Personality, Motivation and Communication Strategy Use: Individual Differences in the language classroom. A Study of Language Students and Language Teachers

Abstract: Individual differences have been of special interest in the field of second language acquisition for decades. Recent studies show special interest in the stability of various individual differences. The results, however, have not proven to be coherent. This thesis aimed to investigate individual differences of Swedish students enrolled in a German course in 2011 and addressed the issue of stability and correlation, in terms of personality, motivation/attitude and communication strategy use. Furthermore, teachers' perception of their students‟ individual differences, as well the enhancement of ID factors in the language classroom were determined. The results could not verify recent criticism on previous individual difference research, since ID factors analyzed proved to be stable and to be highly correlated with each other. Especially the correlation between anxiety and extroversion, as well as communication strategy use proved to be interesting. Furthermore, a correlation between teaching practices and students' individual differences could be found.