The Department of Applied English Linguistics and Language Teaching cordially invites all interested parties to a guest lecture by Dr Karen Roehr-Brackin (University of Essex).
„Understanding individual learner differences to improve language learning success”
Thursday 26 October 2023
15:00
Room 213, Collegium Heliodori Święcicki
Please note the change of venue from Room 229 at the time of the original publication to Room 213.
Abstract
So-called aptitude-treatment interaction (ATI) research aims to understand whether and why different individuals benefit to different extents from different kinds of language teaching and learning approaches. Gaining such an understanding has both theoretical and practical relevance because aptitude-treatment interactions can provide insight into the process that links learner-internal (aptitude) and learner external (treatment) factors. Likewise, ATI research can show why a particular type of instruction works with some learners but not others, so teaching and learning approaches can be adapted accordingly.
I will present the main findings of a recent study (Roehr-Brackin, Baranowska, Pavleković, & Scheffler, in preparation) in which we compared four instructional conditions aimed at teaching two morphological features of Polish to complete beginners. The online teaching materials varied according to input modality (auditory, written, mixed) and the nature of the explicit instruction (inductive, deductive). A total of 136 international adult volunteers took part in four language lessons and were tested for aptitude for explicit learning, aptitude for implicit learning and working memory capacity.
Our results confirm previous findings in that deductive instruction which includes metalinguistic rules explaining targeted features can seemingly level the playing field between learners with different cognitive abilities. Moreover, we identified four distinct learner profiles: high-aptitude, low-aptitude, memory-oriented, and analytically oriented, thereby replicating findings from earlier research using a similar analytic approach. In analyses based on these learner profiles, we observed ATI effects favouring individuals with specific cognitive strengths in the two instructional conditions which relied on a single input modality, i.e. where learning materials were presented exclusively in auditory format or exclusively in written format. I will discuss possible interpretations of these findings and conclude the talk with some tentative practical recommendations for language instruction aimed at adults who are seeking efficient ways towards learning the basics of a new language.
🌍 wersja w języku polskim (version in Polish) — link