CORRELATION BETWEEN ITELLIGENCE, LANGUAGE APTITUDE, AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNERS

 

INTRODUCTION

 

The aim of this research is to determine the nature of the correlation between intelligence, language aptitude, and academic achievements in foreign language learners.

There is no doubt that such a correlation exists and the right diagnosis arising from psychological testing can lead to adopting an appropriate teaching method, which in fact might assist the student with achieving a greater amount of success in their foreign language endeavors.

Due to the enormous scope of the subject-matter as well as its highly advanced nature, this paper constitutes only an embryonic outline of the problem, attempting to focus nothing but on the key issues that barely lay a foundation to contemplating new and improved  methods of teaching which employ the entire arsenal of research in the area of modern psychology and pedagogy.

The First Chapter concentrates on the definition of intelligence followed by the Second Chapter, whose primary objective is to find a correlation between learning and intelligence or special abilities. The Third Chapter presents various methods of aptitude/intelligence testing and it leads to the conclusion of this work, which is Chapter IV, finings of the research.

 

 

1.0 DEFINITION OF INTELLIGENCE

 

 

      “Every child has, at birth, a greater potential than      Leonardo  Da Vinci ever used.”

 

Glenn Doman

 

Over the centuries people have been able to take a note that they differ from one another in their abilities to think, to understand, to solve problems, as well as in the degree of correctness of their choices and decisions they make.   

Changeability and stability of human cognitive powers are the main factors to prompt psychologists toward a belief that there exists a hidden feature in human beings responsible for them. It becomes to be known as “intelligence”, from the Latin word “intelligentia” – ability to understand, brightness of the mind.

Psychology, as a science examining various mechanisms and laws governing psychological phenomena and behavioral patterns conditioned upon them,  has selected the human intelligence to become its obvious area of interest since its very inception as a science.

Even in its every-day use, psychology is perceived to be a highly specialized field exploring the domain of human intelligence, and psychologists have become, be it right or wrong, experts in measuring it.

Putting aside the issue whether such understanding of psychology is correct or incorrect, one must concede that it would be inconceivable to imagine psychology unwilling to deal with the theory of and research in the area of intelligence.

The first psychological theories of intelligence tried to answer the question of what the character and source of the individual cognitive differences are. Differences of this sort are relatively consistent in various types of tasks and situations. 

In defining intelligence as an individual trait, psychologists had to exert efforts to define the very concept of human trait.

The trait is a relatively permanent characteristic of each individual human being, but one cannot help but notice that the human traits undergo a number of changes in the process of development, be it progression or regression, throughout the entire life of an individual.

Pursuing this path of logic, one can assume that intelligence will also follow a pattern of change, thus calling it a permanent trait is a bit misleading; this permanency is not absolute.  

Individual traits change over a long period of time, a cycle that spans over several years, while emotions, for this matter, disappear  within minutes or hours, whereas moods may swing in a matter of days.

Since it undergoes rather slow and imperceptible alterations, in this respect, intelligence behaves like a typical mental characteristic. It can be stated thus that the human intelligence is relatively permanent.

In one of his outstanding works, Edward Nęcka, prominent professor of psychology, posits that the human intelligence is a property which is underpinned by the basic cognitive processes such as attention, operational memory, and cognitive control. 

If all people thought equally quickly and efficiently, which is to say,  if there weren’t any personal variations, psychology wouldn’t have found it necessary to deal with this phenomenon. This doesn’t mean that intelligence theories have to be differential. There are descriptions attempting to depict intelligence as a natural generic ability of human mind to perform cognitive tasks; such descriptions however don’t  focus on individual differences, but simultaneously, they don’t reject them.  A good example is a concept developed by Jean Piaget (1966) or triarchic theory of intelligence proposed by Robert Sternberg (1985). Even theories of artificial intelligence don’t stem from the fact that there are some individual variations in cognitive abilities but from the question of how to provide machines with the ability to perform certain activities,  which may be arbitrarily defined as “intelligent”.  Notwithstanding many valuable and more numerous  attempts at defining a notion of unvarying intelligence, the psychological conceptions of this phenomenon are primarily focused on the interpersonal  diversity of human cognitive abilities; they also attempt to identify the source of this diversity. For psychologists, the human intelligence is and might remain for some time a personal characteristic that  distinguishes the individual from the rest of their kind (Nęcka, 2005).

According to this statement, one can not describe intelligence as a mere ability to solve arithmetical problems if and when there are no other cognitive abilities accompanying.

Performing an “in-memory” computation will constitute a rather narrow class of specialization, which may be termed as a “special ability”.

There emerges a problem that has been debated for many years – how good must the overall intellectual ability of an individual be to deserve to be called “intelligent”?

At this point one might be tempted to assume that intelligence is a trait that manifest itself in various intellectual tasks, though in order to have a broader perspective, it is worthwhile to become acquainted with other definitions of intelligence as well as the methods of intelligence measurement.

According to Jan Strelau, outstanding Polish professor of psychology, intelligence is a theoretical construct referring to some relatively permanent inner conditions of man, which are the determining factors in the effectiveness of his/her activities requiring the involvement of cognitive abilities. Such conditions are shaped as a result of interaction of genotype, environment, and the individual’s own activity (Strelau, 1997). 

William Stern, German psychologist, defines intelligence on the other hand as a general ability to adapt to new conditions and performing new tasks (Stern, 1912).

Dearborn proposes the following definition: the capacity to learn or to profit by experience (Dearborn, 1921). 

Other definitions:

"Intelligence is an adaptation…To say that intelligence is a particular instance of biological adaptation is thus to suppose that it is essentially an organization and that its function is to structure the universe just as the organism structures its immediate environment" (Piaget, 1963, pp. 3-4).

"Intelligence is assimilation to the extent that it incorporates all the given data of experience within its framework…There can be no doubt either, that mental life is also accommodation to the environment. Assimilation can never be pure because by incorporating new elements into its earlier schemata the intelligence constantly modifies the latter in order to adjust them to new elements" (Piaget, 1963, p. 6-7).

Binet and Simon (1905): the ability to judge well, to understand well, to reason well.

Terman (1916): the capacity to form concepts and to grasp their significance.

 

Wechsler (1939): the aggregate or global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with the environment.

 

Gardner (1983): the ability or skill to solve problems or to fashion products which are valued within one or more cultural settings.

 

Intelligence is the ability to see correlations – Spearman (1904)

Howard Gardner (1983) labels all of a person's talents as "intelligences".

And finally on the more humorous note, "Intelligence as a measurable capacity must at the start be defined as the capacity to do well in an intelligence test. Intelligence is what the tests test." (Boring, 1923).

Intelligence is the ability to process information, to convert this information from one form into another through logical operations – in this sense, one may term computers or even ordinary calculators as intelligent machines.

Intelligence is the ability to process information in order to better adjust to a changing environment.  Intelligence so defined is not a property of computers, since they do not process information for their own needs, but it is present in animals or insects. Such intelligence would characterize a machine capable of providing for itself, finding energy sources, and existing independently.

Intelligence is the ability to process information at the level of abstraction (e.g. the ability to perform mathematical calculations or to play a game of chess). Such intelligence is also present in computers (artificial intelligence).

Intelligence is the ability to process information creatively, thus creating new ideas and their associations.  This ability is used, or perhaps possessed by only some people.

Still in the 80’s, the term “intelligence” was used only to describe all intellectual abilities of man. Presently, intelligence so understood is believed to be co-working with other skills within the purview of emotional, motivational, and interpersonal sphere and such a cooperation between these various aspects of human psyche allow for a full exploitation of human intellectual potential.

The term “intelligence”, as it is used today, applies to a much broader area, which leads to a distinction of the following types:

Cognitive intelligence (abstract) – embraces a mental capacity, ability to analyze and synthesize data which can be expressed in the form of symbols. 

It also encompasses the ability to associate facts, to conduct simple linguistic transformations, to do numerical calculations, and to perform a simple processing of symbols.  Such intelligence can be tested and measured.(Nęcka, 2002)

Emotional intelligence – describes a capacity to perceive, assess, and manage the emotions of one's self, and of others. The use of emotions may facilitate thinking. It is connected with mental skills such as assertiveness and empathy. (Goleman, 1995)

Social intelligence – related to emotional intelligence. It is the capacity to understand others and to adjust to and to affect the social environment. (Thorndike, 1920)

Creative intelligence – a skill to produce novel and appropriate responses. It is impossible to be measured, but without any doubt,  people differ in their creative abilities. (Sternberg, 1996)

The 1983 produced a book entitled “Frames of Mind” authored by Howard Gardner. Gardner introduced the concept of multiple intelligences (MI theory). Initially, he specified seven types, which included (Gardner, 1983):

Linguistic intelligence -  involving sensitivity to spoken and written language, the capacity to use language effectively.

Logical-mathematical - the capacity to analyze problems logically and to perform mathematical operations.

Musical intelligence - the performance and composition of musical patterns.

Bodily-kinesthetic ability to use one's body to solve problems.

Spatial – the ability to recognize and use the patterns of space.

Interpersonal - the capacity to understand the intentions, motivations and desires of other people.

Intrapersonal - the capacity to understand oneself.

There are other possible candidates to be added to this list such as naturalist, spiritual, existential, or moral.

Morgan (Morgan, 1996) argues that each of the seven multiple intelligences is in fact a cognitive style rather than a stand-alone construct and that it resembles Thomson’s sampling theory. Others may argue that MI theory gives the less intellectually endowed some hope that they are intelligent in some way after all.

According to Stanley Greenspan (1998) clinical professor of psychiatry, intelligence represents two interconnected abilities: one to form intentions and ideas, and one to integrate them into analytical and logical framework.

Another definition could be the following: intelligence is the ability to understand Greenspan’s definition.

Intelligence has also been defined as “an ability to benefit from previous experiences”, or “capacity to connect various aspects of a problem into new combinations”, and many others. This leads to the conclusion that one of the most important concepts in  psychology is simultaneously the least understood. The helplessness and powerlessness of scientists trying to capture the essence of intelligence might to be best expressed by the quote attributed to Louise Armstrong,  “If ya gotta ask, you’ll never know”.

Can one measure something that cannot be defined? It seems rather impossible, yet, intelligence tests have a century-long tradition and have been used be many companies and schools as a reliable assessment of candidates in their recruitment process. Such assessments, although popular, may seem controversial, especially since the memorable Alpha and Beta tests  of WW I used by the American army.  The results of these tests were to provide a clear evidence of differences in mental capacities of the black and white soldiers – a chimpanzee may achieve a high score on an IQ test but only when the test is drawn up by another chimpanzee- this is the argument used by black psychologists condemning the discrimination of their race.    

The greatest criticism that has ever been leveled against IQ tests is that no one knows what they actually measure.

What is assessed with them does not necessary have to be what is commonly known as intelligence, cleverness, skill, or intellect – points a noted geneticist and evolutionary biologist,  Theodosius Dobzhansky (1962).

This is also true for tests measuring verbal, spatial, and mathematical skills.

There is an ongoing debate whether solving various tasks is influenced by a single dominant factor, which Spearman termed g for "general" intelligence (Spearman’s “g” theory of 1904), or by a number of unconnected mental abilities which are components of what is called general intelligence (Thomson’s sampling theory, 1916)

Having observed that most of prominent individuals have achieved success only in one discipline such as music or mathematics, one may think that Thompson is right in his assumptions. However, there are people who are versatile and universally gifted and who impress the whole world with their creative enthusiasm in many unrelated disciplines. Robert Oppenheimer , as one of these people, besides being an outstanding physicist and director of the Manhattan project, for which he was labeled “the father of the atomic bomb”,  was also an expert in classical and Eastern philosophies and had a flare for learning languages. Robert Oppenheimer, Leonardo Da Vinci, or Benjamin Franklin are good examples of Spearman’s universal “g” factor – general ability to solve different problems.

Which of these scientists is right, then? If intelligence has a predetermined specific location, then it is Spearman. If, on the other hand, intelligence in dispersed throughout various structures of the brain, the credit goes to Thomson. This is how neurobiologists want to answer this question. The only thing that remains to be examined is the location of the center of human intelligence. But how?

The brain contains the shrewdness of man, however, it does not have a center of intelligence that would be dependant on the entire cerebral cortex – so claimed Anthony Smith (Smith, 1968) in his best-selling book “The Body”, published almost 40 years ago.

In “The Mind”, which was published 10 years later, he was no longer so outright by saying that there’s no doubt that intelligence is located in the human scull, but where and how only God knows.

John Duncan (2000) on behalf of an English and German research team claims that he already knows that – intelligence resides “in the lateral frontal cortex”. Discovery described in the July 21, 2000 issue of the journal Science, “A Neural Basis for General Intelligence“, was possible owing to many dozens of volunteers and excellent measuring methods employed in this research. Led by Dr. John Duncan, the research team used positron emission tomography to measure the brain activity of adults during spatial, verbal and motor tasks. These tasks were designed to measure "general intelligence" or a "g factor” through a number of exercises, which were to examine the active areas of the brain while they were being performed.   Duncan and his team discovered that “ 'general intelligence' derives from a specific frontal system important in the control of diverse forms of behavior", thus supporting Spearman’s “g theory”.

Robert Sternberg (2000), a professor in the Department of Psychology at Yale University, wrote an editorial that also appeared in the same issue of Science, entitled “The Holey Grail of General Intelligence”.  Sternberg expresses his skepticism as to whether the team’s findings have been interpreted correctly. If there is a center of intelligence,  it surely doesn’t include all of its types, says Sternberg.

One should not conclude however that intelligence measured with a quotient (IQ) is meaningless.  In defining and measuring intelligence one should not discard logical thinking for that matter as something useless in life, but try to look at intelligence as a multi-dimensional problem that requires a novel approach. New attempts at defining intelligence also include a good concentration, memory, listening and comprehending information, and many others. 

All of these abilities are used, to a greater or lesser extent, in various tasks and activities. There is no single universal intelligence gauge with which one can  compare any two individuals and clearly state which one of them is more intelligent. IQ tests will most likely never sink into oblivion. After all, people like being labeled and categorized in some typological form.  They like being divided into the „wise” and „stupid” with the aid of some simple tools that make such a determination possible, of course, as long as they don’t belong to the latter.

 

2.0  CORELATION BETWEEN INTELLIGENCE / APTITUDE AND LEARNING

 

 

„Teaching is not filling up a pail, it is lighting a fire”

William Butler Yeats

                                                                                                    

Aptitude and creativity of the student

     

The primary aim of education is to prepare students for active, creative, and autonomous life.  All educators who exert their influence upon this process should stimulate the development of the student’s abilities. This is, however, a difficult task since each student is unique with respect to their personality, intelligence, motivation, and etc, which means that the teacher  would have to personalize his/her approach toward each individual student.

Over 200 years ago, a German philosopher, psychologist, and pedagogue, Johan Friedrich Herbart made a claim that the diversity of human mind is a major obstacle in formal education systems. Not taking this fact into consideration is a fundamental error of any legislation regulating such systems.

More and more teachers are beginning to perceive gifted and creative students as individuals with special educational needs. Their education is an excellent investment, which is likely to return profits in form of some concrete scientific, cultural and artistic achievements.  The gift that they possess is the easiness with which they can process and retain information. Gifted students are very often identified by their achievement marks, but also by various psychological tests (psychometric tests) or by teachers who have a close contact with them.

Prodigy is an umbrella term for a set of complex individual traits in the area of cognition, emotions, personality, motivation, or social skills. These gifts or abilities are present in a small number of children very early in the childhood. The most frequently used criterion is an intelligence quotient. Psychologists believe that extremely gifted individuals are those whose IQ extends over the 130-point limit. IQ is a number, which is supposed to indicate the level of intelligence, but it is also surrounded by mystery. In fact, it is not important as a number but what is hiding behind it. Two different individuals having the same IQ may have different talents and skills.

Another criteria used in identifying gifted children may be the following: intellectual abilities, specific academic aptitudes, visual and performing arts talents, leadership, and creative and productive thinking (Gifted and Talented Children's Act of 1978, USA).

 The most controversial of them all is intelligence.

In the colloquial sense of the word, an “intelligent” person may be the one who functions in accordance with the social code. Treating intelligence as a virtue may very often collide with the deeds of an “intelligent person”. A good example is Herman Göring, a proud Luftwaffe “intellectual” whose IQ was 138. 

The assumption that the possession of special abilities is tantamount to intelligence may also prove erroneous. It must be pointed out that aptitude and general intelligence are distinct from one another and coexist independently (Skehan 1990, cited in Williams and Burden 1997:495). Oliver Saks, neurologist and author of “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat”, describes the twins who can perform phenomenal arithmetical computations with an IQ of 60 (autistic savants).  Such an ability in intellectually deficient children is hard to reconcile with the notion that only highly intelligent people will possess it.

Academic intelligence is only one of the skills a person can have – it is a good overall logical thinking indicator.  It may be characterized as analytical and goal-oriented. A child will seek a single problem solution which meets all the conditions of  a task at hand. In other words, the child will use its ability to bring together several pieces of information to a focal point of a single correct answer. This is usually a typical structure of an IQ test as well as of the majority of tests and exams.

Such thinking is described by Guilford (1967) in his model of the intellect  as convergent. But Guilford also distinguishes  another mental operation, which he calls the divergent thinking. It is the ability to move along different paths from given information in order to find many correct solutions to a problem. It is characteristic of creative thinking, which is measured by the flexibility, fluency, and originality.

The fluency of thinking and imagination is the ease with which a child can produce its creations (words, expressions, ideas, solutions, etc) in a relatively short period of time. The fluency is measured by the number of ideas generated within that timeframe.

Flexibility is the ability to render different results, to break apart and reform different configurations of classes, or systems (the opposite of flexibility is the rigidity of thinking).

The most important aspect of creativity is the originality, which is the ability to generate a variety of novel transformations.

A correlation between IQ and academic intelligence is as minuscule as the correlation between divergent thinking and academic achievements. The gifted students don’t have to be creative and vice versa.  Creative thinking and academic intelligence require different skills.

Another matter that can not be overlooked is the correlation between intelligence and creative abilities.

Based on the conducted research, all students can be divided into four groups (Nęcka, 2002):

The creative and intelligent students are the most successful in an academic setting.  The opposite can be said about the students who are non-creative and unintelligent; they will have to pay the price for their unconventional thinking. 

There is a small correlation between intelligence and creativity. Intelligence tests do not  measure human creativity and are not designed as such.

Every human being is, to a greater or lesser extent, creative. The perfection is reached only by  a handful. Creative thinking was a survival tool for our ancestors and it is a driving force of human progress.

It becomes also very important how teachers assess the aptitude of a child since such assessment may influence the child’s self-esteem and future development. The labeling and categorizing of students may very often define the limits of their capacities, which may further lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. One can use the example of a class declared by psychologists as extremely talented and which opinion was suddenly shared by all of the teachers. It often so happens that a negative assessment issued by a teacher or a person in the position of authority will cut the proverbial wings of the student.

The assumption that aptitude and intelligence are innate predispositions falls into the realm of some fatalistic determinism. Such an assumption will give a chance only to a selected few since it will draw teachers’ attention away from the students who are not apt or gifted in the traditional sense of the word but who show a high level of creativity.

There comes a question whether intelligence is predetermined by genes or is affected by the environment.

It’s also interesting how people use and to what extent they utilize their brains. Human mind is a “pail” that grows larger as long as new information is added to it. This is true for adults and children.

A good example is that of a man who suffered from a sever brain damage in his childhood and, from the medical standpoint, should be in a vegetable-like state throughout his entire life, but despite this prognosis, he became a banker and lived a normal life. The disability forced the brain to seek and find new ways and made it create a new wiring that would facilitate a normal functioning as an individual.  One should probably cease asking about the cause of the exceptionality of geniuses and pose a question why not everyone develops into a genius, then.

Nęcka (2002) defines talent as a triad comprising of:

Bright children have the intellect but the gifted ones possess also a strong  motivation and skills that are a result of a hard work. For this reason, the notion of giftedness must be broadened; it cannot be connected with a particular academic achievement in a specific subject.  It becomes possible that a person with no aptitude in mathematics, but having a high emotional sensitivity and good organizational skills may prove an excellent political leader who will be deciding the fate of an entire nation.  

It is probably worthwhile to verify and broaden our understanding of talents.   And here comes into play the role of formal education, which may help students find the discipline at which they excel and which corresponds with the gifts with which they have been endowed.

In a formal education setting, teachers very often forget this and prepare their students for university professorship while assessing their skills according to some commonly applied criteria.  It is important not to think of a gifted or bright child as only a physicist or mathematician.  A student can display other talents which, unfortunately, have not been noticed. 

A bright student is not necessarily one who receives “A’s” and wins different academic competitions but it is also one who has excellent achievements in sports, arts, leadership, and etc.

A frequent mistake that occurs in the teaching process is so-called encyclopedic teaching, in which students are deprived of the opportunity to solve various problems and to ask questions.  One can teach about newly discovered genetic code or animal cloning without getting into any specifics on why and to what problem these were the answers. Certainly, teaching methods that promote creative thinking and solving problems should be among the most preferred by teachers. One may reflect on this problem while studying the list of “famous ignoramuses”:

This list may be a proof of how little the academic achievements can say about the real abilities of the student. The question that remains is: Why does this happen?

Teachers very often talk about students’ shortcomings, errors, weaknesses, as though teaching was about “nailing” the students on what they don’t know. In fact, every individual has some strengths which can be utilized in a productive way.

Each child is intelligent and can be successful provided that it discovers what it is good at and what it learns easily and with pleasure and what it cannot learn and why.

This will lead us to the core of the problem: Can we identify the student’s potential?

 

 

3.0 INTELLIGENCE AND LANGUAGE APTITUDE TESTING

 

“Measure your mind's height by the shade it casts”.

Robert Browning Hamilton

 

3.1. Aptitude tests

Foreign language aptitude, defined by Carroll (1973:5) is the "rate at which persons at the secondary school, university and adult level learn to criterion". There are a number of definitions, but most of them describe aptitude as a “talent” for languages or the speed at which the learner can learn the task in question.

The foreign language aptitude was the subject of extensive research  conducted since the 50’s. Several aptitude tests have arose from this research, which are in use today.

They have been designed to measure the ability of students  to learn a foreign language in classroom settings as well as  for selection, placement, and diagnostic purposes .

 

"Modern Language Aptitude Test" (MLAT) was developed by Carroll and Sapon (1959) – used for testing  adults and high school students. Carroll (1973:7-8) distinguishes the following major cognitive abilities which can be measured by aptitude tests:

Phonetic coding ability -  the ability to store new language sounds in memory

Grammatical sensitivity – defined as "the individual's ability to demonstrate his awareness of the syntactical patterning of sentences in a language".

Rote learning ability -  a kind of general memory that is applied to foreign language situations.

Inductive ability - the ability to "examine language material... and from this to notice and identify patterns and correspondences and relationships involving either meaning or grammatical form". All of these components are measured by MLAT

The MLAT is used extensively by various government agencies in the USA and Canada.

The test consists of five parts that can be named as follows:

Carroll and Sapon (1967) also developed an elementary version, the "EMLAT," for use with younger children.

 

Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery (PLAB) (Pimsleur, 1965) consists of six subtests:

Unlike the MLAT, the PLAB is designed for students in grades 7-12 and it includes the tools for measuring the ability to infer language structure from artificial language stimuli.

 

LABJ – Language Aptitude Battery for Japanese

The LABJ has three subtests, but it is not focused exclusively on syntax:

                        1. Paired associates

                        2. Language analysis

                        3. Sound symbol association

These subtests are similar to three of those on the MLAT, and like the MLAT, the LABJ was designed for university language learners, specifically for Japanese learners of English by Sasaki in 1996.

 

CANAL-FT – Cognitive Ability for Novelty in Acquisition of Language as Applied to Foreign Language Test

The Cognitive Ability for Novelty in Acquisition of Language as Applied to Foreign Language Test (CANAL-FT) (Grigorenko, Sternberg, & Ehrman, 2000) has nine subtests in two categories—intermediate recall and delayed recall:

A. Intermediate recall

                        1. Learning neologisms from context

                        2. Understanding the meaning of passages

                        3. Continuous paired-associate learning

                        4. Sentential inference

                        5. Learning language rules

B. Delayed recall (at least 30 min. delay)

                        6. Delayed learning neologisms from context

                        7. Delayed understanding the meaning of passages

                        8. Delayed continuous paired-associate learning

                        9. Delayed sentential inference

CANAL-FT initially looks similar to the MLAT, PLAB, & DLAB, but it adds delayed recall measures. In addition, the CANAL-FT is based on an artificial language called Ursulu.

 

The U.S. Department of Defense has developed the following tests:

VORD (Parry and Child, 1990), Unlike the ALAT and DLAB tests, the VORD was not designed to predict learner success in speaking and reading foreign languages. Instead, the VORD was designed to test the subject’s ability to deal with the syntactic systems of Turkic languages through an artificial language called Vord.

The VORD contains three subtests:

The DLAB is made up of six subtests designed to measure:

a) utterance identification

b) recognition of vowel patterns

c) recognition of stress patterns

3.      recognition of sound-symbol relationships

 

According to Stansfield (1989),  these tests may be useful in the academic context for tailoring instruction to the aptitudes, motivations, and learning styles of individual students as well as groups.

However, there are a number of criticisms regarding language aptitude. One of them is that the MLAT and LAB tests don’t measure innate aptitude for language proficiency. Ellis (1985) argues that aptitude tests do not assess the oral ability that is part of language proficiency and that the language aptitude is not only  the ability to learn sounds and syntax, but also the ability to use all various systems of a language in order to communicate meaning. It is also argued that language aptitude tests may produce successful predictions because there is an imminent agreement of tasks contained in a test with those present in formal classroom study, and as such it does not measure some innate linguistic ability.

 

3.2 Intelligence and intellectual achievement Tests

There are countless numbers of IQ tests available, with varying amounts of validity. The test types quoted in this work come from the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development:

 

Raven's Progressive Matrices - The Raven Progressive Matrices test is a widely used intelligence test in which subjects are asked to find the missing pattern in a series.  Each set of items becomes progressively more complex, requiring greater cognitive capacity to encode and analyze.

Raven's Progressive Matrices was designed primarily as a measure of Spearman's g.  The test has no time limit.  There are 3 different tests for different abilities:

  1. Colored Progressed Matrices (younger children and special groups)
  2. Stanford Progressive Matrices (designed for 6 to 80 year olds)
  3. Advanced Progressive Matrices (designed for adolescents & adults)


 


Fig.1 Example of Raven's Progressive Matrices

 

 

WISC-IV - Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children (by far the most commonly used) has four composite scores (the previous version, WISC III, had only two).  Full Scale IQ is comprised of :

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  1. Verbal Comprehension Index (VCI)
  2. Perceptual Reasoning Index (PRI)
  3. Working Memory Index (WMI)
  4. Processing Speed Index (PSI)

 

WAIS-III - Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Third Edition (by far the most commonly used). The WAIS-III is an individually-administered test designed to measure the intellectual ability of adults (ages 16-89).

 

Verbal Subtests (assessing language and auditory processing):

  1. Similarities - measures abstract verbal reasoning
  2. Vocabulary - measures ability to give word definitions
  3. Comprehension - measures social judgment
  4. Arithmetic - measure of math problem solving
  5. Letter/Number Sequencing - a test of working memory
  6. Digit Span - measuring short term auditory memory which involves repeating digit sequences in forward and reverse order

Performance Subtests (measures visual spatial and visual motor abilities - most requiring a motor response time within a time limit):

  1. Block Design - requires replicating abstract designs with blocks
  2. Object Assembly - puzzle assembly task
  3. Matrix Reasoning - measuring abstract visual reasoning
  4. Picture Completion - measuring attention to visual detail
  5. Picture Arrangement - sequential organization
  6. Coding - visual motor integration
  7. Symbol Search - quick visual scanning of geometric symbols

 

Stanford-Binet-IV is also known as SB L-M. The Stanford Binet -IV is another comprehensive general IQ test that has a lower floor and a higher ceiling than the Wechsler series and is thus better suited for gifted children or youth with developmental delays. It has excellent reliability and validity. The test is timed; it takes about 60 minutes to administer. It is comprised of 15 subtests grouped into 4 general areas:

 

Verbal reasoning,

Quantitative reasoning,

Abstract/visual reasoning,

Short- term memory.

 

Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-educational Battery-Revised (WJ-R) (ages preschool-adult)

The test is administered individually. It was designed to assess intellectual and academic development. It consists of 21 cognitive subtests based on the Horn-Cattell Gf-Gc model  (Gf and Gc refer, respectively, to “fluid" and “crystallized" intelligence). Seven subtests comprise the standard battery:

  1. Memory for sentences,
  2.  Memory for Names,
  3. Visual Matching,
  4. Incomplete Words,
  5. Visual Closure,
  6. Picture vocabulary,
  7. Analysis-Synthesis.

 There are 14 supplementary subtests (measuring e.g., passage comprehension, calculation, etc).

 

Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC) (ages 2.5-12)

The test is intended to be a general intelligence and achievement test drawn from the information processing theories.

Subscales include the following:

1.      Simultaneous Processing,

2.      Sequential Processing,

3.      Nonverbal processing.

It is claimed to be a good tool for assessing exceptional children, minorities, and bilingual children. It is limited by the ceiling age of 12. It is reliable for composite scores and not for subtests.

 

 

McCarthy Scales of Children’s Abilities (ages 2.6-8.6)

This test incorporates developmental theory. Its subtests are predictive of skills that are necessary for later school success.

The MSCA is divided into 5 subtests:

1.      Verbal;

2.      Perceptual-Performance;

3.      Quantitative;

4.      Motor;

5.      Memory.

Test of Nonverbal Intelligence-2 (TONI-2) (ages 5-85.11)

It was designed for those who require language-free or motor-reduced test of abstract or figural problem solving. The test is administered individually in pantomime, which means that the participants will have to point to answers. The test has no time limit, but it takes about 15 minutes to administer.

 

The Reynolds Intellectual Assessment Scales (RIAS) was developed to measure general intelligence. In contrast to most existing measures of intelligence, the RIAS eliminates dependence on motor coordination, visual-motor speed, and reading skills and can be administered in a short period of time. It  is administered individually in its standardized form on an age population from 3 to 94 years. Based on the Horn-Cattell Model of Intelligence (Horn and Cattell, 1966), the test measures two primary components, fluid and crystallized intelligence. The RIAS includes a measure of verbal and nonverbal intelligence.

The basic RIAS can be administered in 20 to 35 minutes.

 

All these tests differ in their theoretical basis, the validity and reliability, the sub-scores, and the length of administration. In general, IQ tests will assess the verbal and nonverbal intelligence.

 

 

4.0 CASE STUDY

 

"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."

    Albert Einstein

 

 

Introduction

 

This part of the work is to examine a possible correlation between intelligence, language aptitude, and achievement in foreign language acquisition.  Although such a connection may seem obvious and logical at first, it becomes crucial to put all the biases aside and approach the issue in the most objective way.

In order to achieve this goal, the author of this work uses a professional assistance of a psychologist employed at the Center for Child Psychology in Lębork. A group of students to be tested has been carefully selected from a local school.

The subsequent paragraphs describe the test subjects, applied procedures, as well as the findings and conclusion of the research. 

 

4.1 Test group

 

A group of 25 Gimnazjum students was selected for the testing purposes, all of whom were sixteen years of age, 14 girls and 11 boys.  All members of the group were third-grade students, members of the same class attending Gimnazjum No 3 in Lębork.  All of them had been learning English for a minimum of three years and received their English instructions at the rate of three hours per week.

 

4.2 Procedure

 

A psychologist from the local Center for Child Psychology has been employed for the testing purposes. The author has received appropriate permissions from parents and school authorities, which are presently in the possession of the Center. On May 24th, 2006, the psychologist conducted two tests, one measuring general language aptitude, and one for general intelligence. 

            A sixty-minute Polish aptitude test was  administered in Gimnazjum No 3 in Lębork.  The test consisted of tasks, whose purpose was to find linguistic abilities of the students, both in their native tongue as well as in a foreign language.  Since English was a part of curriculum of the test group, four of the tasks tested the skills of the students in that language. 

            The test consisted of twelve tasks for completion of which the student received a maximum of forty points.  

 

Language Aptitude scale:

 

  1. Rank 1 – over 90% – remarkable language aptitude.
  2. Rank 2 – over 80%– over-the-average language aptitude.
  3. Rank 3 – from 50% to 80%– average language aptitude.
  4. Rank 4 – below 50% – below-the-average language aptitude.

 

As the test is a property of the Center for Child Psychology and its administration is restricted only to a qualified personnel, a small sample of the test could be included in the Appendices to this work.

            A thirty-minute Raven Standard Progressive Matrices Test is administered to the same group of students on a different day.  The Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) was designed to measure a person’s ability to form perceptual relations and to reason by analogy independent of language and formal schooling. The test is a measure of Spearman's g. 

            The Standard Progressive Matrices Test consists of five parts, A, B, C, D, E, each presenting twelve tasks, which become progressively more difficult.  The maximum score for the test is sixty points, which are later converted into a percentile rank producing the following classification:

 

1.      Rank 1 – over 95 percentile – remarkable intellectual abilities.

2.      Rank 2 – over 75 – over-the-average intellectual abilities.
               from 90 to 95 – (+)

3.      Rank 3 – from 25 to 75 – average intellectual abilities.
               over 50 – (+)
               below 50 – (-)

4.      Rank 4 – 25 and below – below-the-average intellectual abilities.
               below 10 – (-)

5.      Rank 5  - below 5 – intellectually handicapped.

Since the test is a property of the Center for Child Psychology and its administration is restricted to a qualified personnel only, a small sample of the test could be included in the Appendices to this work.

Academic achievements of all the students have been measured over the period of one year by the teachers with whom the students have their regular Polish and English classes. In the course of their lessons, the students are frequently assessed and marked. Such assessments have been used for the purpose of this research.

The following is the assessment scale adopted by Gimnazjum No 3 in Lębork:

 

  1. Outstanding – outstanding retention/understanding of material
  2. Excellent – very good retention/understanding of material
  3. Good – good retention/understanding of material
  4. Satisfactory – average retention/understanding of material
  5. Pass – sufficient retention/understanding of material
  6. Fail – insufficient retention/understanding of material

 

4.3 Findings

 

The results of the Aptitude Test

 

Rank 1 – Two subjects.

Rank 2 – Four subjects.

Rank 3 – Fourteen subjects.

Rank 4 – Five subjects.

 

 

 

 

The results of the Ravens Standard Matrices Test:

 

Rank 1 – None of the subjects.

Rank 2 – Three subjects.

Rank 3 – Fifteen subjects.

Rank 4 – Seven subjects.

Rank 5 – None of the subjects.

 

Academic achievement of the students

 

Outstanding – one student (L2)

Excellent  - four students

·        L1 – three

·        L2 – two

Good - seven students

·        L1 – four

·        L2 – seven

Satisfactory -  twelve students

·        L1 – ten

·        L2 – five

Pass -  twelve students

·        L1 – eight

·        L2 – eight

Fail -  two students (L2)

 

 

The chart represents all the data collected during the testing procedures.

Subject

Gender

F-Female M-Male

Intelligence test

Aptitude test

Academic achievements in L1

Academic achievements in L2

Self-assessed motivation

0-10

1

F

Rank 3 (+)

Rank 2

Good

Good

7

2

F

Rank 3 (-)

Rank 2

Excellent

Good

9

3

F

Rank 2

Rank 2

Good

Good

7

4

M

Rank 4

Rank 4

Pass

Pass

5

5

M

Rank 3 (+)

Rank 3

Good

Good

5

6

M

Rank 4

Rank 3

Satisfactory

Satisfactory

2

7

F

Rank 3 (-)

Rank 1

Excellent

Excellent

8

8

M

Rank 3 (-)

Rank 4

Pass

Fail

3

9

F

Rank 2

Rank 3

Satisfactory

Good

9

10

F

Rank 3 (-)

Rank 3

Satisfactory

Satisfactory

6

11

F

Rank 3 (+)

Rank 3

Pass

Pass

4

12

M

Rank  4

Rank 3

Satisfactory

Pass

5

13

F

Rank 2 (+)

Rank 1

Excellent

Outstanding

8

14

F

Rank 3

Rank 2

Satisfactory

Excellent

9

15

M

Rank 3 (+)

Rank 3

Pass

Satisfactory

5

16

F

Rank 3 (-)

Rank 3

Pass

Satisfactory

6

17

M

Rank 3

Rank 3

Satisfactory

Satisfactory

5

18

F

Rank 3 (-)

Rank 3

Satisfactory

Good

8

19

F

Rank 4

Rank 3

Satisfactory

Pass

5

20

F

Rank 4

Rank 4

Satisfactory

Pass

5

21

M

Rank 3

Rank 3

Good

Good

7

22

M

Rank 3 (-)

Rank 3

Satisfactory

Pass

5

23

F

Rank 4

Rank 4

Pass

Pass

5

24

M

Rank 3 (-)

Rank 3

Pass

Pass

6

25

M

Rank 4

Rank 4

Pass

Fail

2

 

 

 

The top ten subjects, eight girls and two boys, show remarkable academic achievements in foreign language classroom. Four of them, however, register an average IQ level, and another four an average language aptitude. The common denominator behind their success is a self-assessed motivation, which on the scale from 0 to 10 ranges from 7 to 9.

 

4.4 Conclusion

 

Although the correlation between intelligence and academic achievement in foreign language  appears to be there, the conducted tests have produced ambiguous results that not necessarily support this view.  The top ten subjects comprise five students (of the total of seven in the group) whose IQ ranges above the average. This evidence indicates that there is a connection between intelligence and foreign language learning. This connection however seems to become obscured with respect to Subjects 2, 7, 9, 11, 14, 15, 18, and 21, who demonstrate lack of any correlation.

Low intelligence might never hinder the student in becoming a proficient foreign language user, but it may never help them either.

It appears however that there is a stronger relation between language aptitude and achievement. Six of the top 10 subjects show high aptitude resulting in better marks in their foreign language endeavors. 

Interestingly, motivation can make up for intellectual shortcomings of an individual and help them achieve goals that otherwise might seem to be reserved only for the intellectually endowed. As a driving force, it can give a boost to the weaker students toward a successful learning.

Due to a very small testing sample the results of the tests are inconclusive and the data insufficient to form a strong opinion.

 

CONCLUSION

 

The primary objective set forth in this work was to describe intelligence and aptitude as well as their  potential influence on the academic achievement in a foreign language.  Although everyone knows what intelligence is, it is extremely difficult to define. Psychologists have been putting forward new ideas concerning intelligence for decades, trying to dissect this entity being an inseparable part of every human being in vain. Understanding intelligence and knowing all its components as well as their location in the human brain could lead to significant improvement in pedagogy or perhaps to some revolutionary genetic manipulation, giving a rise to a population of geniuses.  High intelligence will always help people in their intellectual pursuits as well it may positively affect their learning and life in general. One may infer from the conducted research that students intellectually endowed will do much better in their foreign language learning than those less blessed but also that intelligence alone might not be the greatest factor in their success.

Language aptitude, which was another area of research, is separate from intelligence. Possessing this mental skill will aid the student in acquiring a foreign language to a greater extent than intelligence might ever do. 

The author of this paper does not venture into the areas such as motivation and attitude toward learning a foreign language, which are also essential if the student is to achieve a success. The research indicates that a combination of students' motivation and their high aptitude may decide upon their achievements in second language learning.

 

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