Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

2 Language analytic ability. This allows the learner to work out the ‘rules’ of the
language and build up the core processes for handling language.
3 Memory. This permits the learner to store and retrieve aspects of language rapidly.
These three factors reflect progressively deeper processing of language and hence
may change according to the learner’s stage. While true in an overall sense, they
relate loosely to the ideas of processing and memory seen in Chapter 7. It is unclear,
for example, which model of memory might fit this scheme and how analytic ability
relates to parsing.
The lack of this ‘knack’ is sometimes related to other problems that L2 learners
have. Richard Sparks and his colleagues (1989) have observed students whose gen-
eral problems with language have gone unnoticed until they did badly on a foreign
Aptitude: are some people better at learning a second language than others? 145

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language course. They lacked a linguistic coding ability in their first language as
well as their second, particularly phonological, and, like dyslexia, apparently unre-
lated to their intelligence.
Recent work reviewed by Peter Robinson (2005) has tended to split aptitude into
separate components, that is, whether people are better at specific aspects of learn-
ing rather than overall learning. A particular sensitivity to language may help with
FonF activities, for instance. Second language learning in formal conditions may
depend in particular on superior cognitive processing ability. Obviously this sees
no relationship between second language acquisition in a classroom and first lan-
guage acquisition, since none of these attributes matters to the native child.
Aptitude and teaching
The problem for language teachers is what to do once the students have been
tested for academic language learning aptitude. There are at least four possibilities:
1 Select students who are likely to succeed in the classroom and bar those who are
likely to fail. This would, however, be unthinkable in most settings with open
access to education.
2 Stream students into different classes for levels of aptitude, say high-flyers, average
and below-average. The Graded Objectives Movement in England, for instance,
set the same overall goals for all students at each stage, but allowed them dif-
ferent periods of time for getting there (Harding et al., 1981).
3 Provide different teaching for different types of aptitude with different teaching
methods and final examinations. This might lead to varied exercises within 
the class, say, for those with and without phonemic coding ability, to parallel
classes, or to self-directed learning. In most educational establishments this
would be a luxury in terms of staffing and accommodation, however 
desirable.
4 Excuse students with low aptitude from compulsory foreign language requirements. In
some educational systems the students may be required to pass a foreign lan-
guage which is unrelated to the rest of their course, as I had to take French and
Latin to order to read English at university. An extremely low aptitude for L2
learning may be grounds for exemption from this requirement if their other
work passes.
The overall lesson is to see students in particular contexts. The student whose
performance is dismal in one class may be gifted in another. Any class teaching is
a compromise to suit the greatest number of students. Only in individualized or
self-directed learning perhaps can this be overcome.
Individual differences in L2 users and L2 learners