A Critical Examination of the Beliefs about Learning a Foreign Language at Primary School

discussion. However, despite the controversy surrounding the concept of
aptitude and aptitude tests, foreign language aptitude is still seen as the main (if
not the only) predictor Offoreign language learning success in the classroom.

In a fairly broad definition of aptitude Carroll stated that he had:

"...no hard evidence that would impel me to disagree with the idea that foreign
language aptitude, considered as the individual's initial state of readiness and
capacity for learning a foreign language, and probable degree of facility in
doing so, is crucially dependent upon past learning experiences. Yet, what
evidence I have suggests that foreign language aptitude is relatively fixed over
long periods of an individual's life span, and relatively hard to modify in any
significant way." (Carroll, 1981: 86)

Skehan suggested that aptitude was consistently the most successful predictor
of language learning success and that:

"...failure to include some attempt to measure aptitude will render

the interpretation of any research study very difficult." (Skehan, 1989: 39)

More recently Ehrman & Oxford (1995) suggested that the Modern Language

Aptitude Test (MLAT) continues to correlate with overall learning success at

more or less the same levels as it did in the heyday of audio-lingual training:

"...suggesting that, as Carroll and Sapon (1959) proposed, the MLAT may be
addressing learning abilities that are independent of methodology."
(Ehrman & Oxford, 1995: 77)

A possible relationship between first language development, foreign language

aptitude and foreign language achievement was investigated by Skehan (1988)

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