Research On Individual Language Aptitude And Its Suggestions On Foreign Language Learning & Teaching

Whether to learn a language successfully or not depends upon many factors. Some may come from learners', like motivation, personality and so on; others may derive from teachers', like methodology, personality, etc. This thesis attempts to specify one of the factors which are much influential to language acquisition achievement --- foreign language aptitude, which is composed by four parts: phonemic coding ability, grammar sensitivity, rote learning and memory ability and inductive language learning ability, as well as its effects on foreign language learning and teaching. Related experiments and analysis were carried out as follows:To begin with, previous aptitude researches and their significance were reviewed as the guidance of the research design and practice. Secondly, the language aptitude research developed by the researcher was specified. Then results of the test and other related values were analyzed to detect 1) the internal consistency among the four components of the language aptitude test developed for this thesis, 2) the correlations between results of language aptitude subtests and language proficiency of the subjects, 3) the differences among learners in each area of the foreign language aptitude and the way to exploit learner's predominance and to compensate for his deficiency most effectively in the teaching and learning of foreign language.Results showed that there were great differences among learners in almost every aspect of language aptitude except phonemic coding ability. However, the overall level of language aptitude greatly determined what results learners got from learning. With only one dominant ability but lack of others, subjects showed inability in comprehensive language learning and gained low language proficiency. On the contrary, subjects obtained perfect language proficiency with predominance in more parts. In accordance with results from the tests, both students and teachers could make adjustments in methodology in language learning and teaching to achieve targeted results. Therefore this research can provide theoretical and practical foundation for foreign language teaching and learning. The Foreign Language Aptitude Test for this thesis was designed in terms of the features of Chinese students of English majors and was further testified in testing procedures, and can be carried out in future research.