Name

: Iman Hilmansyah

Student ID

: 1402203

Subject

: EFL Methodology

Date

: 7th October, 2014

Learner Characteristics: age, Learner difference, proficiency levels,

and motivation
Age
Students age is a main factor to make decision about how and what to
teach. It is happened because they have different needs, competences and
cognitive skills. In general, young children learn faster and more effectively
than any other age group. But in learning situation, teenagers are often more
effective learners. In the other hand, older learners are necessarily
ineffective language learners. The explanation about young children,
teenagers and adults are only the generalization. In the real world,
everything depends on individual learners difference of motivation.
Young children are those up to the ages of nine and ten. There are some
differences of young children from older children, adolescence and adults.
Young children always respond to meaning, they often learn indirectly, they
understanding come from their experiences, it is hard to make them
understand about the abstract concept, they always curious about the world
around them, they need individual attention, they are self-centered person,
and they have limited attention. In simple, teacher who teach young children
need for highly skilled and dedicated teaching.
Beside as affective learners, Adolescence are often seen as problem
students. Actually the problem in teaching teenagers is a failure of the
teacher to build bridges between what they want and have to teach and their
students worlds of thought and experience.

Adult learners have special characteristics such as; they can engage with
abstract thought, they have a lot of experiences, they have expectation
about the learning process, they are more discipline, and they know the
objectives. Besides that, they also have characteristics which could be
problem in teaching and learning process such as; they can be too critical,
they may have experience failure that can make them under confidence
about learning English, and they worry that their intellectual powers may be
diminishing with age.
Learners Differences
Learners come from group of individual, each individual has different
characteristics in learning, so we have to think about how to respond these
differences. There are some ways in identifying individual needs and
behavior profiles. The first is aptitude and intelligences. Second is good
learner characteristics. Third are learners styles and strategies that suggest
four learners categories include converges, conformists, concrete learners,
communicative learners. the forth is individual variation which are contained
of neuro-linguistic programming which gives teachers the chance to offer
students activities which suit their primary preferred system and MI theory
which is based on the learners multiple intelligences. After knowing the
differences now teacher should think about what to do about individual
differences. Here the teachers will be helped if they know who is different in
the class and how they are different.
Proficiency Levels
In language levels students are generally described in three levels, beginner,
intermediate and advanced, and these categories are further qualified by
talking about real beginner and false beginners. Between beginner and
intermediate there is elementary. And the intermediate itself is divided into
intermediate upper intermediate and even mid intermediate. In teaching and

learning process for all of the levels, the methodology, language and tsk
topic will be different.
In general, we will give student more support when they are on beginner or
intermediate levels than we need to do when they are more advanced. The
statement proves that a higher level is more resourceful, so they have less
need for us to explain everything in such a careful and supportive way.
Experienced teachers are very good at rough-tuning their language to the
level they are dealing with. The textbook also must consider to the level of
proficiency, so the textbook will not to hard or too easy to understand by the
teacher.

Motivation
There is also motivation that can influence the learners. Motivation can be
meant as kind of internal drive which pushes someone to do things in order
to achieve something. There are external sources of motivation which are the
goal, the society we live in, the people around us, and curiosity.
There is also something that call motivation angle, which consists of affect
that concern with student feelings, achievement that has a meaning that
keeping students to be success In every materials is important because
when they are success in something they will be motivated to learn, attitude
that concern with teachers behavior to motivate students, activities, and
agency.

Name

: Iman Hilmansyah

Student ID

: 1402203

Subject

: EFL Methodology

Date

: 7th October, 2014

Motivation
Definition
There are a lot of factors which influence success in language learning.
However, one of the most important factors is the learners motivation to
learn the language in order to be able to use it in real-life situations.
Motivation is one of the most important factors in teaching and learning
language. Because of that we as teachers should keep students motivation in
control.
There are some characteristics that dealing with student motivation that
have to know by the teachers such as;
1. Positive task orientation. The learner is willing to tackle tasks and
challenges, and has confidence in his or her success.

2. Ego-involvement. The learner finds it important to succeed in learning in

order to maintain and promote his or her own (positive) self-image.
3. Need for achievement. The learner has a need to achieve, to overcome
difficulties and succeed in what he or she sets out to do.
4. High aspirations. The learner is ambitious, goes for demanding challenges,
high proficiency, top grades.
5. Goal orientation. The learner is very aware of the goals of learning, or of
specific learning activities, and directs his or her efforts towards achieving
them.
6. Perseverance. The learner consistently invests a high level of effort in
learning, and is not discouraged by setbacks or apparent lack of progress.
7. Tolerance of ambiguity. The learner is not disturbed or frustrated by
situations involving a temporary lack of understanding or confusion; he or
she can live with these patiently, in the confidence that understanding will
come later
Studies about motivation in EFL lead to several distinctions. The first
distinctions are Integrative and instrumental motivation which are mean that
integrative motivation is the learners desire to integrate themselves into the
target-language community and to identify with the culture of the speakers
of the target language, while instrumental motivation is the desire to learn
the language in order to achieve personal goals such as passing an
examination, studying, career advancement, etc.
The second are Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. External motivation is
influenced by some kind of external incentive such as money, prize, grades,
positive feedback, the desire of students to please parents, their wish to
succeed in an external exam, peer-group influences. Intrinsic motivation, on
the other hand, comes from the learners and their attitudes towards the
language, their learning aims and goals, their emotions, their ambitions, and
so on.

The last are Global, situational and task motivation. Global motivation is the
general orientation of the learners to the goals of learning the foreign
language. Situational motivation is the situation in which the learning takes
place (classroom learning, naturalistic learning). Task motivation is the
motivation of the learner to do a particular task.
Initiating and sustaining
All the learners in the classroom do not have the same type and level of
motivation. Some learners may have a very strong motivation to learn the
language, others may have a weaker motivation, and yet others may have
no motivation at all. However, motivation is not static and it can change in
both directions. As motivation is essential in language learning, one of the
tasks of the teacher is to awaken, sustain and strengthen learners
motivation.
There are three areas where teachers behavior can influence learners
motivation:

Goals and goal setting mean that learners who set goals and
expectations for language learning are likely to be motivated to
achieve

those goals. Teachers

can help learners

sustain their

motivation for achieving their long-term goals by focusing on shortterm goals as they can be attained in a shorter time, so that learners
can see the results which will motivate them to continue to work hard

in order to achieve their long-term goals.

Learning environment means that the physical appearance and the
emotional atmosphere of the lesson are very important for learners
motivation. Teachers can do a lot about both aspects by decorating the
classroom with visual materials, using music, or moving the furniture if
necessary, as well as by building positive relationship with the
learners, creating a supportive and cooperative environment and being

careful when responding to learners, especially when giving feedback

and corrections.
Interesting classes believes that there is a way of increasing learners
motivation to learn the language is by using a variety of interesting
topics and activities in order to keep learners engaged and interested
in what they are doing in the classroom

Name

: Iman Hilmansyah

Student ID

: 1402203

Subject

: EFL Methodology

Date

: 7th October, 2014

Individual Language Learners and what they do

Adult learners collectively divided into many variables, including age,

gender, intelligence, personality, learning style and previous learning
experience. They also come to learning with their own individual beliefs,
attitudes, expectations, motivations and strategies. Whether classified as
cognitive or affective, fixed or modifiable, variables are generally considered
to have some bearing on the ways in which a learner is likely to interpret,
relate and respond to the learning materials. They also interact with each
other in a variety of different ways. There are three deference such as
cognitive, meaning that they relate to mental makeup person, second is
affective that related to the feeling, and the third is personality variables.
The Cognitive variables
The cognitive variable believes that a certain degree of intelligence was
useful, not essential, for success. Cognitive variables divide into two aspects
such as aptitude and intelligence. Intelligence was considered an important
factor for FL learning. It was believed that a certain degree of intelligence
was useful, if not essential for success. In the aptitude, there are
achievements and proficiency that test measure how well you have done. In
simple it can be conclude that aptitude accepts that everyone can acquire,
its just some people do it faster than others.
aptitude and intelligence divide into four components: phonemic coding
ability (the capacity to identify distinct sounds and to code them for later
retrieval), grammatical sensitivity (the ability to recognize the function of
words in sentences), associative memory (the ability to learn associations
between sounds and meanings and retain them) and inductive language
learning ability (the ability to identify patterns in language use and to infer
the rules that govern them). Aptitudes of learners may be redefined
conceptually in terms of the strategies individuals use in learning situations.

The affective variables

Motivation
Affective variables divide into two categories such as integrative and
instrumental motivation. We can call someone as an Integrative motivation
person when they learn language and they have desire to learn more about
culture of the target language and people to intergrate more within the
target language society. Instrumental motivation involves learning in order to
achieve some other goal.
For distance language learners, motivation has a special and direct role. In
most cases it is the determining factor in whether to study or not. Once
registered on a distance language course, the inherently demanding nature
of self-instruction, together with the shift of locus of control from teacher to
learner, means that only those who maintain their levels of motivation are
likely to succeed.
Attitude
The last aspect got from individual learners is attitude. The attitude divides
into three aspects.
The first aspect is attitude toward success or sometimes calls the need of
achievement; this is the degree to which a student strives for accomplishing
goals in live. It may be that people tend to divide themselves into high
achievers and low achievers in general.
The second aspect is attitude toward teacher which is mean that learners
have to love their teacher so they will love the subject that is delivered by
the teacher itself. For example, you will not learn English if you dislike the
English teacher. This aspect is important to the result of foreign language
learning because the teacher can influenced their stuydents.

The last is attitude is the attitude toward your own country, means that what
you think of your own country, and not just of the country of the target
language speakers, will influence how well you succeed in the foreign
language. The statement means that the foreign learners have to love their
own country, because when they think that they country is important they
will learn seriously not only for language but also for all of the subjects.

Name

: Iman Hilmansyah

Student ID

: 1402203

Subject

: EFL Methodology

Date

: 7th October, 2014

Good Language Learner and what they do

Personality variables
Extroversion and introversion
The typical of extrovert is sociable, likes parties, have many friends, need to
have people to talk to, and does not like studying by himself. The typical of
introvert, on the other hand, is a quiet, retiring short of person, introspective,
fond of books rather than people; he is reserved and distant, except with
intimate friends.
There are two characteristics of extrovert. One is sociability (the gregarious,
people oriented side of the extrovert), and the other impulsivity (the
extroverts preparedness to take a risks). Between introvert and extrovert
learners, there is a conflict of expectations for learning in general, and for
language learning in particular.
Tolerance of ambiguity
The example of this variable is when the teacher us of the foreign language
in the class, some learners are quite happy to be immerse in foreign
language, even though they may not understand everything that is being
said. But other learners are disoriented by not understanding, and being
upset that the teacher does not use the first language in to help
communication where necessary.
From those examples, the learners who are happy with the situation is
someone who have tolerant of ambiguity. For other students who mind with

the teacher attitude because use the foreign language all the time in the
class called as intolerant ambiguity learners.

Empathy/ ego permeability and sensitivity to rejection

Ego permeability has been defined as the act of constructing for oneself
another persons mental state. In the other hand, some individuals may be
said to be open to the personalities of others; their ego are permeable.
A similar point might be made about another factor, known as sensitivity to
rejection. Individuals differ in their response to being rejected by others.
Some are very hurt by it, while can laugh it off.
Cognitive style and field dependence /independence
This field is about how we face the problem and how we solve the problem.
Every people will have different ways in facing, and resolving the problem.
These ways of thinking are sometimes referred to cognitive styles.
In the cognitive styles there is field independence. The example of this is
when individuals seem more able than others to extract things from the
context in which they are met, and to see them as separate entitles. People
who can do this easily are said to be field independent, and those who do not
are field dependent.
Good language learners studies
From Naiman et al. (1978) the study finds that there are several strategy that
influence the result of learning process such as; active learners participation,
the better learners realized that they did have to come to grips with
language as a system, but at the same time the good learners saw it
necessary to view language as communication, good learners do appear to

monitor their own interlanguage, and the last good learners realize that
learning a language involves affective problems.
Learning strategies
It can be means as specific action taken by the learner to make learning
easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and more
transferable to new situation. in the learning strategies there is one common
element that is the category of metacognitive strategies. The examples of
metacognitive strategies believe that as good learners they have to have
learning strategies such as directed attention, self-management, and
problem identification.