My Language Learning Profile

-INTELLIGENCE-

Considering the fact that every normal human child easily acquires at least one language before the age of six, it is entirely relevant to ask the question. What part, if any, does intelligence play in the learning of languages?

We know about the term of “intelligence” as the ability to learn about, learn from, understand, and interact with one’s environment. This general ability consists of a number of specific abilities, which include these specific abilities:

• Adaptability to a new environment or to changes in the current environment

• Capacity for knowledge and the ability to acquire it

• Capacity for reason and abstract thought

• Ability to comprehend relationships

• Ability to evaluate and judge

• Capacity for original and productive thought

There´s a huge difference between “intelligence” and IQ. Fred Genesse (1976) found that, while intelligence was related to the development of French second language reading, grammar, and vocabulary, it was unrelated to oral production skills.

Dr. Paul Pimsleur reported: “According to reliable studies, only about 16 percent of what it likes to learn a foreign language is attributable to intelligence –at least defined by IQ tests. IQ tests are largely made up of English vocabulary and mathematical reasoning questions, presented in various forms. Maybe this explains why IQ correlates better with success in school than with success in life. Doing well in languages, like doing well at business, politics or love, calls for more than the type of intelligence that makes you successful in school. It demands qualities like persuasiveness , sensitivity, gaiety and perseverance, which IQ tests make no attempt to.

Lightbrown and Spada focus on the traditional view of intelligence as synonymous to IQ, BUT

IQ is just a “number” a “measure” of intelligence. We do not have a fixed IQ (as we do have a specific weight and body length), but our IQ indicates how well we are doing in comparison to others. Compared with 50 Einsteins you would have a very low IQ, compared with 50 children in the second grade you would have a much higher IQ. In ordinary language, one could say that intelligence refers to how smart or clever you are.

Howard Gardner said that individuals have “multiple intelligences”. Gardner includes abilities in the areas of music, interpersonal relations, athletics, and the verbal intelligence that is most often associated with success in school.

Examples:

Teachers can enhance their students' verbal/linguistic intelligence by having them keep journals, play word games, and by encouraging discussion. People with strong rhetorical and oratory skills such as poets, authors, and attorneys exhibit strong Linguistic intelligence. An example is Martin Luther King Jr.

Teachers can foster

...