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Complete PICLE corpus of essays by Polish advanced EFL students (330,000)
There have been many studies which reported the link between intelligence and learning a foreign language. The studies show that intelligence is important but it is related to certain skills such as reading, writing, language analysis and vocabulary study. It is not related to listening comprehension or free oral production tasks so it seems that intelligence does not play the most important role. Another factor which appears here is aptitude. Aptitude tests which were carried out show that aptitude helps in memorizing new sounds and words and in figuring out grammatical rules from language samples. Although results of the tests are in no way conclusive it is thought that learners will be more successful if they have these abilites. There is another factor which affects language learning that is personality. Studies show that success in learning is highly related to personality, it has been suggested that inhibition discourages risk-taking which is necessary for progress in learning. Despite all the inconclusive results and problems involved in carring out research in the area of personality, many teachers and reseachers believe that it has an important influence on success in language learning. As for intelligence, aptitude and pesonality affect learning the most important factor for me would be motivation. I am now English teacher in primary school and from my experience I can say who will be good learner and who will be very poor. When asked to come to the blackboard and do some exercise they just say "Why? I don't want to do that - What for? I don't need this stuff." They are surely not motivated they do not see the purpose for learning this or that. The overall findings show that positive attitudes and motivation are highly related to success in second language learning. If the learner's only reason for learning the language is external pressure, for example parents want their child to learn it, their internal motivation will be very low and general attitudes towards learning will be negative as it leaves the learner with no success. As for age which is also very important the studies show that there is certain age of the students when they should start their learning and when they will be the most successful. If the children start earlier they will be more successful because as the time passes they are getting used to mother tongue habits that are so difficult to lose and forget. That's why adults are often worse students than teenages for example, because they have already aquired some many habits concerning their mother tongue that it is difficult for them just to switch from one language to another.