The Affective Domain

Group 7

# Anis Rovita

# Samrotul Ma'sumi 

Affective Factors in SLA

·         Self-esteem

·         Willingness to communicate

·         Inhibition

·         Risk taking

·         Anxiety

·         Empathy

·         Extroversion

Self-esteem

Self-Esteem is a feeling of self-worth. It is a personal judgment of worthiness that is expressed in the attitude that individual holds toward him. It expresses an attitude of approval, and indicates that extent to which an individual successful and worthy. (Cooper Smith, 1967; Brown, 1980; 2000)

Willingness to communicate (WTC)

Willingness to communicate (WTC) has been defined as the intention to initiate communication, given a choice. It was hypothesized that orientations toward language learning as well as social support would influence students' WTC in a second language. It is also defined as language learners' tendency to initiate discourse in a particular context with some individuals

Inhibition

Inhibition is closely related to self-esteem: the weaker the self-esteem; the stronger the inhibition to protect the weak ego. Ehrman (1993)suggests that students with thick, perfectionist boundaries find language learning more difficult than those learners with thin boundaries who favor attitudes of openness and the tolerance of ambiguity.

Risk taking

Linguists defined risk-taking as an ability of being eager to try out new information intelligently regardless of embarrassment in linguistics. Risk-taking is not only the third affective domain in personality factors but also one of the important parts in learning second language.

Anxiety

Anxiety is one of the affective factors, which are generally assumed to influence second language acquisition. Anxiety is associated with feelings of uneasiness, frustration, self-doubt, apprehension, or worry (Scovel, 1978: 134).

Scovel further distinguishes anxiety into two types, they are:

© Facilitative anxiety : Motivates the learner to ‘fight’ the new learning task. It gears the learner emotionally for approval behavior.

© Debilitative anxiety : Motivates the learner to ‘flee’ the new learning task. It stimulates the individual emotionally to adopt avoidance behavior.

The two types of anxiety based on Oxford (1990):

© Helpful anxiety : It is a positive factor relates to some concern or comprehension over a particular task to be accomplished.

© Harmful anxiety : It is a negative factor that may relate to nervousness or tension which rids someone from accomplishing the job; some self-doubt which should be avoided at all costs.

Empathy

Empathy is an individual’s capacity to put oneself in another’s place. That is the process of reaching beyond the self to understand what another person is feeling.

In more comprehensive definition, empathy is usually as “the projection of one’s own personality of another in order to understand him or her better” (Brown 1980: 107; 2000: 153).

It is also defined as “a process of comprehending in which a temporary fusion of self-object boundaries permits an immediate emotional apprehension of the affective experience of another” (Guiora, 1972: 142).

Two important aspects to develop empathy based on Hogan and Guiora’s agreement:

© An awareness and Knowledge of one’s own feeling

© Identification with another person

In other word, people can only empathize or know someone else only if they actually know themselves.

Extroversion

Extroversion is the extent to which a person has a deep-seated need to receive ego enhancement, self-esteem, and sense of wholeness from other people as opposed to receiving that affirmation within oneself.