The Concise Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. Carol A. Chapelle

the person taking the test can match a nonsense word that they hear to its written form on a page. This measures what Carroll called “phonetic sensitivity.”

      Undoubtedly, being able to memorize foreign vocabulary, and understand grammar, and correctly identify sounds in a language you are studying are all very useful. If you are good at these you should do particularly well in L2 classrooms, because memorizing word meanings, understanding grammar, and correctly identifying sounds are often assessed in measures of achievement—particularly those adopted in the audiolingual programs of instruction that were prevalent in the 1960s when the MLAT was developed. However, there are two major problems with the MLAT measure of aptitude:

      1 Learning a language involves different abilities at different stages of development. The MLAT and other current aptitude tests don't measure these.

      2 Learning a language takes place in many different situations and classroom contexts. The MLAT and other current aptitude tests are insensitive to these.

      These problems of developmental and situational insensitivity are problems of construct validity. Aptitude tests like the MLAT don't actually measure the full range of abilities that contribute to language learning over time, and across settings in which L2 exposure can occur. They measure only a small number of the abilities that are drawn on during SLA. For example, what happens when we begin to learn a language? Obviously, we must develop a basic vocabulary. We do this by listening to, understanding the meaning of, and remembering new L2 words. The paired associates subtest of the MLAT measures this ability. We must also begin to understand the order in which words occur in sentences of the L2, and to understand other aspects of grammar. The words in sentences subtest measures this ability too. And finally we must correctly identify new L2 sounds we hear, and the phonetic sensitivity subtest measures this as well.

      But what happens after these beginning stages of language learning? We must then use words, in the correct order, while speaking to, and managing interaction with others in the L2. There are many abilities for speaking and interacting in an L2, but the MLAT doesn't measure any of them. It has no measure of the ability to produce a language in speech or writing. But these abilities are important to intermediate success and progress in L2 learning. And at more advanced stages of L2 learning, often outside the classroom, we must learn how to behave appropriately in the L2, and learn the appropriate formal and informal phrases and expressions needed at work, and when socializing. The MLAT doesn't measure the abilities for learning these. Based on these considerations Robinson (2005b) has argued that aptitude for language learning develops as the abilities drawn on in the initial stages of language learning reconfigure and are supplemented by abilities drawn on in later stages of learning. No current test of aptitude operationalizes this developmental perspective, though Robinson (2005b) has nominated clusters of abilities that should be important to aptitude for learning at beginning, intermediate, and advanced stages of L2 learning.

The second problem of situational insensitivity referred to above concerns the match between the abilities measured by an aptitude test, and the processing conditions under which learners are exposed to L2 input. For example, how do we learn new words or new grammar, or how to pronounce words in the L2? One way, of course, is to listen to a teacher explaining and demonstrating each of these, and then to remember and practice yourself. This is explicit learning: it is something you do intentionally and it requires effort and concentration. In contrast, children do not learn their first language (L1) in this way. Very young children have no explicit memory for the past. They have no long‐term memory, and very limited short‐term memory and attention spans. Consequently, children learn the patterns of the L1 implicitly and they are very sensitive to the frequencies with which forms co‐occur (Saffran, Aslin, & Newport, 1996). They learn these co‐occurring forms and patterns of language from exposure alone, and not as a result of explicit instruction.

      There is no doubt that adults learn a lot of the L2 explicitly, by concentrating only on what they have to learn, and then later remembering it. But they also have the ability to learn the L2 incidentally, and this is closely related to child L1 implicit learning. Incidental learning is unintentional learning. You go to a birthday party, and next day you can remember names and faces of people you met there that you didn't know before. You read a book in the L2 and afterward you know the meaning of some new words, but you didn't intend to learn them—you read the book to find out what happens to the main character.

      In fact, many situations in which the L2 can be learned (like parties, the workplace, watching subtitled movies) require the abilities for incidental learning. One could argue that for advanced L2 learning, the ability to learn incidentally is particularly important. Some adults are good at learning the L2 incidentally, while others need more help in such situations. But the MLAT doesn't measure ability for incidental learning. It measures only abilities for explicit, intentional learning. Robinson (1997, 2005a) showed that the paired associates, and words in sentences subtests of MLAT, do not predict incidental L2 learning, though they do predict explicit instructed L2 learning, and correlate significantly and positively with measures of verbal intelligence. To this extent, measures of aptitude such as MLAT are situationally insensitive, predicting learning under explicit, but not incidental processing conditions.

      Clearly, since the 1950s and 1960s when aptitude batteries such as the MLAT were first researched, piloted, and then published there has been a great deal of SLA research (see Ellis, 2008). These early aptitude batteries were developed without the benefit of findings from this research. Similarly, important psychological constructs and phenomena such as priming (Kinoshita & Lupker, 2003), task switching (Monsell, 2003), implicit, episodic, and working memory (Baddeley, 2015), were simply not conceived of, theorized and researched, at that time.

There is therefore a clear need to update our current theories, and measures, of aptitude, accommodating, where necessary, these recent findings from SLA and cognitive psychology research. Skehan (2016) has proposed such an updated theory of aptitude, proposing that processing and storing input in memory; noticing and subsequent pattern identification; and complexifying and restructuring of language knowledge, are different stages that correspond to different abilities and aptitudes for successful L2 learning and performance. Robinson (2007, 2012) has proposed a theory of aptitude describing how different clusters of cognitive abilities are related to learning from explicit instruction; incidental learning from written input, and from oral input; and from corrective recasting of output. For example, individual differences between learners in the extent to which prior exposure to a word or form “primes” and so speeds their subsequent recognition of it is proposed to be related to their success in incidental learning from speech or text. Alternatively, the ability to “switch” attention between the communicative content of speech, and a form made salient by recasting or input enhancement is proposed to be related to individual differences in task‐switching abilities—those with better task‐switching abilities being better able to process and learn the recast or enhanced form. In line with these proposals, a recently developed aptitude test battery, Hi‐LAB (Linck et al., 2013) incorporates measures of priming and task‐switching abilities with a view to identifying cognitive aptitudes for implicit, as well as explicit language learning. Researching the issues raised by these more recent theories of aptitude is to be encouraged for the light this can cast on explanations of SLA phenomena, as well as for its potential relevance to pedagogy, and the issue of matching learner aptitudes to optimal conditions of instructional exposure.

      SEE ALSO: Attention, Noticing, and Awareness in Second Language Acquisition; Explicit Knowledge and Grammar Explanation in Second Language Instruction; Instructed Second Language Acquisition

References

      1 Baddeley, A. (2015). Working memory in second language learning. In Z. Wen, M. B. Mota, & A. McNeill (Eds.), Working memory in second language acquisition and processing (pp. 17–29). Bristol, England: Multilingual Matters.

      2 Carroll, J. B. (1962). The prediction of success in intensive foreign language training. In R. Glaser (Ed.), Training research and education (pp. 87–136). New York, NY: John Wiley.

      3 Carroll, J. B., &