English Language Teaching in its Social Context

32 PATSY M. LIGHTBOWN AND NINA SPADAWhile earlier research revealed a substantial relationship between performance on the MLATor PLAB and performance in foreign language learning, these studies were conducted at a timewhen second language teaching was based on grammar translation or audiolingual methods.With the adoption of a more communicative approach to teaching, many teachers andresearchers came to see aptitudc as irrelevant to the process of language acquisition.Unfortunately, this means that relatively little research has actually explored whether havinga skill such as the ‘ability to identify and memoriLe new sounds’ is advantageous whenclassroom instruction is meaning-oriented rather than focuscd on drills or mctalinguisticexplanations.Successful language learners may not be strong in all of the components of aptitude.Some individuals may have strong memories but only average abilities in the othercomponents of aptitude. Ideally, one could determine learners’ profiles of strengths andweaknesses and use this information to place students in appropriate teaching programs. Anexample of how this can be done is described by Majorie Wesche (1981). In a Canadianlanguage program for adult lcarncrs of French, students were placed in an instructionalprogram which was compatible with their aptitude profile and information about thcirlearning experiences. Students who were high on analytic ability, but average on memory,were assigned to teaching that focuscd on grammatical structures, while learners strongin memory but average on analytic skills were placed in a class where the teaching wasorganized around the functional use of the second language in specific situations. Weschereported a high level of student and teacher satisfaction when students were matched withCompatible teaching environments. In addition, some evidence indicated that matchedstudents were able to attain significantly higher levels of achievement than those who wereunmatched.While few second language teaching contexts are able to offcr such choices to theirstudents, teachers may find that knowing the aptitude profile of their students will help thcmin selecting appropriate classroom activities for particular groups of students. Or, if they donot have such information, they may wish to ensure that their teaching activities aresufficiently varied to accommodate learners with different aptitude profiles.PersonalityA number of personality characteristics have been proposed as likely to affect second languagelearning, but it has not been easy to demonstrate thcir effects in empirical studies. As withothcr research investigating the effects of individual characteristics on second languagelearning, different studies measuring a similar personality trait produce different results. Forexample, it is often argued that an extroverted person is well suited to language learning.However, research docs not always support this conclusion. Although some studies havefound that success in language learning is correlated with learners’ scores on characteristicsoften associated with extrovcrsion such as assertiveness and adventurousness, others havefound that many successful language learners do not get high scores on measures of extroversion.Another aspect of personality which has been studied is inhibition. It has been suggestedthat inhibition discourages risk-taking which is necessary for progress in language learning.This is often considered to be a particular problem for adolescents, who are more selfconsciousthan younger learners. In a scrics of studies, Alexander Guiora and his colleaguesfound support for the claim that inhibition is a negative force, at lcast for second languagepronunciation performance. One study involved an analysis of the effects of small doses ofalcohol on pronunciation (Guiora et al. 1972).They found that subjects who received small