EXTRA-LINGUISTIC ELEMENTS IN LEARNING SECOND LANGUAGE

Rohaidah Kamaruddin¹⁺ --- Muhammad Nur Akmal Rosli²--- Tuan Nur Aisyah Tuan Abdul Hamid³--- Nor Sahayu Hamzah⁴--- Minah Mohammed Salleh⁵

^1,2,3,4,5Faculty of Modern Language and Communication, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia.

Keywords: Second language, Motivation, Emotion, Attitudes and personality.

ARTICLE HISTORY: Received:2 September 2019Revised:7 October 2019Accepted:14 November 2019 Published: 12 December 2019 .

Contribution/ Originality:This research is based on the researcher own experience in teaching English as a second language, including the privilege of teaching Japanese as a third language. This research is first of its type to help teachers and educators to identify extra linguistic elements that would influence students in learning a second language. Teachers and educators who manage to identify these elements would be able to create and provide a conducive and interesting learning environment to help students acquire and learn a second language.

1. INTRODUCTION

Extra-linguistic is part of education psycholinguistics. The Free Dictionary (2010) defines extra-linguistic as a common knowledge needed to understand one speech or pronunciation. Meanwhile according to Schmidt (2010) extra-linguistic is a language situation outside of the linguistic sphere but still in the scope of language learning as its elements such as motivation, emotion, attitude, personality are taken into account to learn a language and prove useful in helping students to learn a certain language. This study is an attempt to understand these elements in the light of L2 acquisition.

Extra-linguistic is also not something that is foreign to the domain of education nor can both be separated, especially from the domain of language education. Learning more than one language is an advantage for students to know more of a language, its culture and difference in thinking between native speakers and second language speakers. It is premised in this study that extra-linguistic elements have strong pulling factors for students to appreciate the language and culture of a second language.

1.1. Second Language Acquisition

The researcher is an experienced English teacher teaching English as Second Language in rural areas around Malaysia. Rural students need more attention from their English teachers as this language is not widely used. Hence, teachers’ sensitivity and concern about the second language learners (SLL) needs could help them to succeed in learning a second language.

Fogle and Moser (2017) in their research showed that foreign language (FL) and English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching presented considerable challenges in the rural U.S. South. Local language ideologies, budgetary considerations, and challenges in other curricular areas (e.g., math and science) leading to marginalizing both FL and ESL in schools. They examined the personal and professional trajectories of in-service language teachers in K–12 settings in the state of Mississippi to better understand how participants conceptualize their practice and their roles in schools. By analyzing the interview discourse of nine teachers, they found that both ESL and FL teachers positioned themselves against dominant ideologies and educational policies and constructed themselves as agents of change in the classroom, school, and community at large. This study contributes to the argument for integrating FL and ESL in rural areas, where both groups need support, and provides suggestions for ESL-FL teacher collaboration in rural schools.

In Malaysia, English language teaching has faced a lot of challenges especially in the rural areas as the language itself is rarely spoken. This creates hurdles among teachers to fully maximize the teaching hours in their classroom for the teaching purposes, but they have to spend a large amount of time doing translation. In most cases, dual languages are used during teaching practices. One of the main contributions toward the problem itself is the small amount of exposure for learners to practice the language (English language) beyond the school walls and compounds. These limitations surely contribute toward the lack of abilities in mastering the English language as the second language in Malaysia.

University Putra Malaysia through its Malay Department of Modern Language Faculty offers Malay subject as one of the compulsory requirements for graduates. The researchers found out that students tend to memorize the language rather than practice it because they are more concerned about the graduating requirements only. To make Malay learning more interesting, teachers or lecturers must arouse their interests by motivating, inculcating positive attitude and understanding their different emotions and needs from different background and countries.

Husna and Rohaidah (2016) examined the personality factors as extra-linguistic factors influencing the second language learning among foreign students. The sample was about 150 foreign students from 5 public universities in Malaysia. The findings of the study show that the foreign students are motivated to succeed from their strong internal strengths. It shows that they are influenced by intrinsic motivation whenever they are asked to choose colors and they tend to choose green, red and yellow. According to Max Luscher, those who chose these colors are willing to do anything to achieve success or life goals. The similarities of the personality’s descriptions of these colors are molded by internal strength.

Inspired by such findings, the current study was premised and an Extra-linguistic Model Figure 1 was constructed based on the findings that motivate language teachers to teach, in particular, the first, second or third language or which can help them in language teaching and learning process, in general.

Figure-1. Extra-linguistic Model in learning second language.

Source: Based on Rohaidah Kamaruddin experience.

Figure 1 shows how a language learner’s heart and intrinsic motivation is instrumental in whether or not a language learner is willing to learn a second language. However, obstacles such as the environmental factor (E) and the mother tongue (MT) also hinder one’s motivations to learn another language. Extra-linguistic elements such as motivation, attitudes, personality and emotion play a major role in determining the readiness of the learners in learning the language. Gardner (1985) stated that motivation is the combination of attempt plus desire to obtain the aim of learning a language as well as having favorable attitude toward learning the language. Meanwhile, attitude is accepted as an important concept to understand human behavior and is defined as a mental state that includes beliefs and feelings (Latchanna and Dagnew, 2009) which is significant in preparing someone in and during the process of the language learning. Positive attitude contributes toward the positive reception of the language learnt.

Positive exposure allows the learners to willingly accept the process of the learning of the language. Students with high abilities (especially from intelligence and language skill aspect) will be more successful in learning language compared to students that received negative extra-linguistic influences. They have to work harder, pay more attention to the task, set goals, instill more interests towards learning and be more confident with their achievement.

Students that have been influenced positively will show more interests to learn the second language. These positive influences would increase the students’ willingness and motivations to study and to learn better. Furthermore, parents with high incomes are willing to pay any price for the benefits of their children’ education. Undeniably, students’ achievements are heavily depending on their instincts to succeed or not. Thus in order to ensure the objectives are achieved, extra-linguistic motivation such as attitude, personality and emotion are essential requirements.

2. OBJECTIVES OF RESEARCH

Based on the researchers’ experience in teaching English as the second language, extra-linguistic elements such as motivation, attitude, personality and emotion can be deemed undeniably vital for students who wish to learn English as their second language. In order to illustrate the significance of these elements in learning a second language, this study has been designed with the following objectives:

1. To examine the motivation level of foreign students towards Malay language learning (Motivation).
2. To examine how students’ attitude is instrumental towards language learning (Attitude).
3. To examine how students’ personality influences language learning (Personality).
4. To examine how emotions play a role in language learning (Emotion).

3. METHODOLOGY

This study is descriptive and exploratory in nature. In this conceptual study, the researchers have adopted observations, prior studies, as well as the researchers’’ prior experiences to carry out the research and collect the relevant data. Sampling and population of the study were the foreign learners pursuing their degree/diploma programs in Malaysia and required to pursue a compulsory Malay language course as a graduation requirement.

4. SECOND LANGUAGE EXTRA-LINGUSITIC ELEMENTS

i. Motivation

Al Khalidi (2019) in his research addressed the phenomenon of motivation in English as Foreign Language classroom as an essential strategy within the area of English Language Teaching (ELT). The study aimed at exploring the factors that affect the students’ learning and from the perspectives of students who are involved in a learning situation. The study drew on the paradigm of interpretive employing its epistemology and philosophy as an underpinning stance. In order to gain better information, the researcher used the method of semi-structured interviews with the student sample. Interpretations of the student data showed that the students referred to a variety of factors that affect their motivations in the classroom. Based on the findings of data analysis, the study offers a number of implications and suggestions that are of valuable for teachers who are involved in the process of ELT.

Ayuni and Rohaidah (2016) conducted a study on dominant second language extra-linguistic factors in learning a second language. Researchers were keen to study the motivation as one of the main factors in extra-linguistic. As a continuation of these efforts, researchers were trying to analyze intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as most dominant factors in learning a second language. The sample consisted of a group of 150 foreign students from 27 countries in several public universities in Malaysia. For foreign students, studying Malay language is important because they will be able to interact more easily with native speaker of Malay language. The results of observations and field studies showed that foreign students choose such questions that hint at the dominant intrinsic motivation variable. On the other hand, a few foreign students who have a problem understanding something in their Malay language class, and who always ask their teachers for help and their level of their dependence on teachers is high, for them extrinsic motivation is the dominant variable. Overall, intrinsic motivation among foreign students are in the highest level compared to extrinsic motivation.

Based on Ayuni and Rohaidah (2016) the study findings on the analysis of items for intrinsic motivation approaches in Malay language learning are listed in Figure 2 the results of which the researchers explained in Figure 2.

Figure-2.Percentage of intrinsic motivation in Malay language learning.

Source: Based on Rohaidah Kamaruddin experience.

In this study, motivation of the foreign students towards Malay language learning can be divided into two parts which are intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Figure 2 shows percentage for items 1-7 which are related to intrinsic motivation. Based on the study, five factors which influence students’ intrinsic motivation the most are sequenced as follows: “When I have a problem understanding something in my Malay language class, I always ask my teacher for help” (130 people/86.67%), “I wish I could speak Malay languages perfectly” (128 people/85.33%), “I would really like to learn Malay languages” (124 people/82.67%), “I make a point of trying to understand all the Malay language I see and hear” (122 people/81.33%), and “Learning Malay language is really great” (122 people/81.33%). Meanwhile two factors, which received the least responses, are as follows: “I really work hard to learn Malay language” (118 people/78.67%) and “I wish I could read newspaper and magazines in Malay languages” (116 people/77.33%). The reason why this study is discussed in this research is due to the fact that similar research on extra-linguistic elements have not been carried out in Malaysia, as it is an area which is yet to be explored among second language acquisition researchers. Thus, it is necessary to discuss the findings to provide input for the researchers on how intrinsic motivation is influential in second language acquisition.

ii. Attitude

Previous researchers have given several definitions regarding attitude. One of them is Thurstone, the pioneer of attitude measurement. He defined attitude as: “ the intensity of positive or negative affect for or against a psychological object” (Kiesler et al., 1969).

Based on the interpretation, we can define one’s attitude as the effect of likeness or disagreement towards any situation of object given. Philip and Michael (1991) defined attitude as a system that has four interactive components such as behaviour, purpose of behaviour, cognitive and reaction of feelings, behaviour is anything that we do and how we portray it. It same goes with the purpose of a certain attitude and a certain action from that certain behaviour. Cognitive is the existing knowledge, does not matter whether the knowledge is valid or not. These components are closely related and if a change happens to one component, the rest of the other components will change towards a new perception accordingly.

Amina et al. (2018) carried out their research on Learner Attitude towards EFL Learning to evaluate the attitudes of the students of University of Gujrat towards ESL about emotional, behavioral and cognitive factors. It also investigated what attitudes students show towards ESL regarding their gender. There were 158 (95 females and 63 males) students from three different departments including Fine Arts, Design, and Architecture. The questionnaire was used as an instrument that contains 30 items to meet our goal. Findings reveal that the students of the University of Gujrat have a negative attitude to learn English as a second language.

Ahmed (2015) analyses the result of a survey on 238 undergraduate EFL students at a public university in Malaysia. The survey focused on their attitude towards English learning and causes that might have hindered their learning. For data collection, a 19 item questionnaire was designed and administered on 238 students. The objective of this study was to investigate (1) The attitudes of the learners towards the use of English in different areas; (2) Causes that may have influenced the effect of English learning for students (3) Perspectives of English learning among non-major English learners in Malaysia. Results of the qualitative analysis show that the attitude towards English language learning and using the language in various domains of usage is extremely positive. The data also revealed that most of the students had negative feelings or fear regarding classroom instructions in their learning experience. Students of different fields varied in attitudes towards English language learning in terms of domains of usage and focus of learning skills, which shows that a single curriculum or teaching methodology is not adequate. Several suggestions have been made regarding teaching methodology, curriculum, teaching materials, and the status of English in Malaysia from this point of view.

iii. Personality

Hossein (2018)  has done his research about personality traits and learner success and in this issue of Language Training Research, he presented five articles, most of them addressing in one way or another the relationship between learner variables, including various personality traits, and learner success. The first study by Rassaei investigates the role of first language glosses in enhancing second language (L2) vocabulary learning. The study has two specific aims: to determine whether different modes of first language (L1) glossing (textual and audio) would differentially affect students’ vocabulary learning, and whether the effectiveness of the type of glossing varies depending on the learners’ perceptual styles (auditory versus visual). The study is motivated by the idea that L1 glossing is helpful and that matching the modes of glossing with learners perceptual learning styles would enhance their learning. Two groups of students with either visual or auditory perceptual styles participated in the study, each receiving different types of glossing. The study found that audio glosses were more effective than textual glosses. Furthermore, a significant interaction effect was found for the type of learning style. Audio glosses were most effective when combined with an auditory learning style. However, no superior effect was found when textual glosses were combined with a visual learning style. These findings suggest that modes of glossing interact with learners’ learning style preferences in affecting L2 vocabulary acquisition. Important implications are that L1 glosses assist L2 vocabulary learning and that vocabulary instruction may be further enhanced if teachers make use of audio glosses.

Max (1981) used color personality to obtain the compatibility of students’ personality with the interpretation of their favorite color. The color personality avoids students from facing psychological stress while learning the L2. The colors are arranged in a situation, which prompts an individual to choose a color spontaneously based on his impulse subconsciously. Seven colors used in this test are blue, green, red, yellow, purple, black and brown. Color Test was introduced by Max (1981) is a test that can measure a person’s mental situation physically (psychophysical) as well as the ability of a person in handling stress, standing out and communicating. This test is also able to detect cause markers of psychological stress which focuses on physical signs. Max Luscher states that sensory view on color is objective and shared by all human beings on this Earth. However, interest in a color is subjective and Color Test enables subjective situation changes to objective. Color Test also gives extra verbal information and homeopathy therapy because the chosen color   chosen by the respondents illustrates their physical and mental condition. The color of red portrays that a person is energetic and highly motivated in something. Those who chose this as their first option are the ones who are ambitious and highly motivated to win. Red also causes a person to always want to improve and enjoy life fully. Those who chose red as seventh or eighth choices, gives a picture of a person who accept things as they are and dislike adventure in life.
Max (1981) states that yellow can be related with happiness and serenity while those who put this color  at the second, third or fourth place are persons who are optimistic and positive and someone who value the future. This makes them visionary. They believe that this life is simple and problem-free. Nevertheless, this does not mean that those who chose yellow are lazy people because at times, they are the ones who are the most hardworking. Someone who puts yellow as his first choice is a highly ambitious person and likes to please others. While those who chose yellow as their seventh or eighth choice, illustrates a person who has his hopes dashed, isolated and does not mix much with others.

The personality of a person who chooses green is seen as a person who is affirmative and refuses to change. Those who chose this color is a person who likes to control others and selfish. However, they are people who are high achievers and like to collect wealth. They like to show off and known and afraid of failures. Those who chose green as their last choice, are those who have their ego bruised, like to criticize, cynical and stubborn.
The combination of red and blue will form purple. Those who chose purple are people who are forceful but they have calm, dominant and obedient characteristics. They are also portrayed as people who are immature mentally and physically and always in a fantasy world. If they chose purple as the last option, they are mature and ready to go through the reality of life.

Brown illustrates the level of health of a person as well as his physical condition. Those who chose this color as the fourth or fifth are people who do not care about the level of their health as they always be in good health. On the other hand, those who chose purple as their first or second are really worried about sickness that they have. However, those who chose brown as their favorite color means that they have lack of self-confidence and cannot sit still. If brown is put as the eight choices, it indicates people who do not give attention to their body and health. This is the reason why they do not have good level of health.

Next, grey illustrates a neutral situation and has a meeting point of two different types of motivation. If grey is made as the first choice, it gives a picture of a person who does not want to mix with the society and refuses to give commitment as he is able to change his mind and emotion based on situation. Those who chose this color are those who do not want to be involved in anything that has the ‘group’ connotation but prefer to be observers rather than being the spark for certain work. In the meantime, those who chose grey as the eight places are those who like to be involved, have interest and highly motivated. They will do anything to achieve their goals.

Blue is synonym with serenity and loyalty. Those who love this color are easily hurt and can be said as sensitive. They are not easily panicked, able to control their life well and comfortable with the life that they have now. They are willing to sacrifice anything to get achieve their serenity as they do not like complication in their life. They also need a stable and conflict-free relationship. However, if blue is made as seventh or eighth choice, it shows someone who is unsatisfied and dislikes his life and has the need to get away from the noose that ties him. He is also someone who is unwilling to leave his family or occupation and prefer to keep his feelings bottled up.

Finally, in Colour Test of Max (1981) black means ‘no’. Those who chose black as their first choice is someone who is against his fate. While those who chose black as their second choice are those who are willing to let go of everything in order to gain their dreams. If this color is put at the seventh or eighth place, it shows someone who can control his fate and a person who has a balance view on life and future.
According to Reid (1998) personality and emotion of a person will be fully involved when he learns a second language. Eight selected personalities mentioned previously create a type of psychology that has value and responsibility while learning a second language. The following are the learning styles while learning a second language:

1. The Extroversion: Extrovert students will learn effectively through concrete experience, relationship with the outside world as well as with others. They appreciate group and classroom interaction that are done with other students. This type of student is willing to take risk in communicating but it depends on the interaction and outside stimulation.
2. The Introversion: This type of students is quiet. They learn effectively in private situations that involve ideas and concepts. Their strength can be seen in their ability to focus on current task and self-competency. However, they need to process ideas before talking which sometimes prevent them from taking language risk in conversation.
3. The Sensing: Students of this type learn effectively based on factual report and events. They prefer physical input based on physical senses. They are willing to work hard systematically with every detailed particular. However, their task is will not progress if the sequence, goal or structure in the language or language course is vague.
4. The Intuitive: Intuitive students will learn effectively through perceptive comprehension, the use of their imagination and general concept. Their strength is based on their ability to guess from context, structuring their own exercise, concept assumption and model development. However, their learning will be obstructed with inaccuracy and loss of important details.
5. The Thinking: A student will easily learn L2 effectively when his learning process is personal and has logical imprint. The strength of this type of students depends on self-discipline and ability to analyze. They also face worry about their reputation as they put their self-value on their life achievement.
6. The Feeling: This type of students will learn effectively by practising personal situations and social values while learning L2. They also have their strength where their strong desire to depend on teachers. This situation causes them to have good relationship and high self-value. They will be upset if they are not appreciated thus affecting their individual harmony.
7. The Judgment: This kind of students will learn effectively by using reflection, analysis, and termination process. Their strength is the ability to handle task systematically and enthusiastically the given task. However, they will suffer due to rigidity, intolerant attitude and incompetence.
8. The Perception: This kind of students will learn effectively if they experience negotiation process, feelings and inductive process that postpones termination. Their strength depends on their openness, flexibility and ability to change or adapt to the new experience. They could experience laziness and inconsistent works speed in the long run.

Reid (1998) also stated the learning strategies based on the personality which are useful in helping the learners in learning the second language. Every student is unique to their learning preferences based on their personality. The Extroversion students will study in groups, as this style is more effective than studying alone. Stimulus accepted from group learning enables them to understand a new concept better. While, the introversion students can study better when they are alone.  They are able to think better and analyze deeper easily when they study alone. They prefer to use computer for research and review. There are also The Sensing: Students will arrange their learning preparation including time for all matters that include language aspects- grammar, vocabulary exercise and dialogues as well as time for review. The Intuitive: Students will not be stuck in grammar. They only need to get main key points and continue with their language learning. The Thinking: Students will ask other students to explain to them when there are grammar rules or vocabulary definitions that are not clear and confusing. Then, the Thinker will do their own summary. The Feeling: Students will invite teachers to come to their house, dine or go out together to build good relationship with the teachers. Teachers like to be friend with this kind of students and appreciate those who have interest in their own personal importance. The Judgment: The judgment will ask other students to help them to determine realistic and short term goals so that they will be able to see the progress.  The Perception: Students assume that second language must be learned in a fun way. However, they will be more careful and not too relaxed. By understanding these, teachers can design suitable learning scheme and learning plans for the students which will help them in learning the second language better.

Goldberg (1990) updated the Big Five Personality traits which were obtained from empirical study. Big Five is a descriptive model that tells about personality. Big Five is divided into five components; Openness to Experience, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Agreeableness. The first personality trait mentioned is the ‘Openness to experience”. This simple means that the students are open to any changes and new ideas that may be presented in the learning process itself. Having students who are positively open toward changing would give the L2 language teachers the opportunities to design better lessons and learning experiences for the students. Openness is always inter-related with imaginativeness, thinking the bigger picture (broad-minded) and has the sensibility in terms of artistically. Students with extraversion trait are mainly friendly; possess positive attitudes, enthusiastic and ready for action in the learning. These students will remain interested in the lessons and the L2 learning processes. Being talkative give them the privilege to have good grasp in learning the L2. Meanwhile the conscientiousness trait is more on the responsible, futuristic and systematic students. The forth one is the neuroticism trait, which involves negative emotions such as anxiety, anger and stress. These type of trait portrays by the students who are easily get distracted, stressful and always in unstable mood. The final trait is agreeableness. For the students who has this trait, they tend to be considerate, friendly, generous, helpful and are able to compromise in a lot of situations and circumstances, they are good in their nature, cheerful and gentle (Judge et al., 1999).

iv. Emotion

Reid (1998) stated that emotion is influenced by anxiety (high/low), attitude (positive/negative), motivation (strong/weak), self-confidence, determination and sense of responsibility. Reid (1998) emphasises that emotion is closely related to the type of student’s personality. Emotion is an internal aspect that influences a student’s learning style. The lower of anxiety of a student will increase the level of second language acquisition.  If a student has high emotion control, his language learning will be more effective. Dunn & Dunn (2004) in Rohaidah (2012) stated that there are many factors that can influence someone’s emotion such as motivation, determination, responsibility and structure. The implication from this responsibility aspect will illustrate the student’s emotion and the need for teachers to always alert with students’ attitude so that the teaching and learning process can achieve the set target. Structure or attitude pattern of a teacher in teaching and learning process will influence students’ emotion. There are students who prefer to complete the tasks based on their own willingness and efforts while others would prefer to follow the instructions given by the teachers. These kind of preferences are important to be observed during the designing stage of the lessons of the teachers as they need to pay close attentions to the students’ needs and learning preferences. Accurate preferences and learning activities will later influence the students’ motivations in learning the L2 even effectively. Rohaidah (2012) stated that the right to gain autonomy is an individual’s need. It is an individual wish to be free from any control, order or rules. The individual will do it in their own style, free and different from others. This situation will make the individual be happy. So, it will be easy to them to learn new language when they are happy in their class. This is because emotions are related to student in learning second language. Vincze and MacIntyre (2017) said that the role of basic emotions in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) has been underestimated in both research and pedagogy. The present article examines 10 positive emotions (joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and love) and 9 negative emotions (anger, contempt, disgust, embarrassment, guilt, hate, sadness, feeling scared, and being stressed). The emotions are correlated with core variables chosen from three well-known models of L2 motivation: Gardner’s integrative motive, Clément’s social-contextual model, and Dörnyei’s L2 self system. Respondents came from Italian secondary schools, and most participants were from monolingual Italian speaking homes. They described their motivation and emotion with respect to learning German in a region of Italy (South Tyrol) that features high levels of contact between Italian sand Germans. Results show that positive emotions are consistently and strongly correlated with motivation-related variables. Correlations involving negative emotions are weaker and less consistently implicated in motivation. The positivity ratio, that is, the relative prevalence of positive over negative emotion, showed strong correlations with all of the motivation constructs. Regression analysis supports the conclusion that a variety of emotions, not just one or two key ones, are implicated in L2 motivation processes in this high-contact context.

Some people ascribe successful language learning to an innate aptitude that cannot be further developed, at least after a certain young age (i.e., an entity mindset), while other people believe that language learning ability can be improved (i.e., an incremental mindset). The purpose of this research is to (a) introduce the Language Mindsets Inventory (LMI), and (b) test the mindsets–goals–responses model, which maintains that learners’ mindsets predict the goals that they set for language learning, and that these goals in turn affect how they respond to difficult academic and communication episodes. Correlational and factor analyses provided evidence of the LMI's valid and reliable use in research with university‐level language students. Path analyses showed that regardless of their competence level, greater endorsement of an incremental mindset was associated with the goal of learning more about the language, and this learning goal in turn predicted greater mastery and less helpless responses in failure situations. Greater endorsement of an entity mindset predicted the goal of demonstrating competence (i.e., performance approach goals) when students believed that they had stronger language skills. The use of the LMI in future research and the importance of supporting incremental mindsets for language education are discussed.

5. DISCUSSION

This study has thus highlighted how the four extra-linguistic elements motivation, attitude, personality and emotions influence these students in learning a second language. From the emotional point of view it can be seen that students who are happy with the language class will easily learn the second language. Attitude and motivation also help students who are interested in teaching methods delivered by the lecturers to learn the language. Positive attitude of the student towards language itself and external and internal motivation of the student attracts the student and helps the student master the language. In addition, a good student personality can also influence students' learning a second language. Students with low self-esteem are less likely to learn a second language.

Based on the extra-linguistic model that researchers have developed, these four elements will affect the hearts of individuals who have received second language learning. In turn, that will affect whether or not you have an interest in learning a second language. The heart sends signals to the brain to be able to learn or speak a second language.

The study is very significant for second language trainers because every student has different mind and emotion. Each student should deserve the attention on how to attract their interests to learn the second language. The discussed four extra-linguistic elements should always positive to ensure learners’ can influence their mind to improve the second language acceptance. Without them, learning process will be delayed, hindered or stopped. Extra-linguistic elements are crucial in achieving educational success. Students, teachers, parents, school and educational ministry should be more concerned in order to ensure students success.

6. CONCLUSION

Extra-linguistic plays an important role in L2 teaching and learning process. Educators must take the existence of extra-linguistic in language learning seriously because the elements in it can help students learn any language easily. Prior to designing the lessons and the learning activities for students to learn L2, educators must have better understanding in the students’ preferences in learning by giving attentions towards the significant of the extra-linguistic roles in the students.   If one can understand emotion, attitude, personality and motivation of a person, the person can increase the level of L2 acquisition.

Funding: This study received no specific financial support.

Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Acknowledgement: All authors contributed equally to the conception and design of the study.

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