reading sla

Aptitude and Intelligence

• Language learning aptitude = a person’s inherent capability of a second language learning – cannot be altered through training

Carroll – four factors of aptitude:

1. the ability to identify and remember sounds of the foreign language;

2. the ability to recognise how words function grammatically in sentences;

3. the ability to induce grammatical rules from language examples; and

4. the ability to recognise and remember words and phrases.

• A number of tests have been developed to assess language aptitude: Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) by Carroll and Sapon (1959) and The Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery (PLAB), by Pimsleur (1966)

• MLAT and PLAB show high correlations with intelligence and controlled language production, but low correlations with free oral production and general communication skills

• one of the components of aptitude is Working Memory (WM) = an active system in which information is stored and manipulated and which is required for complex tasks like language comprehension

• The question whether aptitude should include intelligence cannot be answered straightforwardly - it depends on the definition of intelligence

• Sternberg: intelligence as measured by conventional American IQ test does not account for more than half of people’s intelligence – he distinguishes between analytical, creative and practical intelligence

• Gardner – redefines intelligence in terms of multiple intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, kinaesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal

Attitude and motivation

• high motivation and a positive attitude towards a second language and its community help second-language learning

• BUT! The term motivation is rather difficult concept to operationalise

• Gardner and Lambert (1972) distinguish integrative motivation (based on an interest in the second language and its culture – intention to become part of that culture) and instrumental motivation (more practical need to communicate in the language, referred sometimes as ‘carrot and stick” – he learns the language to gain the now from it)

• ‘Machiavellian motivation’ (Oller and Perkins, 1978): learners may strongly dislike the second Language community and want to learn the second language to manipulate and prevail over people in that community. In most cases, a positive attitude will strengthen motivation, whereas a negative attitude will negatively affect motivation.

• The learner can have both motivation: in a classroom situation may have an integrative motivation to learn the language, but at the same time an instrumental motivation to get high grades.

• should success be seen as the result or as the cause of motivation??

• Gardner and Lambert’s definition, success is an integral part of motivation, but others argue that success arouses motivation: learners may like what they are good at

• motivation research is based on selfreport, it cannot be determined what the learner’s actual effort is. The actual effort is closely related to the second point: short-term motivation. The questionnaires usually ask about learners long-term goal, but the actual effort to learn requires short-term motivation (x learner may have a strong desire to learn a language, but does not feel like learning a vocabulary items)

• recent development: Dornyei and Otto: social motivation, motivation from a process oriented perspective, a neurobiological explanation of motivation and task motivation