|
The Modern Language Aptitude Test was designed to predict a student’s likelihood of success and ease in learning a foreign language. The Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) was developed to measure foreign language learning aptitude. Language learning aptitude does not refer to whether or not an individual can or cannot learn a foreign language (it is assumed that virtually everyone can learn a foreign language given adequate opportunity). According to John Carroll and Stanley Sapon, the authors of the MLAT, language learning aptitude refers to the “prediction of how well, relative to other individuals, an individual can learn a foreign language in a given amount of time and under given conditions.” The MLAT has primarily been used for adults in government language programs and missionaries, but it is also appropriate for students in grades 9 to 12 as well as college/university students so it is also used by private schools and school and clinical psychologists. Similar tests have been created for younger age groups. For example, the Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery was designed for junior high and high school students while the MLAT-E is for children in grades 3 through 6. == Development == John B. Carroll and Stanley Sapon are mainly responsible for the development of the MLAT. They designed the test as part of a five-year research study at Harvard University between 1953 and 1958. The initial purpose of developing the Modern Language Aptitude Test was to help the US Army find and train people who would learn foreign languages with ease. After field testing many different kinds of verbal tasks, Carroll chose five tests that he felt worked well as a combination in predicting foreign language learning success in a variety of contexts. These tests were minimally correlated with one another, but used together they had demonstrated high predictive validity with respect to such criteria as language proficiency ratings and grades in foreign language classes. The design of the MLAT also reflects a major conclusion of Carroll's research, which was that language learning aptitude was not a "general" unitary ability, but rather a composite of at least four relatively independent "specialized" abilities. The four aspects, or "components," of language learning aptitude that Carroll identified were phonetic coding ability, grammatical sensitivity, rote learning ability and inductive language learning ability. In the article “The prediction of success in intensive foreign language training,” Carroll defined these components as follows: The data used to calculate the statistical norms for the MLAT were collected in the fall of 1958. The MLAT was administered to approximately nineteen hundred students in grades nine to twelve and thirteen hundred students from ten colleges and universities. For adult norms, the MLAT was administered to about one thousand military and governmental enlisted persons and personnel. The test was given to the subjects before starting a language course or intensive training program. Their performance in the language program was later compared to their score on the MLAT to calculate the predictive validity of the test. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Modern Language Aptitude Test」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|