THE EFFECTS OF APTITUDE ON LANGUAGE LEARNING

The concept of aptitude current at the time Rubin wrote her paper was that ofJohn Carroll (1962, 1981) who saw foreign language aptitude as a stable cognitivecharacteristic of those individuals who have a knack or talent for learning other languages. Itis defined in terms of speed in language learning. The most widely used measure of aptitudetoday is still the Modern Language Aptitude Test – MLAT (Carroll and Sapon, 1958) whichwas designed in the post World War II period to select learners who would be best able toprofit from short intensive language courses. It has proved to be a consistent predictor oflearning outcomes in a wide variety of contexts (for instance, Carroll, 1981; Gardner andLambert, 1972). However, despite its predictive utility, the MLAT later came to be devaluedby teaching practitioners because of its association with the Audio-lingual method. Thatseems to disappear for most people once they go to school. . Theimplications of severalcontemporary aptitude research projects are presented with aspecial emphasis on theattempts to link aptitude with the SLA theory.The concept of aptitude is reviewedand reconstructed. Its original sense of reciprocity between person andsituation and appropriateness of person-situation fit is restored. Moderninterpretation thus emphasizes readiness to learn in particularinstructional situations and recognizes conative and affective as well ascognitive sources of aptitude finally, some possibilities for further research arepresented, as well as several implications suchresearch may have for the teaching practice. Itgives a brief overview of the research on aptitude as a factor in theprocess of foreign languagelearning. Starting from the premise that aptitude plays animportant role in the languageteaching process, the author presents various coursesthe researches on this concept has takenfrom the beginnings in mid-50s to a morecontemporary research which points towards arevival of interest in aptitude. Theimplications of several contemporary aptitude researchprojects are presented with aspecial emphasis on the attempts to link aptitude with the SLAtheory. Finally, somepossibilities for further research are presented, as well as severalimplications suchresearch may have for the teaching practice.

کلیدواژه ها:

Aptitude ، Individual differences ، The Role of Verbal Aptitude ، SLA theory