Robinson and Peter Skehan, the two SLA researchers that have probably contributed the most to recent theorizing of aptitude, each offered new directions for future foreign language aptitude research.
Robinson (2002) builds on the seminal work of the late educational psychologist Richard Snow and proposes what he calls the Aptitude Complex Hypothesis. In Snow’s work, three principles are highlighted: (a) human aptitude is made up of a complex of abilities, interrelated in a hierarchical fashion rather than a simple or direct fashion; (b) differential cognitive processing abilities are intertwined with the contexts and affordances of the environment; and (c) differential aptitude cannot be fully explained unless motivational and affective influences are taken into account as well (see Ackerman, 2003, for a good overview of Snow’s work in this area). Robinson (2002, 2005a) capitalizes on these three premises, emphasizing the first two: ‘abilities … have their effects in combination of “complexes” … which jointly facilitate processing and learning in a specific instructional context’ (Robinson, 2005a, p. 51). He then applies them to L2 learning issues specifically.
To illustrate, let us assume that different learners are better or worse at learning from recasts (see Chapter 4, section 4.11). How would Robinson set out to explain this aptitude difference? Regarding Snow’s first premise, two aptitude complexes would be involved in explaining specifically why some learners are better than others at benefiting from recasts: ‘noticing the gap’ when the learner compares their own utterance to the one they heard back from the interlocutor and ‘memory for contingent speech’ when the learner actually remembers the utterance offered by the interlocutor well enough to rehearse it in memory or to recognize it later on, when it occurs again. In turn, each of the two complexes would be made up of a number of more basic cognitive abilities. The complex to ‘notice the gap’ probably involves pattern recognition and processing speed, whereas the complex of ‘memory for contingent speech’ would involve phonological working memory. There is some initial evidence that this latter basic cognitive ability is important for recasts in a study conducted by Jenefer Philp (2003), which showed that longer recasts (defined as strings with more than five morphemes) were repeated back less accurately than shorter recasts by most learners. That being so, learners with better phonological working memory will be less limited by recast length. This may be true at least of highly literate learners, since learners whose literacy skills are low (because they come from predominantly oral language backgrounds) may be less affected by length constraints and therefore less amenable to working memory differences, as Bigelow et al. (2006) suggested in a replication of Philp’s study. It may even be that in the study by Mackey et al. (2002) (mentioned in section 7.8) weaker ‘memory for contingent speech’ may have worked against the low-memory students being able to ‘hold on to data’ offered during the interactions (p. 204) and expand on their initial gains on the immediate post-test over two weeks, like the high-memory students did. However, they may not have necessarily been weaker in their ability to ‘notice the gap,’ since they were able to show they benefited from recasts on the immediate test.
The second premise relates to the specific instructional context, and in this case would include the range of contextual considerations we discussed in section 4.11 about how explicit or implicit recasts are delivered by teachers in a given setting and even during a given part of a lesson, with various balances of communication and attention to the code. In agreement with Snow’s third premise, Robinson
Playing it to one’s strengths: the future of L2 aptitude? 163
(2005a) recognizes that motivational and affective forces will also influence how well the hierarchical web of basic cognitive abilities and aptitude complexes is put to use under real-world conditions. One may suspect, for example, that the benefits of recasts may be reaped more easily by individuals who are highly motivated (see Chapter 8) because they may take every encounter in the L2 as an opportunity for learning; or for individuals who score high on personality traits such as openness to experience or extraversion (see Chapter 9), because they might be more attuned to positive and negative evidence that is delivered via interpersonal communication. Clearly, in order to take this third dimension of the theory to its full consequences, in future studies researchers of L2 aptitude will need to more vigorously incorporate conative and affective variables of the kinds we will examine in Chapters 8 and 9.
Skehan (2002) proposes a different but largely compatible model of aptitude for future consideration. His main concern is with linking aptitude components to the processes that SLA theory tells us are involved in L2 grammar learning. Skehan chooses to work with information processing theory (see Chapter 5, section 5.1) and identifies noticing, patterning, controlling and lexicalizing as the four macro- processes involved in learning any new aspect of the L2. Because during noticing attention is placed on a to-be-learned aspect of the L2, Skehan reasons the kinds of aptitude components that may matter for differential noticing advantages include things like attention management, working memory and phonemic coding ability. During patterning, hypotheses about what has been noticed are implicitly or explicitly made, tried out, revised, extended to relevant cases and eventually a final resulting generalization (that is, a new ‘rule’) is integrated into the existing knowledge of the L2, which thereby undergoes restructuring. The aptitude components involved in doing this patterning less or more successfully probably include grammatical sensitivity and inductive language learning ability. The next learning process is controlling. Since this involves effortful attempts to use the newly noticed and patterned knowledge to levels that are accurate, Skehan proposes that differential retrieval and proceduralization abilities must underlie aptitude differences in this area. Finally, lexicalization (also called chunking and dual coding) is the process of making the now acquired new aspect of the L2 into a fluent and automatic commodity that can be retrieved for use via a memory representation as much as via the application of a rule (lexicalization is related to our discussion in Chapter 6, section 6.4). Therefore, individuals who are adept at cognitive processes such as memory and chunking are likely to have aptitude strengths in the lexicalization stage of L2 learning. The resulting picture is one suggestive of aptitude complexes and profiles, as with Robinson (2002).