LANGUAGE IN INDIA

The Interaction between Field Dependent/Independent Learning Styles and Learners’ Linguality in
Third Language Acquisition

Mojtaba Maghshudi, Ph.D. Candidate

Abstract

Field Independent hinges on the perceptual skill of "seeing the forest for the trees." A person who can easily recognize the hidden castle or human face in 3-D posters and a child who can spot the monkeys camouflaged within the trees and leaves of an exotic forest in coloring books tend toward a field independent style. The "field" may be perceptual or it may be abstract, such as a set of ideas, thoughts, or feelings from which the task is to perceive specific subsets. Field dependence is, conversely, the tendency to be "dependent" on the total field so that the parts embedded within the field are not easily perceived, though that total field is perceived most clearly as a unified whole.

In the present study the interaction between the learners’ learning styles and their linguality in language acquisition was investigated. Results of data analysis indicated that there is a significant difference between dependent and independent students in their English Achievement Test scores, while there is NO significant interaction between students’ learning styles and gender in their English Achievement Test scores. And also it was indicated that there is NO significant interaction between students’ learning styles and their linguality in English Achievement Test scores.

Key words: Dependent / Independent learner- Liguality-Language acquisition

Introduction

Witkin (1973), a pioneer in learning styles, defined learning style in terms of a process. He argued that learning styles are concerned with the form rather than the content of the learning activity. Learning style refers to individual differences in how we perceive, think, solve problems, and learn. Witkin spent a great deal of his academic career developing measures of learning style.

Witkin’s work concentrated on determining to what extent a person's perception of an item was influenced by the surrounding field in which the item appeared. He wanted to determine if some people saw the tree, while others saw the forest. According to him whereas field-dependent people see the forest, field-independent learners see the tree within the forest.

In theory, there exist as many learning styles as there are learners, and the practical implication of learning styles for teaching-learning interaction are numerous.

Nevertheless, in recent years, only a few of the possible number of styles have received the attention of L2 researchers; one of the most well researched areas is "fieldindependence" (FI) or "field dependence" (FD). FI / FD refers to how people perceive and memorize information (Chapelle 1995).

Imagine you have just arrived in a foreign country whose language you neither speak nor read. You are at the airport and your contact person is not there to meet you. To make matters worse, your luggage is missing. It is 2 A.M. and airport staffs are scarce, and those that are present do not speak English. What will you do? Your response to this question will depend largely on the "cognitive styles" you happen to bring to bear, your general predisposition toward processing new information or challenges in a particular way (Skehan 1991). For instance, if you are "ambiguity tolerant," your unfortunate circumstances will not easily fluster you. If you are "reflective," you will exercise patience. If you are "field independent," you will be able to focus on the relevant details and not be distracted by unnecessary details (Brown: 1994).

Students can enhance their learning power by being aware of style areas in which they feel less comfortable, work on the development of these, and thus provide avenues to foster their intellectual growth (Eliason in Kang: 1999). Similarly, teachers can identify strong style patterns in their classes and make effective use of such information by devising lesson plans, which accommodate individual learning style preferences. Robert Wyss (2002) has created the following learning styles checklist to enable teachers of EFL to gauge their learners' tendencies towards FI/FD. This kind of assessment does indicate students' preferred general learning styles. Learners whose responses tend toward the right-hand side of the list, indicate a preference for FD, conversely, those who check more on the left show a preference for FI.

FIELD INDEPENDENT/DEPENDENT CHECKLIST

Instructions to L2 learners: Check one box in each item that best describes you. Boxes A and E would indicate that the sentence is very much like you. Boxes B and D would indicate that the sentence is more or less like you. Box C would indicate that you have no particular inclination one way or the other or a combination of both.

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