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Does language aptitude change with age either in a positive or in a negative way? On the one hand, if language aptitude is indeed a trait, it should be relatively stable. Intelligence, for example, has been found to be remarkably stable.   The other side of the coin, however, is that age is a central factor in an individual’s language learning capacity—as evidenced by the vast amount of literature on the ‘critical period hypothesis’ addressing age-related changes in SLA—and therefore it is not unreasonable to assume that some of the age-related variation is mediated through aptitude changes that occur over time.   In sum, there are several findings in this study that provide some support nor the argument that analytical language ability is more closely associated with second language outcomes when intensive exposure to the language is first experienced in adolescence. This relationship appears to hold, though not as strongly, even when exposure takes place in an environm...

  Language aptitude testing was originally motivated by exactly the same reasons as the testing of intelligence, namely to identify hopelessly untalented students in state schools. Two labels of English learning emerged - analytical and synthetic The former involves constructing tasks that tap specific cognitive abilities that are assumed to play a significant role in language learning; these tasks are in the students’ first language and usually concern some aspect of verbal intelligence. In contrast, the synthetic approach involves devising mini learning tasks that the students have to carry out as part of the test-taking process, and based on their achievement in learning certain aspects of an artificial language or a rare existing L2, generalizations are made about the learners’ likely performance in a real language learning program.   Ever since the MLAT( The Modern Language Aptitude Test) and the PLAB ( the Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery) were introduced, langua...