Second language learners differ in how successfully they adapt to, and
profit from, instruction. This book aims to show that adaptation to L2
instruction, and subsequent L2 learning, is a result of the
interaction between learner characteristics and learning
contexts. Describing and explaining these interactions is
fundamentally important to theories of instructed SLA, and for
effective L2 pedagogy. This collection is the first to explore this
important issue in contemporary task-based, immersion, and
communicative pedagogic settings. In the first section, leading
experts in individual differences research describe recent advances in
theories of intelligence, L2 aptitude, motivation, anxiety and
emotion, and the relationship of native language abilities to L2
learning. In the second section, these theoretical insights are
applied to empirical studies of individual differences-treatment
interactions in classroom learning, experimental studies of the
effects of focus on form and incidental learning, and studies of
naturalistic versus instructed SLA.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Individual differences and instructed learning
Peter Robinson
Section I: Theoretical Issues
The theory of successful intelligence and its implications for
language aptitude testing
Robert J. Sternberg
Motivation, anxiety and emotion in second language acquisition
Peter D. MacIntyre
Theorising and updating aptitude
Peter Skehan
Foreign language acquisition and language-based learning disabilities
Elena L. Grigorenko
Learning conditions, aptitude complexes and SLA: A framework for
research and pedagogy
Peter Robinson
Section II: Empirical Studies
The motivational basis of language learning tasks
Zoltan D�rnyei
The role of learners' language analytic ability in the communicative
classroom
Leila Ranta
Individual differences in working memory, noticing of interactional
feedback and L2 development
Alison Mackey, J. Philp, Takako Egi, Akiko Fujii and Tomoaki
Tatsumi
Effects of individual differences in working memory, aptitude and
intelligence on adult incidental SLA: A replication and extension of
Reber, Walkenfield and Hernstadt (1991)
Peter Robinson
Aptitude-exposure interaction effects on Wh-movement violation
detection by pre-and-post-Critical Period Japanese bilinguals
Steven Ross, Naoko Yoshinaga and Miyuki Sasaki
Age, aptitude and second language learning on a bilingual exchange
Birgit Harley and Doug Hart
"The significant advance, and unifying coherence, of this book is to
describe, in a variety of educational settings around the world, the
array of psychological constructs that combine and interact in the
learning and teaching of languages. The interrelations prove to be
more intricate, and more intriguing, than most previous books or
single theories would have had us believe."
Alister Cumming, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
University of Toronto
Lingfield(s): Applied Linguistics,
Written In: English (Language Code: ENG)
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