SYNTHESIS ON KRASHEN’S MONITOR MODEL: THE AFFECTIVE FILTER HYPOTHESIS

SYNTHESIS ON KRASHEN’S MONITOR MODEL:

THE AFFECTIVE FILTER HYPOTHESIS

By Luh Ketut Sri Widhiasih

Program Pasca Sarjana, Universitas Pendidikan Ganesha



Stephen Krashen is one of the expert in linguistic who is concern in studying second language acquisition. His most popular theory that he proposed is a model which is called Monitor Model. Schutz (2007) reported that in Monitor Model, Krashen constitutes five hypothesis, namely (1) the acquisition learning hypothesis, (2) the monitor hypothesis, (3) the natural order hypothesis, (4) the input hypothesis, and (5) the affective filter hypothesis. The focus of this paper is on one of Krashen’s Monitor Model hypothesis, namely the affective filter hypothesis. In this hypothesis, Krashen states that affective filter play an important role in acquiring a second language, but it has not a causal role. It also believes that when the filter of affective is done, it will disturb the process of acquisition. Lagos and Almuna (2010) reported Krashen believe that when the affective filter is high, the learners will be failed in achieving their target language. Based on Schutz’s report (2007), Krashen divides the affective variables into: motivation, self-confidence and anxiety. Du (2009) in his report added attitude in those variables. Different with Krashen and Du, Andres (2002) also added self-esteem and inhibition into it.

Motivation is something that motivates someone to do something. Lagos and Almuna (2010) reported that person should has effort and desire to get the target language, it is called the person has motivation. There are two kinds of motivation that reported by Lagos and Almuna (2010). First, instrumental motivation is a motivation to learn a second language with a purpose to get better life or job. This motivation comes from outside the learners. Second, integrate motivation is a motivation to learn a second language because the learners want to have relationship or communication with the native of L2. This motivation comes from the learners themselves. Moreover, integrate motivation should be increased because it will help the learners to learn their target language.

The attitude toward the second language is also important to be discussed. When the learners have positive attitude toward the target language, they will achieve the target language faster than the learners that have negative attitude. By having positive attitude, the learners open them selves to receive input about the second language. In this case the affective filter is low. Also, Du (2009) reported that attitude puts an effect on the learners’ commitment in learning that second language. The learners who have positive attitude commonly have a strong commitment to learn, so that the will not easily give up when they find some struggles in learning the second language. That condition can happened vise versa when the learners have negative attitude. Moreover, Du (2009) explained that the positive attitude of the learner can make them more active in teaching learning process. The teacher of L2 should facilitate the learners’ positive attitude to be faster get the target language.

To make the learners in a low anxiety is one of the teacher’s duties when they want their learners’ success in learning a second language. Du (2009) reported that there are correlations between anxiety and performance. Further, anxiety has three sub-divisions; as a good teacher, the teacher should know in order to able to handle the problems. First is communication apprehension. The learners have a high anxiety when they ask to communicate in using the target language. As an illustration, the learners will find trouble in expressing their thinking to the target language’s word. This condition will make the learners silent and shy. Then, the anxiety also increases when the learners ask to face a kind of test. This is called test anxiety. This condition can be caused of unreadiness of the learners or the negative experience of the learners in facing a test. The teacher should prepare the learners for this condition by building high self-confidence so that the learners can have positive attitude toward the test. The third kind of anxiety is fear of negative evaluation. Not only have the learners of L2, but also people in general often had a fear to be criticized or evaluated by others. They tend to do nothing rather than get negative evaluation. This condition is really dangerous to be happened in the learning process of L2, because it means that the learners will never learn from their mistakes. It is important for the teacher to build positive attitude of the learners so that they will open them selves to be criticized by others to get input in the process of their success.

Besides anxiety, there are two more affective variables that can be a struggle in learning L2, they are self-esteem and inhibition. Andres (2009) reported that “Inhibition is closely related to self-esteem: the weaker the self-esteem; the stronger the inhibition to protect the weak ego.” It can be said that the learner with a low self-esteem will less success in learning L2, and vice versa. The self-esteem is important as a barricade of believing about the strength of one self. If the learners believe them selves can be successful learners, it will build their self-confidence to learn L2. The high self esteem makes the high self confidence. The learners who have a high self-confidence believe them selves can successfully achieve the target language, because they dare to take a risk to make a mistake in practicing their target language.

Further, Krashen in Cabello (2007) suggests that adolescence and puberty may not be good periods for SLA, as this ‘affective filter’ arises out of self-conscious reluctance to reveal oneself and feelings of vulnerability. The inference would be that starting to learning a language as a teenager would be a bad idea. In contrast, Greg in Romeo (-)claimed that Krashen seems to indicate that perhaps the affective filter is associated with the emotional upheaval and hypersensitivity of puberty, but Gregg notes that this would indicate that the filter would slowly disappear in adulthood, which Krashen does not allow for. McLaughlin (1987) in Fry (-) also does not support Krashen’s idea. In fact, it suggests early adolescence is the best time to start learning a second language. In his evaluation McLaughlin rejects the Affective Filter Hypothesis by saying Krashen has “provided no coherent explanation for the development of the affective filter and no basis for relating the affective filter to individual differences in language learning”

As discussed above, it could be concluded that Krashen’s affective filter hypothesis explain some affective variables that can influence the learners in second language acquisition. There are some variables such as motivation, attitude, anxiety, self-esteem, inhibition and self-confidence. However, there are also a critic towards Krashen’s hypothesis. Greg in Romeo (-) and McLaughing (1987) in Fry (-) claimed that early adolescence is the best time to start learning a second language. Further, he claimed that Krashen does not have coherent explanation and basic of his affective filter hypothesis.

The writer accepts Krashen’s affective filter hypothesis that say by minimizing the affective filter of the learners will make the learners faster to get the target language. However, the writer doubt with Krashen’s idea that says adolescence and puberty may not be good periods for SLA. It is because Krashen does not include evidence in supporting his idea.




References



Andres, Veronica de. 2002. The Influence of Affective Variables on EFL/ESL Learning and Teaching. http://www.njcu.edu/cill/vol7/andres.html

Cabello, Jose Luis. 2007. Is Krashen’s Monitor Theory No Longer Valid?. http://englishteachinglab.blogspot.com/2007/04/is-krashens-monitor-theory-no-longer.html

Du, Xiaoyan. 2009. The Affective Filter in Second Language Teaching. China. www. Ccsenet.org/journal.html.

Fry, Collin. ---. Second Language Acquisition-Krashen and His Critics.

Lagos, Nicole Amigo and Almuna, Juan Jara. 2010. The Importance of Motivation in SLA. http://syntaxrules.blogspot.com/2010/07/importance-of-motivation-in-sla.html.

Romeo, Ken. --. Krashen and Terrell’s “Natural Approach” by, http://www.stanford.edu/~kenro/LAU/index.htm Schutz, Ricardo. 2007. Stephen Krashen’s Theory of Second Language Acquisition. http://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash.html