Research Symposium

BIO

Hi there! My name is Corey Burns and I'm a freshman from North Florida. After graduation, I hope to be a teacher for several years and eventually move into educational leadership and policy. My research has primarily consisted of data analysis and scoring ELL students. My goal is to teach English to students around the world in effort to cultivate their opportunities. In the meantime, I am interested in getting more hands-on experience as an educator.

Learning A Second Language Unconsciously

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to assess the bearing of 3 different implicit language aptitude scores [LLAMAD, Artificial Grammar (AG), and Passive Priming (p)] on L2 speech performance. It was hypothesized that all three of these implicit aptitude scores would have significant positive correlations with L2 speech performance. 250 speech samples were recorded by Chinese college student English-L2 learners and rated on comprehensibility and accentedness. The averaged ratings were then compared to the students’ corresponding LLAMAD-, AG- and p-scores resulting from separate tests. It was found that LLAMAD-scores had a significant positive correlation, AG-scores had no significant correlation, and p-scores had a significant negative correlation with L2 speech performance. These results have a bearing on L2 education at large; L2 education traditionally centers on conscious (explicit) language-learning and scholars have called into question the exclusion of unconscious (implicit) language-learning. This data suggests conflicting support for the inclusion of unconscious language-learning streams into L2 curriculum.

Keywords: language, aptitude, syntax