This study reports a meta-analysis that synthesizes the empirical research on the role of language aptitude in second language grammar acquisition. A total of 33 study reports were identified including 17 predictive studies that investigated the correlations between aptitude and ultimate L2 attainment and 16 interactional studies that examined the…

Few adult second language (L2) learners successfully attain high-level proficiency. Although decades of research on beginning to intermediate stages of L2 learning have identified a number of predictors of the rate of acquisition, little research has examined factors relevant to predicting very high levels of L2 proficiency. The current study,…

This study examined the second language (L2) development of adult learners of Spanish at three levels of proficiency during and after a semester of instruction. A fundamental goal was to identify cognitive and psychosocial individual differences (IDs) that can explain between-learner variation over time in order to expand our understanding of the…

Describes a framework for research into the effects of cognitive abilities on second language acquisition (SLA) that is based on four interlocking hypotheses. These hypotheses are drawn from research in psychology, education, and SLA, and where possible, evidence is presented to support each of them. (Author/VWL)

In a supplement to Sasaki's 1993 study, six of the same participants took different types of second-language proficiency (SLP) tests, a foreign language aptitude battery, and an intelligence test. Results revealed differences in information processing between the high and low SLP groups. (Contains 35 references.) (Author/LB)

This paper reports replications of studies of implicit artificial grammar (AG) learning and explicit series-solution learning with experienced second language learners in order to examine their population and content generalizability. As found by Reber, Walkenfeld, and Hernstadt (1991), there was significantly greater variance in explicit compared…

Methods and approaches used at the U.S. Army Research Institute to investigate intelligent computer-assisted foreign language instruction are discussed. The research described explores the use of hypertext and natural language processing for improving language training by articulating student knowledge structures and for providing, incidentally, a…