Factors influencing the language learning

摘 要：There are those students who are born with language learning talent， there are others who do not seem to be much gifted for language learning. The paper throws light on the significance of intellective factors in language teaching.

關键词：intelligence， language aptitude

Learning a foreign language is a complex process， involving many interrelated factors， so is language teaching. In this chapter I will demonstrate the current research work on how the intellective factors affect foreign language learning and teaching respectively.

Generally speaking， a foreign language in a classroom involves two sets of intellectual ability （Stern 1983：368）， often referred to as intelligence. The other kind of ability consists of specific cognitive qualities needed for language learning， often referred to as aptitude.

1 Intelligence

Intelligence is a hot issue in the language studying. According to the explanation of dictionary， intelligence is usually called ‘wisdom， means the ability of study， memory，thinking，knowing objectivethingsandsolving thepracticalproblems. Traditional intelligence refers to the ability of languages and logical mathematics， modern ‘IQ namely intelligence quotient was developed according to Alfred Binets research on the beginning of this century； it has mainly contained the comprehensive test of language and logic mathematics. Success in the study and life seems to be identical with high IQ. In study model of Ausubel， high IQ person has high-efficiency ability of information input and store undoubtedly. The ability is of great function to set up concept system and reject useless information.

Now， let us discuss on foreign language learning， can we think briefly that ‘a wise man （who has a high IQ） can learn a foreign language more successfully？ The biggest obstruction of foreign language learning stems to lie in the issue of memory. We can suppose like this： If a student can remember what the teacher taught and what he once heard， then he would he a very successful foreign language learner. Is the situation really like this？ In fact， ‘IQ of foreign language study is far more complicated than one can imagine.

2 Language aptitude

According to Carroll， aptitude， as a concept， corresponds to the notion that in approaching a particular learning task or program， the individual may be thought of as possessing some current state of capability of learning that task一if the individual is motivated， and has the opportunity of doing so. That capability is presumed to depend on some combination of more or less enduring characteristics of the individual. The term “enduring characteristics” suggests that aptitude is multidimensional. After the application of a statistical procedure called multiple analysis to separate measures of aptitude， Carroll proposed that foreign language aptitude consisted of four independent abilities：

Phonetic coding ability --- the ability to identify distinct sounds， to form associations between those sounds and symbols representing them and to retain these associations.

Grammatical sensitivity --- the ability to recognize the grammatical functions of words or other linguistic entities in sentence structures.

Rote learning ability for foreign language materials---the ability to learn associations between sounds and meanings rapidly and efficiently and to retain these associations.

Inductive language learning ability---the ability to infer or induce the rules governing a set of language materials， given samples of language materials that permit such inferences. （1962）

Research involving language aptitude has focused on whether and to what extent language aptitude is related to success in second language learning. There is strong evidence that it is learners who score highly on language aptitude tests typically learn rapidly and achieve higher levels of second language proficiency than learners who obtain low scores.

Most of the research on the relationship between language aptitude and foreign language proficiency took place in the 1950s and 1960s. Researchers have been concerning about how language aptitude relates to the process of interlanguage development. One interesting and yet speculative possibility is that different components of language aptitude may be implicated in different stages of cognitive processing. Phonemic coding ability would seem relevant to the processing of input， grammatical sensitivity and inductive language learning ability to the central processing stages involving interlanguage construction， and memory to the storage and access of language.

To sum up， so far as the results of recent studies are concerned， intelligence and aptitude are no doubt factors in foreign language learning. Yet， although learning a language requires the operation of an innate capacity， researchers find in their experiment that some outstanding learners do not seem to have exceptional intelligence and cognitive ability and that some other factors as motivation， personality and learning style contribute to their success.

參考文献：

[1]Bilaystflk， Ellen. 1978. A theoretical model of second language learning. Vol 28， Nol， 69-83

[2]Brown， H. 1994. Principles of Language Learning Teaching. （3rd ed）. Englewood Cliffs， NJ： Prentice-Hall Regents

作者简介：

李冰，女，1981年3月出生，籍贯山东，硕士研究生，研究方向为英语语言学及应用语言学，现任东北大学秦皇岛分校语言学院讲师。