In this section we can find different factors related to affective and cognitive aspects of our language learning. However, there are two main topics to be developed, which are: language learning motivation and learning strategies. These two factors are very important for us since they determine the success our students' learning process and our performance as educators.
  • Language Learning Motivation

According to the Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, motivation can be defined as “the driving force in any situation that leads to action” (Richards and Schmidt 2002, 343.) In language learning and teaching, however, there is a distinction between “orientation” and “motivation” itself. Orientation refers to the set of reasons for learning a language and motivation to the combination of the students’ attitudes and willingness to spend time and effort learning a language in order to satisfy his/her needs(Richards and Schmidt 2002, 343.)

According to this differentiation we can say that there are two types of motivational orientations:

  • Integrative Orientation: It refers to the desire of becoming part of the target language community. Therefore, it has to do with the learner’s attitudes towards the second language community (Spada and Lightbrown 2006, 63.)


  • Instrumental Orientation: It refers to the desire of using the target language to get a benefit from it, like getting a better job or studying abroad, etc. Therefore, these learners will perceive the communicative value of the language (Spada and Lightbrown 2006, 63.)

It has been said that students who are driven by integrative orientation are more successful in achieving a high level of proficiency of the target language, since they have intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation has to do with the enjoyment of the language learning itself (Richards and Schmidt 2002, 343,) because they want to become part of the target language community, which includes, in most cases, the appreciation of the culture itself.

On the other hand, students with instrumental orientation are less successful because their motivation is extrinsic. This means that their motivation is driven by external factors, such as parental and social expectations, academic pressures, job requirements, etc (Richards and Schmidt 2002, 343.) In this case, most students feel a lot of pressure and anxiety when they are learning a foreign language, because they are trying to fulfill imposed expectations rather than their own goals.

In most cases, the main reasons why students want to learn a foreign or second language are the following ones:





There are several factors that influence motivation, which can make it grow or decrease. One of these factors is self-esteem, which can be defined as the judgment of your personal value determined by the perception of your own competences in certain areas (global self-esteem) and the relevance of those areas within the society. This factor is very important, since people who have high self-esteem most of the time feel very confident about their own capacities. However, sometimes this self-esteem can be diminished when the language learning environment is threatening or unpleasant, which is a phenomenon called situational self-esteem.

Another important factor is anxiety, which can be defined as a “subjective feeling of apprehension and fear with language learning and use” (Richards and Schmidt 2002, 285.) However, there are two types of anxiety, which are: debilitating and facilitating anxiety. The first one is the type of anxiety you feel when you are intimidated by the task you are asked to fulfill, which leads to a poor performance and a consequent increase of anxiety. On the other hand, facilitating anxiety is the one that stimulates the student to try harder and perform better (Oxford, 251.) So, it increases the students’ motivation to succeed in the assigned task. This affective factor has been broadly studied by many scholars who have tried to discover whether anxiety is a feeling that is always there or if it varies according to different situations. However, most of the studies have demonstrated that anxiety is a dynamic feature which varies according to the context. For instance, that is why some students feel intimidated when they have to present orally in front of the whole class, but they feel very relaxed when they are asked to work alone.


As a conclusion, motivation is an internal process, which can only be activated by the individual, and if the person is not motivated, there is little we, as teacher, can do. However, our task is to try to engage our students in the activities we prepare. So, if we want our students to participate actively in our lesson, we need to:

If you wish to see this more clearly just click on it.

If we follow these very basic steps, there is a big chance that we can engage our students’ attention and increase their motivation, which will facilitate a great deal our teaching task.



  • Learning Strategies



Learning strategies can be defined as steps, actions, behaviours, and operations used by learners to improve their learning process and use of the new language. Many scholars have tried to classify learning strategies, but one feature that most of then agree on is that there are direct and indirect learning strategies. Direct strategies are the ones that require a direct processing of the language, which function in different ways. According to Oxford, there are 3 main direct learning strategies:



Indirect strategies have to do with the capacity of managing, regulating and supporting our language learning. Oxford also identifies 3 of them:


Some other taxonomies are the ones proposed by:

  • Rubin: Learning Strategies
    Communication Strategies
    Social Strategies
    Cognitive Strategies
    Metacognitive Strategies

  • O’Malley: Metacognitive Strategies
    Cognitive Strategies
    Socioaffective Strategies

All of these classifications include at least the cognitive, metacognitive and affective strategies, which shows that although there are many classifications, learning strategies are easy to identify, since they are used repeatedly by all human beings.

The use of strategies is affected by many factors, such as motivation, gender, age, type of task, culture, etc. So, once again, the teacher has to be aware of all of these factors which could be affecting in a negative way the learning process. Especially in Chile, most students are not aware of their own learning strategies and that is why they do poorly at school, particularly in language classes.


According to Oxford, good learners are capable of using different strategies at the same time so as to optimize their learning process. They are also capable of choosing the appropriate strategy according to the task they have to do, apart from being able to explain the choice of that specific strategy. In short, good learners are aware of their own strategies and the ones they have to use to learn successfully. Therefore, what teachers have to do is to train their students in order to make them aware of the strategies that suit them the best, according to their own learning styles and according to the skill or task to be developed. In fact, there are specific learning strategies for every type of perceptual learning style, as we can see in this video:

Finally, the best way of training our students in strategy use is by introducing the use of strategies in the same activities we prepare for the language class. For instance, if we are teaching writing, we have to tell them to think about the topic, to plan, paraphrase, revise, etc; which are all strategies related to that specific skill. This training should also include explicit explanations of the usefulness of each strategy so that the students can know exactly what the strategy is for when practicing it. Finally, the teacher should come up with some mechanism to evaluate the performance of the students in order to individualize the process and help each learner according to his /her own characteristics.