Intrinsic Motivation Theoretical Description

14 high language aptitude by various other factors, such as individual distinctive learning styles. It implies that style preference also contributes to the success of learners’ learning results. Researchers have observed that learners’ learning approach may vary in a significantly different manner. Cohen and Dornyei as cited in Schmitt, 2002: 176 claimed that the concept of learning styles has been used to refer to these existing differences . Learning styles seems to be relatively stable since they are formed from each individual’s past experience and gradually become a habit of learning. Therefore, teachers may not have such a direct influence on this learners’ variable. Hereby, learning styles may promote a better language learning. It is necessary to distinguish learning strategies and cognitive styles. Learning strategies are flexible whereas cognitive styles are in-built, habitual in use and fairly fixed. Pupils might develop learning strategies in order to help them in situations where their styles do not match the task being done Riding, 2002: 99. Since learning styles is fairly fixed, individuals may find difficulties when their style does not fit the task assigned. They cannot change their styles but they can develop strategies to carry out the given tasks at ease. Moreover, it enables them to effectively encounter particular learning situations. Learning styles are both individually and culturally motivated. Within a particular context, certain learning preferences among individuals are evidently seen. It means that not everyone within a culture group has the same learning preferences but the culture clearly plays a role in the development of our preferences. 15 In general, there are two major dimensions in learners’ learning preferences: they are wholistic view and analytic view Riding, 2002: 23. The first dimension affects the way in which people think about, view, and respond to information and situations. This affects the way they learn, organize information, apply the information, and interact with other pupils. Wholists tend to see a situation as a whole and are able to have an overall perspective to appreciate its total context. For wholists, there is a possible danger that the distinction among parts in the total context is blurred so that it is very difficult to distinguish the issues that make up the whole of a situation. The positive strength of wholistic learners is that they can see the whole picture by the time they consider a particular situation or information. Consequently, they can have a balanced view and see situations in their overall context. The negative aspect of wholistic learners is that they find difficulties in separating out a situation into its smaller parts or subsystems. In conclusion, wholistic learners are good at grabbing the overall context from a particular task. Yet, they may find difficulties in working on the details of each segment which makes up a particular context. The latter learning styles dimension in learners’ learning preferences, which is analytic view, sees a situation as a collection of parts and often focus on one or two aspects of the situation at a time. Since analytic learners tend to focus on just one aspect of the whole at a time, this may have the effect of distorting, exaggerating, or making it more prominent than the remaining segments of a