Year: 2023
Type: dissertation
Abstract: In the current technological era, connection among people spread \nthroughout the globe is the norm more than the exception and knowing \nlanguages has become a necessary tool for professional, educational, \nand social endeavors. To strengthen foreign language knowledge and \nuse, many educational systems have implemented English courses as a \ncore subject. For instance, the Spanish educational system has had \nbilingual programs since 2004 in elementary and secondary schools \n(Palacios-Hidalgo, 2020). Nevertheless, while younger generations have \nthe opportunity, tools, and motivation to acquire English to a high level \nof proficiency, successfully learning a language during adulthood is \nchallenging and subject to strong variation among individuals. \nAdvocates of the critical period hypotheses have focused much of \ntheir research on evidencing the difficulties in successfully achieving \nnative-like proficiency after a certain age (Johnson & Newport, 1994; \nHartshorne et al., 2018). However, language learning research has \nfocused on understanding the variability associated with successful \nlearning (Van Patten & Williams, 2015). As a result of these recent \ndevelopments, different factors have been found to modulate language \nlearning during adulthood, both intrinsic and extrinsic to the learner. \nIndividual differences in cognitive abilities, especially those associated \nwith memory abilities, cognitive (executive) control, and general \nintelligence, have been investigated in terms of their roles as intrinsic \nmodulatory factors in successful learning. The main goal of this \ndissertation is to explore the complex interaction between intrinsic \n(individual differences) and extrinsic (learning condition, \ndifficulty/complexity of the material, and testing time) factors in \nsuccessful grammar learning during adulthood.
Author: Rivera Zurita, Marta
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7021119261