Volume 2 of the Language Learning and Language Teaching series.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Second language learners differ in how successfully they adapt to, and profit from, instruction. This book aims to show that adaptation to L2 instruction, and subsequent L2 learning, is a result of the interaction between learner characteristics and learning contexts. Describing and explaining these interactions is fundamentally important to theories of instructed SLA, and for effective L2 pedagogy. This collection is the first to explore this important issue in contemporary task-based, immersion, and communicative pedagogic settings. In the first section, leading experts in individual differences research describe recent advances in theories of intelligence, L2 aptitude, motivation, anxiety and emotion, and the relationship of native language abilities to L2 learning. In the second section, these theoretical insights are applied to empirical studies of individual differences-treatment interactions in classroom learning, experimental studies of the effects of focus on form and incidental learning, and studies of naturalistic versus instructed SLA."(Publisher's Website)

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1. Introduction: Researching individual differences and instructed learning / Peter Robinson

Section I Theoretical Issues

2. The theory of successful intelligence and its implications for language aptitude testing / Robert J. Sternberg

3. Motivation, anxiety and emotion in second language acquisition / Peter D. MacIntyre

4. Theorising and updating aptitude / Peter Skehan

5. Foreign language acquisition and language-based learning disabilities / Elena L. Grigorenko

6. Learning conditions, aptitude complexes and SLA: A framework for research and pedagogy / Peter Robinson

Section II Empirical Studies

Classroom studies

7. The motivational basis of language learning tasks / Zoltan Dornyei

8. The role of learners' language analytic ability in the communicative classroom / Leila Ranta

Experimental studies

9. Individual differences in working memory, noticing of interactional feedback and L2 development / Alison Mackey, Jenefer Philp, Takako Egi, Akiko Fujii, and Tomoaki Tatsumi

10. Effects of individual differences in intelligence, aptitude and working memory on adult incidental SLA: A replication and extension of Reber, Walkenfield and Hernstadt (1991) / Peter Robinson

Instructed versus naturalistic exposure studies

11. Aptitude-exposure interaction effects on Wh-movement violation detection by pre-and-post-critical period Japanese bilinguals / Steven Ross, Naoko Yoshinaga, and Miyuki Sasaki

12. Age, aptitude and second language learning on a bilingual exchange /
Birgit Harley and Doug Hart

References

Index

"Second language learners differ in how successfully they adapt to, and profit from, instruction. This book aims to show that adaptation to L2 instruction, and subsequent L2 learning, is a result of the interaction between learner characteristics and learning contexts. Describing and explaining these interactions is fundamentally important to theories of instructed SLA, and for effective L2 pedagogy. This collection is the first to explore this important issue in contemporary task-based, immersion, and communicative pedagogic settings. In the first section, leading experts in individual differences research describe recent advances in theories of intelligence, L2 aptitude, motivation, anxiety and emotion, and the relationship of native language abilities to L2 learning. In the second section, these theoretical insights are applied to empirical studies of individual differences-treatment interactions in classroom learning, experimental studies of the effects of focus on form and incidental learning, and studies of naturalistic versus instructed SLA."(Publisher's Website)

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1. Introduction: Researching individual differences and instructed learning / Peter Robinson

Section I Theoretical Issues

2. The theory of successful intelligence and its implications for language aptitude testing / Robert J. Sternberg
3. Motivation, anxiety and emotion in second language acquisition / Peter D. MacIntyre
4. Theorising and updating aptitude / Peter Skehan
5. Foreign language acquisition and language-based learning disabilities / Elena L. Grigorenko
6. Learning conditions, aptitude complexes and SLA: A framework for research and pedagogy / Peter Robinson

Section II Empirical Studies

Classroom studies
7. The motivational basis of language learning tasks / Zoltan Dornyei
8. The role of learners' language analytic ability in the communicative classroom / Leila Ranta

Experimental studies
9. Individual differences in working memory, noticing of interactional feedback and L2 development / Alison Mackey, Jenefer Philp, Takako Egi, Akiko Fujii, and Tomoaki Tatsumi
10. Effects of individual differences in intelligence, aptitude and working memory on adult incidental SLA: A replication and extension of Reber, Walkenfield and Hernstadt (1991) / Peter Robinson

Instructed versus naturalistic exposure studies
11. Aptitude-exposure interaction effects on Wh-movement violation detection by pre-and-post-critical period Japanese bilinguals / Steven Ross, Naoko Yoshinaga, and Miyuki Sasaki
12. Age, aptitude and second language learning on a bilingual exchange / Birgit Harley and Doug Hart

References

Index