they prefer being in company all the time; introverts, on the contrary, are described as reserved, quiet, sensitive, they tend to think what they are going to do before acting, and get tired of groups.

Eysenck (1991) continues by saying that extroverts and introverts sometimes show differences in the accuracy and speed of interchange when they speak, particularly performing in an L2. He proposes that extroverts are better than introverts when they have to perform under stress, they are better at lowering their anxiety levels.

According to Matthews (1992), extroverts are more successful in depositing the several spoken inputs they receive than introverts. Eysenck (1981) claims that introverts feel the necessity for more time to recover the information they store in their long term memory. Eysenk (1981) sustains that the contrast between introverts and extroverts memory processing may be caused by the considerable stimuli that introverts perceive. Hence, as introverts are in more tension, difficult for them to tolerate, when they are producing output, their performance lacks eloquence. This incentive provokes the advantage of extroverts who surpass introverts under pressure.

Introverts are inclined to feel that their personality is not good, or that there is something bad with them because extroverts sometimes do not understand their preference to stay alone for some time or their rejection to socialise. This leads to the assumption by introverts that they have to look or act like extroverts so they are not considered to be awkward people. Some extrovert famous people that all of us know are Jim Carrey, Will Smith or Margaret Thatcher, in the opposite we find introvert people as Bill Gates, JK Rowling or Steven Spielberg, and shy people like Lady Gaga.

According to Ni (2012) affective factors are important aspects to take into consideration when dealing with L2 acquisition. These factors include among other aspects: motivation, attitude, self-confidence, anxiety… and, they are ones of the biggest influences in the input and output of the second language. In the cases where they are taken into account by teachers, they are clearly helpful for teachers to improve their own teaching quality and for the students’ integral development in the language.

In the early 1870’s, Dulay and Burt proposed the Affective Filter Hypothesis and explained its influence on the FL learning process. Later, Krashen (1981) would develop and perfect this hypothesis, dividing it into five sub-hypothesis: the Acquisition-learning hypothesis, the Natural order hypothesis; the Monitor hypothesis; the Input hypothesis and the Affective Filter Hypothesis, and this last sub-hypothesis is the one that it is going to be developed in order to explain the extroversion and introversion in students.

Krashen argued that the affective filter is a psychological obstacle that prevents language learners from taking comprehensible input. He asserted that this filter reduces the amount of input that the learner is able to understand, and this is related with the difference between input and intake (being input all the knowledge available for the learner and intake the knowledge internalised by the student) because affective factors determine their proportions. For this reason, negative affective factors or emotions will often be more likely to prevent this internalisation of the language input, and on the contrary, positive emotions will usually be in favour to promote the efficiency of the process.

When language learners have, for instance, a higher motivation, much self-confidence, and lower levels of anxiety, they will have low affective filters and thus, they will receive and take more input. On the other hand, learners with lower motivation, little self-confidence, and a higher level of anxiety will have high affective filters and therefore, they will obtain little input. This theory shows that emotional factors strongly affect learners in the form they acquire a language and that attempts should be made in order to have lower affective filters and the students feel less stressed and confident in a comfortable learning atmosphere.

Historically, two main reasons have been given to show the importance of focusing on the affective filter in education. According to Arnold (2002), the first main reason is that if teachers focus their attention on affective aspects, it could lead to a more effective language learning and secondly, he asserts that it could also contribute to the whole-person development, which is beyond of just teaching a language, because it also influences student’s personality. And this is the moment when it can be seen its influence in extroverted and introverted students, being extroverted students the ones that have lower affective filters and introverted students the ones that have higher affective filter.

Carrell, Prince and Astika (1996) did research on the relationship between them and their academic performance during a semester with a group of 76 students. The results of the MBTI come from some tests of vocabulary, reading comprehension, writing, and grammar. Thus, they saw that the students were divided into introverts and extroverts almost equally. It is important to know that just a little relationship was found between E-I and their performance in the tests. The authors gave two reasons to explain the weak relationship between personality and the measure of language performance. The first reason is that the maturity and the cognitive levels of the students are not indicated with their personality, being related to the effectiveness of the students at the time of applying the cognitive resources. The second reason is that personality is not such a reliable indicator in the relationships between language learning variables as a more reliable indicator like language aptitude.

Wakamoto (2000) analyses the relationship between introverts and extroverts with respect to language acquisition in a study with 254 Japanese university women specialised in English. He employed the MBTI and the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) to see what Language Learning Strategies (LLS) the students used. His objective with this study was to demonstrate the importance of introversion and extroversion in learning English within Japanese secondary classrooms. Wakamoto said that groups of 40 students per teacher it is difficult to identify the individual learner differences (ID) and LLS. Wakamoto finds a relationship between some strategies and extroversion: “functional practice strategies” focused on the real use of language and not the form,and “social-affective strategies” with extraverted students’’, the self-control of the affective domain. About introverted students, he found no correlation with the LLS.

With regard to how students receive input, an Indonesian research by Hasan and Yulianti (2018) analyses the differences between extroversion and introversion in receptive skills, particularly reading. In the study, 95 secondary school students were examined and, all them were eleventh-grade students and have been studying English for four years. Additionally, they categorised the students into highly, average or poorly introverted. So as to classify the students into different categories, they used the method suggested by Carter (2005). Nevertheless, the majority of well-known methods were designed in relation to Western cultures, which are very different to Asian cultures. Hasan and Yulianti seemed to be aware of this cultural aspect and modified Carter’s questionnaire in order to adapt it to Indonesian culture. Moreover, in order to make the reading test as valid and reliable as possible, they selected a multiple choice activity to evaluate their reading comprehension. The mean score of highly introverted students was 77’41% whereas poorly introverted students’ mean score was 36’67%. Furthermore, the Serial Correlation Coefficient (r) was calculated (r=0.88) and showed that the higher the introversion, the higher the score for reading comprehension (Hasan and Yulianti 2018, 226-227). The result of this study can be connected with the superiority of logical thinking that introverted people have. Indeed, they usually overuse their cognitive resources so that they have slower but deeper processing capacities.

Taking into consideration oral production, Thorne (1987) observed the impact between extroverts and introverts in the conversation style. Her research was based on 52 women who took the MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator), which is a self-help assessment test which helps people gain insights about how they work and learn. It is a framework for relationship-building, developing positivism, and achieving excellence) distinguishing between extroverts and introverts groups: 26 E, 26 I. These groups formed pairs to talk and have conversations about them in order to know each other (somehow). Thus, three different types of couples were created: similar pairs were made up of introverts with introverts (I/I), or extroverts with extroverts (E/E). The third group consisted of introverts and extroverts pairs (I/E). The intention of the investigation was that all the participants arrive at the same session for not to know or interact each other before. The pairs were organised so that each member had a conversation with a similar and different partner. They are analysed and compared with each other, resulting in 52 conversations: (13 E/E,13 I/I ,and 26 I/E). As a result, extrovert couples treated many different topics and found more in common between each other during the conversation, being more positive and broad. However, the topics that were discussed in the conversations between introverts were serious, focusing on their problems. It is hard to establish a good conversation when one person is optimistic and the other is serious or pessimist.

Years later, a research conducted in the University College London by Dewaele and Furnham (2000) studied the extent to which introversion and extroversion have an effect on spontaneous oral production. The subjects of the study were 25 Flemish students between 18 and 21 years old who were studying French as a foreign language for 6-8 years. In order to measure the degree of introversion/extroversion, researchers used the Eysenck Personality Inventory. The participants were recorded talking about everyday topics for 10 min and then, the errors were analysed and classified according to different variables in both informal and formal situations as it can be seen in (Dewaele and Furnham 2000, Table.1). The results illustrated that extroverted students were better at implicit speech style and speech rates, which result in a more fluent speech. On the other hand, introverted students showed a high proportion of ‘er’, which demonstrates hesitation, particularly in formal situations. Moreover, the results illustrated that introverted students used a wider range of lexicon in formal situations and, their tendency to use longer and complex utterances even in an informal situation. The lexical richness can be explained, as the researchers point out, due to ‘the introverts’ better long term memory where the mental lexicon is stored’ (Dewaele and Furnham 2000, 361). Moreover, Dewaele and Furnham suggest that the use of complex utterances in informal situations is a reflection of the cognitive efforts introverts make when they are not under pressure. However, when they are stressed, i.e. during formal situations, introverts have ‘less cognitive resources at their disposal, their utterances become shorter, their speech is less fluent and there are more unintended pauses’ (Dewaele and Furnham 2000, 362). That is the reason why they conclude in their study that the aspects that affect introverted people in a negative way are the formality of the situation and the interpersonal stress (Dewaele and Furnham, 2000, 362).

A more recent research by Cheng, Jiang and Mu (2015) analyses the differences in speaking between introverted and extroverted students. In fact, 117 students were tested between 18 and 21 years old who were studying English for at least 7 years. In order to have more reliable and valid data when measuring personality, the researchers opted to take into consideration both an adaptation of the Eysenck Personality Scale to Chinese culture and a self-report questionnaire. So as to test their proficiency in spoken production, researchers chose the CET format to measure their level of English. The researchers found interesting the fact that all introverted students considered their personality not to be an advantage for L2 oral production whereas 31% extroverted students found themselves in an advantageous position (Cheng et al. 2015, 583). However, the results they obtained do not correspond to their expectations because Spearman’s Correlation Coefficient is -0.002, which demonstrates that the correlation between L2 oral production and personality is not significant (Cheng et al. 2015, 584). That is the reason why, these researchers claim that ‘the possible explanation is that the subjects chosen for the study, who are all English majors, are strongly motivated to study oral English well. And motivation propels them to find appropriate ways to improve their oral English’ (Cheng et al. 2015, 584). Therefore, they regard motivation as a relevant factor for L2 acquisition to overcome the difficulties of learners’ personalities.

Robson (1994) conducted a study with female university students in Japan, measuring their personalities with the Japan-specific Yatabe/Guilford Personality Inventory and comparing with the TOEFL scores. Robson also used voluntary participation in recorded oral English classes, which were analysed. Thus he discovered that extroverted students who showed active social relationships were much more likely to participate in oral English classes than introverted students.

As it has been demonstrated, it is important that learners realise their abilities and their skills when acquiring a language. Being an introvert or an extrovert should not be an aspect to worry about. If learners work on improving their ‘weaknesses’, they will be able to develop language skills regardless of their personalities. Indeed, the most important aspect is motivation. If their motivation is low, they will not make enough effort in order to be successful in their objective. In addition, it can be said that extroverts have more advantages than introverts when it comes to second language acquisition. Their social skills and abilities to control the pressure and anxiety when they practice the L2 makes it easier to process the input they receive and to produce a decent and smooth output. Obviously, it is clear that the affective filter plays a major role when people are learning a second language. It depends on their self-esteem, for instance, when they are learning a language. If students have low self-esteem they would try to avoid practicing or using the L2 in order to not feel they are not making a fool of themselves.

 

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