Foreign Language Aptitude (Ch. 7) Understanding SLA Lourdes Ortega (2009) Twww.hodderplus.com/linguistics Published by Hodder Education © 2009 Mark Sawyer

7.2 Cognition, conation, & affect in psychology & SLA cognition: thinking affect: feeling conation: trying (wanting) Research strategy Seek correlation, between ID & outcome shared variance: more meaningful? Beware of “significant correlations”

7.2 Learning & not learning French: Kaplan vs. Watson Alice Kaplan very successful: devoted to French from childhood Richard Watson surprisingly unsuccessful at spoken French How to explain the vast differences in outcomes in such learners?

7.3 Language aptitude, all mighty? No! Despite positive research findings, many unanswered questions remain True nature Relationship to other ID factors conative affective contextual

7.4 Aptitude as prediction of formal L2 learning rate Measured often by MLAT 5 parts, measuring 4(3) components High predictive validity Questionable construct validity Mismatch between test parts & theorized components Measures rote rather than dynamic memory Rate of formal learning less important than… Ultimate Attainment Various learning conditions (ATI)

7.5 Is L2 aptitude different from intelligence & L1 ability 3 domains overlap but differ: L1 ability L2 aptitude L2 achievement L1 ability >L2 achievement Academic skills, grammatical sensitivity underlie intelligence, L1, L2

7.6 Lack of L2 aptitude, or general language-related difficulties? L1 difficulties  L2 difficulties Linguistic Coding Differences Hypothesis (LCDH) (Sparks, Ganschow, et al.) Phonological-orthographic relationships Phonological awareness: sounds alone phonemic awareness (segmentation) phonological decoding (integration)

Dufva’s Finnish research Phonological memory  phonological awareness (age 6)  word recognition, listening comprehension (age 7-8)  reading comprehension (age 8-9) (with word recognition, phonological memory)  L2 (English) proficiency (age 9)

Back to poor Watson Spelling, reversal problems evoke LCDH Finnish schoolchildren L2 findings on phonetic coding ability  disfluent speaking (Wesche)  mimicking sounds, remembering words

7.7 Memory capacity as a privileged component of L2 aptitude Exceptional learners Multiple languages (e.g. Obler’s CJ) Older learners (Call/Scott’s missionaries) Static memory span (STM)  EFL vocabulary of Finnish children(Service)  Lookup behavior of univ. GFLers (Chun & Payne) Active working memory span (WM)  Grammar, Reading (Harrington & Sawyer, cf. Juffs)

7.8 Contributions of memory to aptitude, complexified STM  vocabulary learning @ early stages (Masoura & Gathercole)  grammar @ later stages (O’Brien+)  formal but not semantic rules (Williams)  long-term but not short-term gain (Mackey+)

7.9 Aptitude & age Aptitude doesn’t matter before puberty Fundamental Difference Hypothesis: Implicit vs. explicit learning (Bley-Vroman) Hungarian immigrant research (DeKeyser) Parts of aptitude matter @ different ages First memory, later analysis (Harley & Hart) Age & learning context conspire (Ross et al.)

7.10 Does aptitude matter under explicit & implicit learning conditions Explicit but not implicit (Krashen, etc.) Both explicit & implicit (Robinson, etc.) More implicit than explicit (Sawyer?) Mixed empirical evidence Experimental (Williams, de Graaf, Nation & McLaughlin, Robinson) Classroom (Erlam, Sheen)

7.11 Most recent developments: Multidimensional aptitude “The Peters”’ Proposals Peter Robinson Basic abilities combine Interact with context & affect Peter Skehan Stages of input processing Input, central processing, output

Robinson: Aptitude Complexes Example: Learning from feedback (recasts) requires… certain aptitude complexes (combinations) noticing the gap ability (NTG) memory for contingent speech (MCS) composed of certain basic abilities (aptitudes) pattern recognition, processing speed  NTG phonological working memory  MCS Abilities  Complexes  Tasks  Life

Skehan: Stages of Input Processing 9 stages  4 macro stages Noticing Working memory, phonological coding, etc. Patterning Grammatical sensitivity, Induction Controlling Automatization, retrieval processes Lexicalizing Memory, chunking, plus above (Stage 3)

Playing it to one’s strengths: The future of L2 aptitude? (7.12) ATI: Aptitude-Treatment Interactions Famous example from Canada (Wesche) Ss (mis-)matched to treatment by MLAT profile Matched students achieved more The Peters’ proposals promise more… specific diagnosis of strong/mixed/weak abilities possibilities for research, pedagogy