ABSTRACT
Background and purpose: Traditional aptitude research investigates the extent to which language aptitude is predictive of ultimate L2 attainment. However, there has been a call to treat aptitude as a dynamic variable that interacts with learning context. This study examines the associations between two language aptitude components—language analytic ability and working memory—and L2 learners’ oral performance under two task conditions that differed in terms of whether or not grammar instruction is provided prior to task performance.
Methods: Forty-two eighth-grade Chinese EFL learners were divided into two groups. Both performed two narrative tasks, with the only difference being that one group received a brief grammar lesson before performing the tasks and the other group performed the tasks without receiving any grammar instruction. The learners’ oral task performance was analyzed in terms of global measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency and use of the English passive voice (the target structure). Language analytic ability was gauged via the Language Analysis subtest of the Pimsleur’s Language Aptitude Battery and working memory was measured using an operation span test.
Findings: The results revealed that language analytic ability was predictive of the learners’ overall accuracy under both learning conditions and of the syntactic complexity of the group that did not receive explicit pretask instruction. Working memory was not a significant predictor under either instructional condition.
Conclusions: The role of language analytic ability is more important in predicting learners’ overall task performance in the absence of pretask grammar instruction. The role of working memory is negligible when the online processing burden is not demanding.
Pedagogical suggestions: Teachers should avoid pretask grammar instruction which causes learners to deploy their analytic ability to produce the linguistic target and overlook their overall task performance. In order not to disadvantage low working memory learners, it is advisable to reduce learners’ cognitive processing burden during oral tasks.
