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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Empirical Verification of the Relationship Between Personality Traits and EFL Attainments

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description

Although the study of personality is one of the major themes in psychology, its role in the second language acquisition (SLA) process has not been unanimously acknowledged. The overall scarcity and obscurity of research outcomes can be attributed to methodological problems and lack of firm grounding in the vast field of personality theories. Moreover, it appears that personality may not exact an easily observable, direct effect on L2 behaviours and success. This paper is an attempt to broaden the understanding of the role of personality in the SLA field. Its main aim is to establish the predictive value of the personality dimensions (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to experience, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness) for students’ EFL attainments operationalized as self-perceived levels of foreign language skills and final grades. The participants of the study were 560 secondary grammar school students who responded to a questionnaire created for the research purposes. The research revealed that the dimension predicting the two forms of EFL attainments was Openness to experience, Neuroticism predicted only self-assessed skills, while Conscientiousness and Agreeableness - final grades. It can be concluded that in most cases, a successful language student is characterised by intellectual independence and higher levels of verbal skills that underpin Openness to experience.