Foreign Language Learning Aptitude Construct: The Classical View

Both laypeople and professional language instructors and learners attests to the disparity in language learning skills observable in a language learning environment. The latter are frequently no wiser than the former being baffled by the contrast between those who learn a foreign language rather effortlessly and those who struggle to do so despite having the same opportunities available
[1, p. 3].

The "aptitude for languages" or "foreign language aptitude" is one of the main individual variations invoked to explain why some people are successful at learning foreign languages while others are not.

Foreign language aptitude (FLA) is a psychological construct that underlies certain observed differences in a person's behavior in response to an external stimulus [2, p. 128]. It is a "postulated attribute of people" [3, p. 178] that comprises a number of distinct yet interconnected cognitive abilities [4, p. 2].

Any construct that is utilized to describe a behavioral performance must be conceptualized, or given a clear description in terms of that behavioral performance.

However, there is a significant heterogeneity of conceptualization construction processes when it comes to FLA [5, p. 33], [6, p. 3]. This has a direct impact on the operationalization of the construct, i.e. on the conditions and processes necessary for eliciting behavior that allows an observer to make inferences about the construct [7, p. 15]. The existence of the proposed construct can be established by a sufficient number of comparable performances (behavioral samples), but it must also be shown that it differs from other constructs that have already been established as legitimately existing by the research community.

Numerous extant instruments that claim to elicit specific performance and ultimately provide some sort of measurement of the construct show the heterogeneity in construct conceptualization techniques, which is true in relation to FLA as well [5, p. 33], [6, p. 3], [8, p. 2]

The FLA has traditionally been considered from the perspective of its potential use in two related fields: student placement and student screening [9, p. 3]. Therefore, the two FLA test types that were most frequently used in the 1920s and 1930s (the dawn of the aptitude testing) were [10, p. 91]:

tests gauging a person's ability in their native language and covering vocabulary, grammar, and spelling tasks;

tests simulating tasks that students of a foreign language might encounter while studying that language (also known as "work-sample" tests).

Early FLA tests had a strong correlation with intelligence assessment tools and required that the subject have some prior linguistic knowledge (including that of grammar-related terminology and comprehension of basic word-formation processes in their native language). The assessments were consistent with the goals of foreign language instruction at the time, which focused primarily on teaching students how to read and translate in the target language and paid little attention to communication.

Early FLA testing and intelligence tests had a strong association, raising the question of why specific FLA measuring and assessment tools were even necessary. What use is it to have two tests that produce highly correlated findings when one test would do just as well?

With the outbreak of World War II and the United States Government's understanding of a precarious situation in the domain of foreign language training of its personnel serving in missions abroad, the FLA-as-IQ era came to an end. “The Army Method”, which focuses on intense language teaching, was created at that time. The approach is still commonly utilized in educational institutions around the world, using the American Language Course (ALC) materials, and requires enrolled students to devote at least six (often nine) months of their lives to studying a foreign language (up to 8 hours daily).

One may argue that the first scientific study of FLA and the creation of trustworthy FLA evaluation test batteries arose directly in reaction to the demands of intense foreign language instruction programs (and the Army Method). Where such programs are in place (for example, at the Ministry of Defense of Uzbekistan), it is necessary to use valid instruments to choose candidates for rigorous language training.

John Bissell Carroll, an American educational psychologist and the field's pioneer, advocated the Classical View of FLA while working at Harvard University in the early 1950s. What follows is the underlying assumptions of this perspective [4], [11], [12].

In terms of the different resources (both physical and temporal) necessary for its successful implementation, rigorous foreign language training is a difficult task. There hasn't been discovered a means to shorten training programs past a certain threshold while still ensuring the achievement of satisfactory results [10, p. 87].

While everyone is capable of learning a foreign language, but not everyone can succeed in doing so within the parameters of "rigorous, intensive, expensive training programs in foreign languages operated by military and governmental organizations," where the environment in the language classroom may be more suited to those with high than to those with low aptitude scores [8, p. 6], [10, p. 89], [13, p. 640].

According to Carroll [10, p. 89], some persons have "a fairly specialized talent (or group of talents)" enabling them to effectively complete rigorous foreign language training, yet their population proportion appears to be small. The fairly specialized talent, or FLA, is a psychological characteristic that influences the process of learning a foreign language without being influenced by other variables in the affective or cognitive domains [10, p. 90]. Since they essentially serve as a general cut-off point but are unable to account for the wide variations in aptitude levels in those who cross it , intelligence tests in particular have been shown to be rather weak and unreliable for selecting candidates for intensive language training.

FLA is a construct that is regarded to be relatively stable, unchangeable, and resistant to any attempts at mechanical progress; it is believed to be impossible to train someone to be better at their FLA. The rate at which language learners eventually reach the necessary mastery level within specific time restrictions, with other variables (motivation, instructor quality, learning chances, etc.) being ideal, is the most obvious manifestation of FLA.

FLA is engaged in contexts of formal instruction when linguistic input is directly manipulated, but it is not a key component of natural language learning environments where strong time constraints are not present [8, p. 1]. The FLA gives the student a "first level of preparedness" [14, p. 81] for learning a foreign language.

According to the Classical FLA model, there are four fundamental components (abilities) comprising it: Phonetic Coding Ability, Grammatical Sensitivity, Inductive Language Learning Ability, Rote memory for Foreign Language Materials.

Phonetic Coding Ability can be defined as the capacity to encode novel auditory information (sounds or sound stings) in a fashion that allows for a delayed retrieval of it, meaning the information may be " recognized, identified and remembered over time" [1, p. 6]. A person who can immediately reproduce what they hear would not be similarly successful in this job if there were any form of interruption in between the two instances, which is the important component of the definition known as "delayed retrieval." Since language learners must not only acquire "the identities of the new phonemes..., but must also recognize and recall the phonetic sequences represented by the morphemes, words, and intonation contours," Carroll argues that this skill is crucial for language learners [11, p. 4]. Grammatical Sensitivity, in its turn, is defined as the capacity to recognize the distinct roles that various lexical items play within the confines of an utterance without explicit teaching. The ability to infer grammatical rules and forms, as well as the meanings of lexical items, from unknowable linguistic material without the aid of a teacher is known as Inductive Language Learning Ability. Despite Carroll's denial [1, p. 4], [10, p. 90] that language learning ability is unrelated to general intelligence, this component is, as Carroll himself acknowledged, "most strongly correlated with general intelligence" [11, p. 6]. Inductive Language Learning Ability it is the capacity to "notice and identify patterns of correspondence and relationships involving either meaning or grammatical form" [11, p. 6]. Rote Memory for Foreign Language Materials is the capacity to memorize sufficiently many new words or grammatical structures in a foreign language.

The Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT), which was created by Carroll and his colleague Stanley Sapon in 1959 and has five subsections (“Learning numbers”, “Phonetic script”, “Spelling clues”, “Words in sentences” and “Paired associates”), is based on the FLA's four components. All of the MLAT subtests, however, are "a hybrid blend of the different underlying components" rather than "a pure manifestation of the four components" that Carroll himself identified [15, p. 593].

[1] R. L. Sparks and L. Ganschow, “Foreign language learning difficulties: affective or native language aptitude differences?,” Mod. Lang. J., vol. 75, no. 1, pp. 3–16, 1991.

[2] M. Wesche, H. Edwards, and W. Wells, “Foreign language aptitude and intelligence,” Appl. Psycholinguist., vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 127–140, 1982, doi: 10.1017/S0142716400006664.

[3] J. Cronbach and P. E. Meehl, “Construct Validity in Psychological Tests,” Psychol. Bull., vol. 52, pp. 281–302, 1955.

[4] Z. Wen, A. Biedroń, and P. Skehan, “Foreign language aptitude theory: Yesterday, today and tomorrow,” Lang. Teach., vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 1–31, 2017, doi: 10.1017/S0261444816000276.

[5] Z. Dörnyei, The psychology of the language learner: Individual differences in second language acquisition, vol. 29, no. 01. 2005.

[6] S. Li, “The Construct Validity of Language Aptitude,” Stud. Second Lang. Acquis., vol. 38, no. 4, pp. 801–842, 2016, doi: 10.1017/S027226311500042X.

[7] L. F. Bachman, Statistical Analysis for Language Assessment. Cambridge University Press, 2004.

[8] P. M. Winke, “Aptitude Testing,” in The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching, First Edit., M. DelliCarpini, Ed. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2018, pp. 1–7.

[9] M. Lutz, “The Development of Foreign Language Aptitude Test: A review of the literature,” Princeton, New Jersey, 1967.

[10] J. B. Carroll, “The Prediction of Success in Intensive Foreign Language Training.,” Train. Res. Educ., vol. 64, pp. 87–136, 1962.

[11] J. B. Carroll, “Implications of Aptitude Test Research and Psycholinguistic Theory for Foreign Language Teaching.” Educational Testing Service, Princeton, New Jersey, p. 14, 1971.

[12] S. Li, “The Associations between Language Aptitude and Second Language Grammar Acquisition: A Meta-Analytic Review of Five Decades of Research,” Appl. Linguist., vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 385–408, 2015, doi: 10.1093/applin/amu054.

[13] R. Sparks, L. Ganschow, and J. Patton, “Prediction of performance in first year foreign language courses: Connections between native and foreign language learning,” J. Educ. Psychol., vol. 87, no. 4, pp. 638–655, 1995.

[14] J. B. Carroll, “Twenty-five years of research on foreign language aptitude,” in Individual differences and universals in language learning aptitude, K. Diller, Ed. Rowley, MA: Newbury House., 1981, pp. 83–118.

[15] Z. Dörnyei and P. Skehan, “Individual Differences in Second Language Learning,” in The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, 2008, pp. 589–630.