ABSTRACT
This paper will be in the field of Language Acquisition and Learning. It will highlight that the best way to grasp this new approach to the learning of languages, called the Dynamic Systems Approach is through the concept of individual differences, a term coined by Zoltan Dornyei from the University of Nottingham. This very important approach will be introduced by explaining first the concept of individual differences which are according to Zoltan Dornyei, dimensions of enduring personal characteristics that are assumed to apply to everybody and on which people differ by degree. They include five main variables: age, aptitude, motivation, learning styles and learning strategies. The personality factors and learning achievement are often not direct but rather indirect, mediated by various situation-specific variables. This means that IDs are to be studied in a time and situational context. Higher order ID variables such as aptitude and motivation involve, at one level or another, the cooperation of components of very different nature (e.g cognitive, motivational or emotional) resulting in hybrid attributes. All these components affect one another and mutually interact in a dynamic system approach which is now the one adopted by researchers in the field of SLA and which open to new areas of inquiry.
Keywords: Language acquisition, Dynamic systems, IDs, Interaction, Change.