Some introductory thoughts...

When we think about success in learning or in this case in acquiring a second language, we need to take into consideration many details.
For example:
The characteristics and abilities of the teacher, the methodology, the materials used during the lesson, the context in which a class is develop and of course, very important are the learner's characteristics.
If we think deeper about learners we need to take into consideration the view that teachers in general have about them nowadays. The learner is seen as a person with certain characteristics, for instance having different learner ; the learner has a historical background that needs to be considered at the moment of teaching. He also depends on a context in which he is being formed, etc.
All this is in contrast to the old view that society had about students, they were seen as "empty vessels" that needed to be filled with contexts by the teachers who were supposed to be the only experts about the subjects. There was no espace for learner's opinions or discussions.
Now thanks to the different view that we have about our students we can assume that their characteristics influence really deeply in the success of language acquisition and learning.
First of all we will divide the characteristics into two:
The first classification has to do with those characteristics that are outside the teacher's control:

• Age and Gender:

This characteristic is refered to the traditional view that "the younger we start to learn a second language, the better chance for success we have". This has to do with the "critical period" in which a person needs to learn a language before puberty to succed.

• Language Aptitude

This point, according to me is one of the most important points of all. Language aptitude is also refered as "ability", " feel", "knack" for languages. it is for example when one person is learning a second languegae and he or she immediately shows a big progress in the acquisition of the language. he or she shows a great ability when acquiring the sounds and grammar of the language they are learning. This means that a person with language ability can acquire languages very "easily". On the other hand a person who lacks of language aptitude will learn the language but in a longer period or it will be more difficult for him to identify patterns or sounds by him self; he will need to be more persistent .

• Motivation

When we talk about motivation we have to take into consideration its importance. Without motivation nothing would really happen. If we think about this we get to the conclusion that it is true. How can you possibly learn something if you are not motivated? For example my self ,( I always tend to think about my own experience when I give examples) I remember when I was at school I didn't want to learn maths, beacuse it was too boring and I used to think that they were useless ( I still think so) and that I would never use them. So it was very difficult for me to learn maths because of the fact that I wasn't motivated to learn it at all.

It is said that by using the appropriate techniques teachers can change learner's motivation in a positive direction. it is true if we think about the techniques that we can use in the classroom in roder to call the attention of the students, for example using intresting topics, different materials, and of course explaining the students the importance of the subject and it will be useful to learn it for several reasons.