A learner's personal insvestment in what she/he is learning is crucial for success

A learner's personal investment in what she/he is learning is crucial for success

Investment

According to Professor B. Norton, “the construct of investment signals the socially and historically constructed relationship of learners to the target language and their sometimes ambivalent desire to learn and practice it” (Norton, 2013). Consequently, it can be said that Investment is related to how the relationship between an L2 learner and the target language has been constructed by experiences that are linked to his/her story and his/her perception of the target language. Therefore, when talking about an “ambivalent desire”, it refers to the interest that an L2 learner shows for learning, understanding and practicing the target language because it can be something desirable or undesirable. Thereby, English learners can react in different ways at the moment of learning, an element that can affect English language acquisition inside and outside the classroom.

Agency as a component of Learner’s Investment 

As it has been already mentioned, there are personal experiences that can affect learners' decision for learning English because of how they have been taught. Through these experiences, students can show High agency or Low agency.

Agency refers to the perspective in which “knowledge is seen as “constructed” through a process of taking actions in one’s environment and making adjustments to existing knowledge structures based on the outcome of those actions. The implication is that the most transformative learning experiences will be those that are directed by the learner’s own endeavors and curiosities.” (Lindgren & McDaniel, 2012) Or in other words, “Another way of thinking of learner agency is when learners have “the power to act” – when learning involves activity and initiative on the part of the learner themselves, and not just the teacher, curriculum, and/or resources, etc” (Pllc.fi.ncsu.edu, 2019). Consequently, the Agency is understood as the initiative that a student demonstrates at the moment of learning a new language, in this case, English. 

This term also helps to discriminate positive experiences from negative experiences, since the first one is related to High agency and to the fact that initiative comes from the learner, while the second one corresponds to Low agency and to the fact that initiative is not seen as something that comes from the student, but as something that has been imposed by someone else.

The following chart represents better this idea: 

It can be better understood in the following interview:

The participant is a translator who has been taught by handouts and books focused on grammar, which means that his teachers’ methodology was focused on form instead of meaning: 

¿Las clases se enfocaban más en el aspecto gramatical o en un aprendizaje significativo? Es decir ¿ estaban enfocadas en las necesidades de aprendizajes del alumno ( cómo aprendían) o en los aspectos gramaticales propios del inglés? 

“Las clases estaban más enfocadas al aspecto gramatical, de hecho aplicábamos bastante memoria. Además eran bien parecidas a las clases que dan en la universidad. No se ocupaba nada dinámico que yo recuerde”. 

These words reflect that there were not essential efforts for providing a positive experience at the moment of teaching, which means that this participant’s experience was an example of Low agency. Therefore it is possible to say that his teachers were not interested in student’s need, as a consequence the way this participant was taught was imposed: 

¿ Cómo eran tus profesores? 

“Mis profesores no eran muy empáticos la verdad; eran muy fríos. De hecho, se parecían bastante a los profesores que tuve en la universidad. Eran tan cuadrados, que no había forma de lograr que pudieran explicar más profundamente, por lo que uno se veía prácticamente obligado a aprender en el momento. Se hacía necesario entender de una la materia. Al final los profesores no eran los que se adaptaban a las necesidades de aprendizaje de los alumnos, sino que uno mismo era el que se adaptaba a la metodología de enseñanza del profesor”. 

Despite this situation, the participant claims that it was not something negative for him, because he was able to adapt himself to the circumstances and learn from that, which helped him to get used to being constantly exposed to the use of English. 

¿ En algún momento estudiaste inglés por tu cuenta o por motivación propia ?

“Lo que hacía por mi cuenta es que estaba tan acostumbrado ya al inglés (debido a que el inglés de mi colegio era bastante exigente), que mis actividades giraban en torno al inglés. De un momento a otro ya leía todo en inglés, veía videos en inglés, jugaba juegos en inglés… Y eso al final, se dio por sí solo, no fue algo que haya buscado por motivación. Se dio como consecuencia de la necesidad que se creó a un ritmo de inglés más exigente... Aún así, hoy en día mi diario vivir se da en torno al inglés. Si tengo que leer algo, lo hago en inglés; si busco información, busco en páginas extranjeras de fuentes más confiables y así tambien eso me ha ayudado a tener un mejor manejo del inglés en mi trabajo como traductor". 

These last words denote High agency since this participant took advantage of something that could have been a disadvantageous position for his L2 acquisition. Nonetheless, thanks to this later High Agency, is that nowadays his investment on the L2 has improved as well as his English acquisition as a Translator.