Task-7: IATEFL-conference-report (Sasha Ushakova)

Individual Differences in the Classroom

I've watched a session made by Carol Griffiths and Adem Soruc. Its title is Managing Individual Differences in the Language Classroom. I've chosen this session because I think it can be really helpful not only for teachers but also for learners of foreign languages. However, I am interested in both aspects as, probably, I will teach foreign languages to students someday.


The presenters distinguished 11 principal individual differences that can affect the learning process of a foreign language. These difference  (WF) factors are motivation, aptitude, strategies, beliefs, gender/sex,  autonomy, personality, learning style, age, affect, culture/nationality/ethnicity/race. The importance of all the factors was explained in detail in order to understand whether the factor should be considered in learning foreign languages or not. There were also given some implication for teacher how to use this knowledge in work. In the end, the presenters showed the result of their research which included a questionnaire among two groups of teachers. The first group consisted of practicing (Sp) teachers, and the second group consisted of trainee teachers. It is interesting that both groups agreed (Struct: that-clause + Link V) )motivation the most important factor, and they find cultural differences the less significant factor. It was also interesting to find out that many trainee teachers do not consider the aptitude an important factor while practicing teachers find it rather substantial.


The session was quite curious and informative even though I did not get a lot of new knowledge from it. I am really interested in some aspects of it. For example, I would like to know more about the affect (WW) of (PREP) personality on the learning process from the point of view of the neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics. I think there is a lot of information to study.