Catherine J. Doughty | University of Maryland Center for Advanced Study of Language
This chapter reports on a new language aptitude test, the High-level Language Aptitude Battery (Hi-LAB), whose development was motivated by the need for an aptitude measure for more advanced L2 speakers. Since many language learners begin as adults, critical-period constraints work against the desired outcome. All may not be lost, however, given that some individuals attain high-level, if not native, proficiency, despite a late start. We hypothesize that they possess language aptitude comprising inherent cognitive and perceptual abilities that compensate, at least in part, for the typical post-critical-period degradation in language-learning capacity. While tests currently in use were designed to predict early rate of learning in instructed settings, Hi-LAB is conceptualized to predict successful ultimate attainment. Aptitude is a measurable ceiling on language learning, holding equal all other factors. We discuss constructs and measures, reliability and validity evidence, and uses of Hi-LAB for selecting learners for language training and in aptitude-by-treatment interaction studies.
Sedaghatgoftar, Nasrin, Mohammad N. Karimi, Esmat Babaii, Susanne M. Reiterer & Juan de Dios Martínez Agudo
2019. Developing and validating a second language pragmatics aptitude test. Cogent Education 6:1 ► pp. 1654650 ff.
SUZUKI, YUICHI & ROBERT DEKEYSER
2017. Exploratory research on second language practice distribution: An Aptitude × Treatment interaction. Applied Psycholinguistics 38:1 ► pp. 27 ff.
Wen, Zhisheng (Edward), Adriana Biedroń & Peter Skehan
2017. Foreign language aptitude theory: Yesterday, today and tomorrow. Language Teaching 50:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Yilmaz, Yucel & Gisela Granena
2021. IMPLICITNESS AND EXPLICITNESS IN COGNITIVE ABILITIES AND CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 43:3 ► pp. 523 ff.
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