Multiple Aptitudes for Instructed Second Language Acquisition

As Snow (1989) and Sternberg (1985) have long argued, learning, and adaptation to the learning environment or classroom context (at the levels of instructional treatment, interventionist focus on form technique, or pedagogic task) is a result of the interaction of context at each of these levels of description with learners' patterns of abilities. In this paper I argue that this is an important area of research for SLA pedagogy, as well as SLA theory development, and I review recent developments in the study of L2 learning conditions; of the abilities contributing to L2 aptitude; and of their interaction with the processes involved in successful classroom learning and practice, and propose a model of ‘multiple aptitudes’ for classroom learning based on these findings.