Walter V. Kaulfers

The Intelligence Factor in Foreign-Language Achievement

Recent investigations of the correlation between intelligence and success in foreign-language study have yielded somewhat optimistic conclusions concerning the value of the intelligence quotient in predicting achievement. That this optimism is not wholly justified is evident from the results of the investigation reported in this article, which is probably the most comprehensive study of the intelligence factor in foreign-language achievement thus far reported. The materials of the study, which was made during the second semester of the school year 1927-28, are the intelligence quotients of 1,002 pupils, derived from their performance on the Terman Group Test of Mental Ability, Forms A and B, and certain of their marks in Spanish. The pupils, who were enrolled in eighteen junior and senior high schools in San Diego and Los Angeles, had studied Spanish from one to six semesters. The marks in Spanish for the last two semesters of study were averaged for all except beginning pupils. These averages were translated into point-score equivalents on the basis of their standard-deviation distances on the linear scale

Value of English Marks in Predicting Foreign-Language Achievement

achievement in English and achievement in foreign language. Actual inquiry, however, shows that very little objective proof of the existence of a substantial correlation has been presented. It is true that recent studies of a large number of high-school and college students tend to show that foreign-language work improves ability in the mother-tongue,2 but no one seems to have investigated the actual degree of relationship between previous achievement in English and subsequent performance in foreign-language courses. Even if it is certain that pupils who have studied a foreign language do better in English than do those who have not studied a.foreign language, it is probable that the superiority may be attributable, at least in part, to greater original ability in English. May not a possible superiority in language interest, manifesting itself, perhaps, in a higher level of achievement in the mother-tongue, have something to do with pupil choice of foreign-language work in the beginning?

Present Status of Prognosis in Foreign Language

Six hundred and twelve correlations reported over a period of thirty years by forty-six investigators in this country and abroad for the relations between foreign-language achievement and sixtyfive bases of comparison should ordinarily be sufficient to demonstrate the relative validity of one criterion as compared with another for predicting success in foreign-language work. However, when the range of the coefficients in almost every case runs all the way from positive to negative and from significant to worthless, the question of the relative value of the various criteria for purposes of educational prognosis becomes rather more befuddled than clarified. That this, in a nutshell, is precisely the situation with respect to the present status of prognostic measurement in foreign language is revealed by the survey of fifty-one correlation studies and prognosis investigations published in the past thirty years which is reported in this article.

Observations on the Question of General Language

There are some things ideal in theory which prove impractical in application. The general-language idea is one of these. Obviously, anyone who would discuss the pros or cons of such a course should have had abundant opportunity to observe it in operation on an adequately comprehensive scale and under circumstances sufficiently favorable to warrant reliable conclusions. For a year and a half the writer has been intimately identified with the organization and actual teaching of general language in one of the large junior high schools in California. The work was first offered during the school year 1925-26 in ten-week cycle classes to all pupils in the high seventh grade. It was abandoned the following year for financial reasons and resumed in the autumn of 1927 as an exploratory course for all eighth-grade pupils. In the latter case the classes met on alternate days for one semester, three times a week during the first half and twice a week during the second. The experiment involved approximately a thousand pupils and six teachers. It may be added that the course was introduced entirely on the initiative of the foreign-language department and undertaken with more than usual enthusiasm by both pupils and teachers. The indifferent success which the experiment met was therefore due primarily to deficiencies inherent in the course itself rather than to any prejudices or preconceived ideas on the part of the teachers respecting its ultimate value or expediency. The objectives of the work, derived from a careful study of current literature in the field, were as follows: i. Prognostic-guidance aims a) To acquaint pupils with the methods and techniques of foreign-language study

An Integrative Approach to the Social-Cultural Aspects of Language

LANGUAGE, broadly conceived as communication, is mans most significant social invention and most indispensable instrument of thought. As such, it is one of the most powerful factors conditioning the everyday lives of individuals, communities, states, and nations. In the field of jurisprudence, for example, the professional literature of law offers countless examples of cases in which the decisions of the courts have hinged almost entirely on the interpretation of language, often on the meanings of common, everyday words used in contracts, wills, deeds, and other legal documents. During the course of history thousands of people have engaged in fratricidal warfare because of differing interpretations placed on the wording or the translation of the Holy Scriptures. In fact, the basis of religious sectarianism is in large part linguistic. Fundamentalism and modernism in religion today ultimately represent but two schools of linguistic interpretation-the one literal and the other figurative. In the life of communities, states, and nations, illiteracy and differences in linguistic backgrounds are among the most important obstacles to social integration and to cultural unity. It is not without

Magic-Wand Solutions to Foreign-Language Problems

Discussions of curriculum problems in the language arts have seldom failed to elicit at least one of the following suggestions for the improvement of foreign-language teaching in secondary schools. i. Pupils should be required to pursue the language of their choice throughout high school. This solution is apparently based on a recognition of the fact that lower-division preparatory courses rarely yield a command of language sufficiently thorough to permit its use as a professional tool or as a key to foreign cultures. The sponsors of this proposal usually disclaim responsibility for the attainment of functional outcomes in the conventional two-year program. Offerings at this level, they assert, can be regarded only as paving the way for a subsequent realization of deferred values. If asked of what benefit the two-

Implications of Contemporary Educational Theory for the Teaching of Modern Language

One hundred and fourteen years ago the committee recommending the establishment of the first public high school in America reported as follows: The mode of education now adopted, and the branches of knowledge that are taught at our English grammar [elementary] schools are not sufficiently extensive nor otherwise calculated to bring the powers of the mind into operation nor to qualify a youth to fill usefully and respectably many of the stations, both public and private, in which he may be placed. A parent who wishes to give a child an education that shall fit him for active life, and shall serve as a foundation for eminence in his profession, whether mercantile or mechanical, is under the necessity of giving him a different education from any which our public schools can now furnish. Hence many children are separated from their parents and sent to private academies in the vicinity, to acquire that instruction which cannot be obtained at the public seminaries [quoted in 3: 252].