Analysis of aptitude and motivation in English L2 learning

Abstract

This thesis presents an analysis of the relation among motivation, aptitude, and academic achievement in foreign language learning. The main focus of the study is on identifying how these individual differences relate to achievement employing a well-recognized battery AMTB, that measures motivation to learn a language, and a more recent battery like LLAMA, that measures language aptitude. The results of the study indicate that motivation is the individual difference that correlates more closely to achievement. On the other hand, aptitude, as measured by LLAMA, seems to be weakly related to achievement in foreign language learning. Finally, although aptitude and achievement seem to be relatively independent from each other, some of the components of aptitude are partially related to the different areas in foreign language learning achievement such as listening or reading comprehension. These results suggest that the extent to which the individual achievement of L2 learners influenced by certain specific motivation and aptitude traits that are measured by the test batteries employed in this study.