Second Language Acquisition and Second ... - Stephen Krashen

did not produce the same results. The experimenters suggest that alcohol induced " a
flexible psychic state" (p. 51, Guiora, Paluszny, Beit-Hallahmi, Catford, Cooley, and
Dull, 1975), with temporary lower inhibitions and presumably heightened empathy.
There thus may be "an early positive stage of intoxication" for optimal second language
pronunciation, but not for other tasks: there was a trend for performance on a digitsymbol
task to get worse with more alcohol. Guiora et al. (1972) warn that this positive
stage "is very quickly passed.... In short, the Alcohol Study made an important
theoretical point by has obviously no practical implications for language teaching"
(p.53).
We turn now to factors less directed related to self-confidence.
Attitude toward the classroom and teacher. This factor may relate to both acquisition
and learning. Naimon et al., in their study of French as a second language in Toronto,
reported that the students' "general attitude" was the best predictor of success: this
measure can best be described as an indication of how a student perceives his individual
language situation and his general attitude toward learning the language in this particular
situation. Data on general attitude were gathered by interviewing the students directly.
The experimenter rated the student's general attitude on a five-point scale. This measure
of comfort in the class and with the teacher correlated significantly with both an oral test
of French (imitation; r = 0.418, p < 0.01) and a test of listening comprehension (r =
0.482, p < 0.01). In another study dealing with French in Toronto, Bialystok and
Fröhlich (1977) reported that "evaluation of the learning situation" was a good predictor
of reading comprehension (along with integrative motivation and motivational intensity)
among ninth- and tenth-graders. Gardner et al. (1976) found that "evaluative reactions to
the learning situation" were associated with both "speech" and grades in levels 7 and 11
in French as a second language in Canada. The relationship with grades tended to be
higher than with speech, suggesting that this attitude is related to learning as well as to
acquisition.
The analytic personality. Oller, Hudson, and Lie (1977) reported that Chinese ESL
acquirers in the United States who viewed themselves as (a) "logical, stubborn, happy",
(b) "teachable, friendly", and (c) "clever, broad-minded, intellectual, and calm" tended
to do better on
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