A Study On Four Modules Of Non - English Majors' Linguistics

In recent years, with the development of the research on foreign languageteaching, the focus of the research gradually concentrated on learners. Meanwhile,the academic researchers put more and more effort on learners’ differences such asgender, age, learning motivation, education background and other factors whichwould affect their foreign language learning.As one of these factors, language aptitude attracted the the most attention.Skehan (1998), Bialystok and Frohlich (1978) proved that excluding learningmotivation language aptitude was the most vital factor which would impact onstudents’ language acquisition and predict the learning outcomes.The foreign academic research on language aptitude was not only confined totheoretical research but also developed to empirical research.Carroll and Sapon(1999) designed the widely used MLAT (Modern Language Aptitude Test) whichcould quantify the aptitude to learn languages, while in domestic related field,academic achievements mainly focused on the literature review or theoreticalresearch. There were a few empirical researches with simple research perspectivesand objects.On account of these, on the base of previous Language aptitude theoreticalachievements, I conducted an empirical research involving the ability of speechcoding, grammatical awareness, inductive learning and mechanical memory in auniversity of xi ’an and selected a non-english major class as the subjects. Aftertesting, the data are analyzed by SPSS, a statistical tool. Using the way of validity,reliability, statistical description, and correlation analysis, the results are as follows:First, measured with MLAT, the language aptitude scores of students shownormal distribution. According to the standard of the Public Service Commission ofCanada, the participants mainly stay in a medium level of language aptitude thistime. Second, language aptitude can predicate language performance significantlywith a positive correlation between them. All the four modules of language aptitudeaffect language acquisition with apparent effects. The prediction effect of languageaptitude is obvious.Therefore, MLAT should be applied in domestic non-English major collegestudents’ English learning. Teachers can use it to guide the class teaching andstudents can use it to lead the self-learning after class. It has a far-reachingsignificance in improving English teaching effects and promoting English teachingreform.