UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO DE JANEIRO

DEPARTAMENTO DE LETRAS ANGLO-GERMÂNICAS

INGLÊS II
Prof.ª
TURMA
ALUNO: Rodrigo

Individual Differences – Chapter 5

Brown, D. In: Principles of Language Learning and Teaching – a course in SLA. Pearson,
2014.
In H. Douglas Brown’s Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, the fifth chapter
is about a very important question related to second language acquisition, the individual
differences. This term was used by Dewaele and Dornyei (2009) to define the factors that
distinguish one individual from another, along with a close look at self-regulatory techniques that
have been found to be effective.
The “individual differences” chapter can be divided into two main parts: the learning
styles and learning strategies. The latter represents “the specific methods of approaching a
problem or task, techniques for achieving a particular end or designs for controlling and
manipulating certain information” (Brown, 2009: 112). These learning styles, on the other hand,
represent the relation between cognitive styles and educational context, “where affective and
physiological factors are intermingled” (Brown, 2009: 113)”.
In the “learning styles” part, Brown discusses different forms of classifying language
styles. Among these styles that could possibly give an advantage to the second language learner,
we have the left-brain and the right-brain dominance, reflectivity and impulsivity, field
independence versus field sensitivity, and, finally, ambiguity tolerance and ambiguity
intolerance. Another interesting topic from this section is the “visual, auditory, and kinesthetic
styles”, learners will usually show a preference when it comes to the approach of classes, for
example.
Right now, it’s important that we make an overview of the “learning strategies” part.
Brown defines a “learning strategy” as a “specific action that we take to solve a given problem
and that vary considerably within each individual” (Brown, 2009: 124) In this section, Brown
describes some of the resources that can be used to construct an effective class; and these
strategies are put in groups such as cognitive strategies, affective strategies, sociocultural-
interactive strategies and also compensatory strategies. As a way of closing out this part, Brown
explains the evolution of these learning strategies as content for research so that we can
understand that this is not a paused field of learning, it’s in continuous growth.
 From what was exposed until now, it’s essential that we move on to the analysis part of
the journal. Although Brown explains the different kinds of strategies and styles, he could have
provided the readers with more real-life examples of how the styles can give the students some
advantages and how these learning strategies can be useful or not. So, as a way of filling this
gap, we’ll move on the interpretation part of the journal, where I’ll share some of my personal
experiences as a second-language learner.

If we focus on the possible SLA advantages, two of them stand out when it comes to my
personal experience with English. I could say that I am more of a user of the “Left-brain
processing” rather than the “right-brain processing”, I love to analyze the inner details of a
certain language and to identify some linguistic patterns. And this consideration takes us to
another possible advantage that Brown mentions in the text, the reflection x impulse. When it
comes to language, I tend to be more reflexive and calm to explore the complexity of a language.
When I was a student of SLA, I used to discuss a lot with my teachers about the true meaning of
“easy words”, but I knew that these words were able to carry a huge deepness of significance.
It’s important that we talk about the strategies too, these resources are essential for the
development of one’s SLA. I consider myself a master of the compensatory strategies, I have
used a few of them throughout my journey as an English learner, such as “avoidance”,
“circumlocution” and “code switching”. I have a memory of when I used a circumlocution while
I was taking an oral exam and I forgot how to pronounce the word “adult”, so, instead of saying
this word, I decided to speak “complete developed human being”.
When it comes to the other strategies, I tend to show more results when the teaching is
based on the cognitive strategies as a whole – I don’t think we can isolate the strategies included
in this group – and socio-cultural interaction always makes me feel like not only acquiring a
language but also a new way of living life and learning how to enjoy a brand new culture that is
attached to the new language.
From what was discussed here, we can conclude that you can put people inside boxes
when it comes to language. We all have special and unique differences that may affect the
outcome of our learning, and that’s what makes the discussion about second language acquisition
something so interesting and remarkable. The takeaway that I can take from the text as a whole is
that, when we are thinking of an effective method to teach a second language, we have to be
aware that each individual has its own learning style and that learning strategies need to be
picked considering that different people learn differently and that we cannot standardize people,
because we all have individual differences.