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)

Dufvas 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. Oblers CJ) Older learners (Call/Scotts missionaries)

Static memory span (STM)

EFL vocabulary of Finnish children(Service) Lookup behavior of univ. GFLers (Chun & Payne)
Grammar, Reading (Harrington & Sawyer, cf. Juffs)

Active working memory span (WM)

7.8 Contributions of memory to aptitude,

complexified STM vocabulary learning @ early stages (Masoura & Gathercole) grammar @ later stages (OBrien+) formal but not semantic rules (Williams) long-term but not short-term gain
(Mackey+)

7.9 Aptitude & age

Aptitude doesnt 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 Stages of input processing Input, central processing, output

Peter Skehan

Robinson: Aptitude Complexes

Example: Learning from feedback (recasts) requires certain aptitude complexes (combinations)

noticing the gap ability (NTG) memory for contingent speech (MCS) pattern recognition, processing speed NTG phonological working memory MCS

composed of certain basic abilities (aptitudes)

Abilities Complexes Tasks Life

Skehan: Stages of Input Processing

9 stages 4 macro stages 1. Noticing

Working memory, phonological coding, etc.

2.

Patterning
Grammatical sensitivity, Induction

3.
o

Controlling
Automatization, retrieval processes

4.
o

Lexicalizing
Memory, chunking, plus above (Stage 3)

Playing it to ones 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 specific diagnosis of strong/mixed/weak abilities possibilities for research, pedagogy

The Peters proposals promise more