Affecting Factors in Second Language Learning

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Vol. 34, No. 5, September 2005 (© 2005) DOI: 10.1007/s10936-005-6202-0 Affecting Factors in Second Language Learning G. Andreou,1,3 F. Vlachos,1 and E. Andreou2 The present study investigated the influence of sex, handedness, level in second language (L2) and Faculty choice on the performance of phonological, syntactical and semantic tasks in L2. Level in L2 and sex were the most affecting factors. Subjects who achieved higher scores on L2 tasks had strong second language aptitude skills since they were those who had obtained a professional degree in the second language. Females performed better than males in syntax and semantics which is explained by the general female superiority on verbal tasks based on differences in hemispheric specialization for language functions between the sexes. Handedness and Faculty choice on the part of the participants had an impact on our results but only when combined with other factors. KEY WORDS: second language; sex; handedness; faculty. INTRODUCTION A relationship between handedness and cognitive ability has repeatedly been reported in the past, especially by earlier studies (Levy, 1969; Miller, 1971). More recent studies found no relationship, especially between verbal ability and relative hand skill in the two sexes (Bishop, 1990; Crow, Crow, Done, & Leask, 1998; Palmer & Corballis 1996; Resch et al., 1997). However, degrees of handedness may be important since it has been suggested (Bishop, 1990; Orton, 1937; Zangwill, 1960) that failure to develop unequivocal dominance in one hemisphere predisposes to pathology. Given the fact that left-handers are a more heterogenous population than right-handers in language function organization and patterns of interhemispheric communication, some studies showed inferior achievements of left-handers in foreign language achievement (Lamn, 1997; 1 Department of Special Education, University of Thessaly, Greece. of Primary Education, University of Thessaly, Greece. 3 To whom correspondence should be addressed. Department of Special Education, University of Thessaly, Argonafton & Filellinon St., 38221 Volos, Greece, email: andreou@uth.gr 2 Department 429 0090-6905/05/0900–0429/0 © 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 430 Andreou, Vlachos, and Andreou Lamn & Epstein, 1999). It seems that left-handers are less equipped for the developing of adequate phonological skills needed for reaching high levels of proficiency in second language (L2). In addition, left-handedness seems to be a more affective factor than sex since studies have shown that left-handers of both sexes are overrepresented in the lowest level L2 classes and were underrepresented in the higher level L2 classes, compared with right-handers of both sexes (Lamn & Epstein 1999). However, many previous studies have shown sex differences in performance on a variety of cognitive tasks (Crow et al., 1998; Janowsky, Chavez, Zamboli, & Orwoll, 1998). One of the differences reported is a female superiority on verbal fluency tasks. In general, females are reported to be more verbally fluent than men (Stumpf, 1995), although mixed results have also been obtained. For instance, a female advantage for quickly producing words from a particular semantic category has been reported (Gordon & Lee, 1986) but no sex difference for rapidly producing words beginning with a particular letter was found (Gordon & Lee, 1986). There are also some other studies which found no sex difference for either type of fluency measure (Hampson & Kimura, 1992; Moffat & Hampson, 1996) or a task of rapid articulation (Gouchie & Kimura, 1991). It seems that language has evolved by a process of increasing hemisphere specialization. Therefore, studies on hemisphere specialization for language functions which reveal stronger lateralization in men than women and even sex-related differences in interhemispheric transmission time in the human brain (Nowicka & Fersten 2001) may account for female superiority on verbal tasks. The study of verbal abilities in the native language (L1) has often been separated from the study of language abilities in L2, yet research in one field may enrich our knowledge of the other, since the overall level of verbal processing skills is very important for L2 proficiency (Koda, 1992). Studies have consistently shown that students who achieve higher scores on L2 tasks have significantly stronger L1 and L2 aptitude skills than students who achieve lower L2 scores (Ganschow et al., 1994; Ganschow, Sparks, & Javorsky, 1998; Ganschow, Sparks, Javersky, Pohlman, & Bisop-Marbury, 1991; Sparks Ganschow, & Patton, 1995). The most successful L2 learners are those who have strong skills in all of the linguistic codes, in particular the phonological code, which seems to have the most immediate impact on a student’s performance in L2 tasks (Sparks & Ganschow, 1993). It has also been suggested in the context of a Linguistic Coding Deficiency Hypothesis (LCDH) (Sparks, Ganschow, & Pohlman, 1989) that a student who fails to reach a high level of proficiency in L2 might display a broad range of linguistic coding deficits (e.g. phonology + syntax + semantics). Affecting Factors in Second Language Learning 431 In addition, success in L2 learning is related to career choice. Discipline-based research (Willcoxson & Prosser, 1996) has shown that specific learning style preferences are typically found in disciplines which belong to pure sciences such as Foreign Languages and Humanities and are different from those adopted by students in disciplines such as Civil Engineering and Computer Science or Mathematics, which belong to exact sciences. This finding indicates that common learning style preferences may act as a facilitating factor for students of Humanities who learn a foreign language. In view of the above findings, the aim of the present study was to investigate further the influence of sex, handedness, level in L2 and faculty choice on the performance of phonological, syntactical and semantic tasks in L2. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 452 undergraduate students, 146 males and 306 females, from the University of Thessaly participated. Of the 452, 232 of them were enrolled in the Faculty of Humanities and 220 in the Faculties of Civil Engineering and Computer Science. Their mean age was 19.50 ± 1.83. To assess hand preference we used the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (Oldfield, 1971), which was previously used in other studies (Andreou & Karapetsas, 2001; Andreou, Karapetsas, Gourgoulianis, & Molyvdas, 2000; Andreou, Krommydas, Gourgoulianis, Karapetsas, & Molyvdas, 2002; Gaillard & Satz, 1989) and as the Citation Index indicates, it has been the most widely used Inventory in the literature. The questionnaire comprises items pertaining to hand preference in writing, drawing, throwing a ball, use of scissors, toothbrush, knife (without fork), spoon, broom (upper hand), striking a match and opening a box. After the students’ answering all ten questions of the Inventory, their lateralization index was calculated according to the formula: (R − L/R + L)100, where R is the sum of tasks performed by the right hand and L by the left hand. Scoring left preferences as negative and right preferences as positive we obtained a tripartite scheme, ranging from −100 to +100. Subjects who received scores of between +40 and +100 were called right-handed (RH), those with scores between −30 and +30 mixed-handed (MH) and those with scores between −40 and −100 left-handed (LH), as regarded by Oldfield (1971). Therefore, in our sample of 452 students there were found 406 right-handed (89.6%), 24 left-handed (5.3%) and 22 mixed-handed (5.1%). The students’ verbal fluency in the foreign language was measured by their answers in semantic, syntactic and phonological tasks. For the semantic verbal fluency, we used the Set Test (Isaacs & Kennie, 1973) 432 Andreou, Vlachos, and Andreou previously used by other researchers (Roberts & Le Dorze, 1997; Varley, 1995). The subjects are asked to write as many items as they can in one minute, from four successive categories: colors, animals, fruits and towns. The score is the total number of items written, 40 being the highest possible score. For the syntactic verbal fluency, the subjects were asked to produce as many sentences as possible in the active and passive voice from mixed words, by making the necessary changes or additions for the passive voice but keeping the same tense of the verb in both voices. The sentences given were (a) the, boy, girl, kisses, the; (b) car, the, the, washes, boy; (c) an, the, child, apple, eats; and (d) boy, the, carries, a, package. The highest possible score was 10. For the phonological verbal fluency, a spelling test was used since spelling is considered a measure of phonology (Sparks & Ganschow 1993). The subjects were asked to write down ten high frequency regular and exception English words and ten low frequency regular and exception words, previously used in another study (Graham, Patterson, & Hodges, 2000). In addition, the students were asked to report if they had obtained a professional degree in English (the Cambridge Certificate of Proficiency, the Michigan Certificate of Proficiency or both) in the past three years. So, in our sample we had 251 students who had a professional degree and 201 who did not have. The data were analyzed by a mixed-design analysis of variance (MANOVA) using sex (male–female), handedness (right–left–mixed), certificate (professional degree–no degree) and Faculty (pure sciences–exact sciences) as factors. The dependent variables were the marks obtained for the phonological, syntactical and semantic tasks in L2. The SPSS statistical programme was used to analyze the data. RESULTS A within-subjects 3 (handedness: left–right–mixed) × 2 (sex: male– female) × 2 (faculty: pure sciences–exact sciences) × 2 (certificate: professional degree–no degree) mixed-design ANOVA revealed statistically significant (p < .05) main effects for sex (F (3.000) = 3.367, p < .01) and certificate (F (3.000) = 22.448, p < .00). No statistically significant main effect for faculty alone was found but there was a statistically significant two-way interaction of sex × faculty (F (3.000) = 5.839, p < .00). Furthermore, a within-subjects mixed-design ANOVA (handedness × sex × faculty × certificate) was performed on phonological, syntactical and semantic tasks. Mean scores obtained in phonological, syntactical and semantic tasks for all factors are presented in Table I. The only statistically significant (p < .05) main effect for all three tasks was obtained for certificate (phonology: F (1) = 67.626, p < .00; syntax: F (1) = 4.128, p < .04; Certificate Professional degree Phonology∗ Semantics∗∗ Syntax∗∗∗ Faculty No degree Pure Sciences Sex Exact Sciences Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean 13.88 35.30 8.02 0.15 0.26 0.11 6.80 25.67 6.11 0.15 0.49 0.17 10.25 30.06 7.33 0.28 11.24 0.47 32.02 0.14 7.01 SD Males Mean 0.27 10.78 0.49 30.80 0.16 6.47 SD Handedness Females Mean 0.31 10.70 0.42 31.47 0.21 7.50 SD Right handed Mean 0.25 10.80 0.59 30.97 0.12 7.18 SD Left handed Mean 0.21 10.41 0.36 32.66 0.11 7.25 SD Mixed handed Mean SD 0.67 9.86 1.12 30.04 0.50 6.86 0.74 1.65 0.51 Affecting Factors in Second Language Learning Table 1. Mean Scores for Certificate, Faculty, Sex and Handedness in L2 Phonological, Semantic and Syntactical Tasks ∗ Highest possible score: 20. possible score: 40. ∗∗∗ Highest possible score:10. ∗∗ Highest 433 434 Andreou, Vlachos, and Andreou semantics: F (1) = 11.806, p < .00), indicating that subjects with a professional degree performed generally better than those who did not have, in phonological tasks (13.88 vs. 6.80), in syntactical tasks (8.02 vs. 6.11) and semantic tasks (35.30 vs. 25.67). A statistically significant main effect for syntax and semantics was obtained for sex (syntax: F (1) = 8.262, p < .00; semantics: F (1) = 5.093, p < .02), indicating that females performed better than males in syntax (7.50 vs. 6.57) and semantics (31.47 vs. 30.80). No statistically significant main effects were found for faculty and handedness when taken alone but there were two-way statistically significant interactions of handedness × certificate for semantics (F (2) = 3.992, p < .01), of sex × faculty for syntax (F (1) = 6.793, p < .00) and semantics (F (1) = 15.704, p < .00) and of faculty × certificate for syntax (F (1) = 6.123, p < .01). A three-way statistically significant interaction was also obtained for handedness × faculty × certificate for syntax only (F (2) = 3.075, p < .04). DISCUSSION Our study showed that the students who had obtained a professional degree in L2 performed better than those who did not have in all three tasks, phonology, syntax and semantics. We obtained a statistically significant main effect for certificate alone and in combination with other factors and it was the only factor for which there was a statistically significant main effect for all three linguistic tasks, indicating that the students who reached high levels in L2 showed a superiority in all three linguistic codes of the L2 system. This finding confirms earlier studies which have shown that subjects who achieve higher scores in L2 tasks have significantly stronger language aptitude skills than subjects who achieve lower L2 scores (Ganschow et al., 1991, 1994, 1998; Karapetsas & Andreou, 2001; Sparks et al., 1995). Certificate also interacted statistically significant with handedness for semantics, indicating that only in this linguistic code the three handedness groups in our sample behaved differently in combination with the acquisition of a professional degree in the L2. The fact that we did not find a statistically significant main effect for handedness alone could be explained by the fact that 67.5% of our sample was consisted of females and as it has been previously shown left handers are underrepresented in females with regard to the general population (Halpern, Haviland, & Killian, 1998; Perelle & Ehrman, 1994). However, our results confirm earlier studies which found no relationship between language abilities and relative hand preference (Bishop, 1990; Crow et al., 1998; Palmer & Corballis, 1996; Resch et al., 1997). Furthermore, some other studies claim that degrees of Affecting Factors in Second Language Learning 435 handedness are important and that left handers are less equipped for the developing of adequate phonological skills needed for reaching high levels of proficiency in L2 (Lamn, 1997; Lamn & Epstein, 1999;) and probably that’s why the combination of handedness and certificate played an important role in our results. Certificate also interacted statistically significant with faculty but only for syntax. Faculty alone did not play an important role in our results indicating that career choice was not related to L2 learning not confirming in this way our hypothesis that common learning style preferences among pure sciences might facilitate the students of Humanities into their L2 learning. This finding could be explained by the fact that as it has previously been shown (Willcoxson & Prosser, 1996), although students focus upon specific learning preferences in the context of acquiring skills related to their faculty they might focus upon different learning preferences while learning a L2. Sex was found to play an important role in our results since we obtained a statistically significant main effect for both sex alone and when it is combined with faculty. In our study, females performed better than males in both syntax and semantics confirming earlier studies which found a female advantage for verbal skills (Gordon & Lee, 1986; Stumpf, 1995), especially in semantics but not phonology (Gordon & Lee, 1986). The fact that sex combined with faculty influenced our results could be explained by studies on hemispheric specialization for language functions which reveal stronger lateralization in men than women and a female superiority on verbal tasks. Stronger verbal skills on the part of females influence their career choice leading them to choose Faculties such as Humanities which belong to pure sciences rather than exact sciences. Furthermore, although handedness and faculty alone did not play an important role in our results, when they are combined with certificate they influenced our results, especially in syntax. This finding indicates that in our study strong verbal skills needed to reach high levels in L2 combined with degrees of handedness and faculty choice, influenced our students’ performance in syntax. Our results confirm partly the results of other studies (Sparks & Ganschow, 1993) which found that the most successful L2 learners are those who have strong skills in all of the linguistic codes but they claim that it is the phonological code which has the most immediate impact on the students’ performance in L2 tasks, a finding we do not confirm. In our study, the linguistic code which was mostly influenced by all factors was syntax. This is probably related to L1 spoken by the subjects tested in L2 tasks. The L1 of our sample was Greek which is a language with free word order while the L2 tested was English, a language 436 Andreou, Vlachos, and Andreou with strict word order (Goodluck, 1986). Therefore, all our factors had an impact on syntax probably because Greek syntax is completely different from English syntax. In Greek, the same sentence may be expressed in different word orders even with the subject missing, while in English words follow a strict word order in a sentence. In conclusion, the present study provides evidence that high levels of proficiency in L2 are closely related to L2 aptitude skills which are influenced by a combination of factors such as sex, handedness and faculty choice. So, all those who are involved in L2 teaching should adopt teaching methods in their curriculum that suit the real needs of their students taking into account all these factors which seem to influence L2 learning plus the fact that there are difficulties associated with the linguistic codes of the two languages, if L2 is completely different than L1 concerning phonology, syntax and semantics. 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