Білім беру бағдарламасына арналған торм 5206 тілдерді оқытудағы психологиялық МӘселелер пәні бойынша лекция тезистерінің жинағы

The learning theories, types of learning, and other processes that have so far been explained in this chapter deal with mental perception, storage, and recall. Little has been said about two related and somewhat controversial issues in learning psychology: aptitude and intelligence. In brief, the ques­tions are:

- Is there such a thing as foreign language aptitude? If so, what are its properties? Can they be reliably measured? Are aptitudinal fac­tors predictive of success in learning a foreign language?

- What is intelligence? How is intelligence defined in terms of the foreign language learning process? What kinds of intelligence are related to foreign language learning?

Do certain people have a "knack" for learning foreign languages? Anecdotal evidence would suggest that, for a variety of causal factors, some people are indeed able to learn languages faster and more efficiently than others. One perspective of looking at such aptitude is the identification of a number of characteristics of successful language learners. Risk-taking behavior, memory efficiency, intelligent guessing, and ambiguity tolerance are but a few of the many variables that have been cited.

A more traditional way of examining what we mean by aptitude is through a historical progression of research that began around the middle of the twentieth century with John Carroll's (Carroll & Sapon 1958) con­struction of the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT). The MLAT required prospective language learners (before they began to learn a for­eign language) to perform such tasks as learning numbers, listening, detecting spelling clues and grammatical patterns, and memorizing, all either in the native language, English, or utilizing words and morphemes from a constructed, hypothetical language. The MLAT was considered to be independent of a specific foreign language, and therefore predictive of suc­cess in the learning of any language. This test, along with another similar one, the Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery (PLAB) (Pimsleur 1966), was used for some time in such contexts as Peace Corps volunteer training pro­grams to help predict successful language learners.

In the decade or so following their publication, these two aptitude tests were quite well received by foreign language teachers and adminis­trators. Since then, their popularity has steadily waned, with few attempts to experiment with alternative measures of language aptitude (Skehan 1998; Parry & Child 1990). Two factors account for this decline. First, even though the MLAT and the PLAB claimed to measure language aptitude, it soon became apparent that they simply reflected the general intelligence or academic ability of a student. At best, they measured ability to perform focused, analytical, context-reduced activities that occupy a student in a traditional language classroom. They hardly even began to tap into the kinds of learning strategies and styles that recent research (Cohen 1998; Reid 1995; Ehrman 1990; Oxford 1990b, 1996, for example) has shown to be crucial in the acquisition of communicative competence in context-embedded situations. As we will see in the next chapter, learners can be successful for a multitude of reasons, many of which are much more related to motivation and determination than to so-called "native" abilities (Lett & O'Mara 1990).

Second, how is one to interpret a language aptitude test? Rarely does an institution have the luxury or capability to test people before they take a foreign language in order to counsel certain people out of their decision to do so. And in cases where an aptitude test might be administered, such a test clearly biases both student and teacher. Both are led to believe that they will be successful or unsuccessful, depending on the aptitude test score, and a self-fulfilling prophecy is likely to occur. It is better for teachers to be optimistic for students, and in the early stages of a student's process of language learning, to monitor styles and strategies carefully, leading the student toward strategies that will aid in the process of learning and away from those blocking factors that will hinder the process.

Only a few isolated recent efforts have continued to address foreign language aptitude and success (Harley & Hart 1997; Sasaki 1993a, 1993b, for example). Skehan's (1998) bold attempts to pursue the construct of aptitude have exposed some of the weaknesses of aptitude constructs, but unfortunately have not yielded a coherent theory of language aptitude. So today the search for verifiable factors that make up aptitude, or "knack," is headed in the direction of a broader spectrum of learner characteristics. Some of those characteristics fall into the question of intelligence and for­eign language learning. How does general cognitive ability intersect with successful language learning?