Teacher Individual Characteristics Extended: On the Potential Interplay of Pre-Service FLE-Teachers’ Language Aptitude, Language Biography and L2 French Proficiency
Resource type
Conference Poster not in Proceedings
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Presented
Recommended form of citation (APA)
Rütti-Joy, O. (2025, June 25-28). Teacher Individual Characteristics Extended: On the Potential Interplay of Pre-Service FLE-Teachers’ Language Aptitude, Language Biography and L2 French Proficiency [Conference Poster]. The 34th Conference of the European Second Language Association (EuroSLA), Tromsø.
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PHSG Organisation name
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Proforis OA-status
metadata only (bibliographisch)
Topic PHSG
Sprachliche und literarische Bildung
Fields of Science and Technology (OECD)
Languages and Literature
Abstract
Teachers’ individual characteristics (ICs) – inherent variables to all “nonlearners”, e.g. L2 instructors (Gurzynski-Weiss, 2013) – are important sources of variance in the (L2) learning opportunities teachers provide (Gurzynski-Weiss, 2017). As teacher ICs are systematic, understanding them as well as their impact on teachers’ decisions in the classroom is thus highly relevant (Gurzynski-Weiss, 2017; Li, 2010). Teacher ICs include native language(s) (e.g., Gurzynski-Weiss, 2016), educational background and training (ibid.), L2 teaching experience (e.g., Wolff et al., 2015), or working memory (Ziegler & Smith, 2017). Language aptitude (LA), a learner individual difference (ID) considered a key component of L2 learning success (Li, 2019; Stansfield & Winke, 2008), has not yet been investigated for its potential role as a teacher IC. However, from the perspectives of socio-constructivist learning theory, lifelong learning and continuous professional development (e.g., Billett, 2018), L2 teachers remain L2 learners who continuously develop their L2 abilities, learning capabilities, and teaching competences. Accordingly, it can be theorised that learner IDs such as LA continue to play a role in L2 teachers’ (i.e. language-teacher-learners’) relationship with language instruction as they engage with continuous professionalisation processes throughout their careers. This project responds to the call for further research on teacher ICs in L2 learning and instruction (Gurzynski-Weiss, 2017). With the guiding question to identify whether LA can be seen as an IC of language-teacher-learners’, the following overarching questions are addressed:
1) To what extent do pre-service L2 French teachers’ LA scores predict their L2 French proficiency scores?
2) Do pre-service L2 French teachers’ explicit and implicit LA load on different factors?
3) To what extent does pre-service L2 French teachers’ language history mediate their LA scores and their L2 French proficiency?
4) Do the data reveal a relationship between pre-service L2 French teachers’ explicit and implicit LA scores with their tendencies towards explicit and implicit instruction?
48 pre-service primary school L2 French teachers in their final year of their teacher training constitute the sample. The LLAMA test battery (Meara et al., 2005; Meara & Rogers, 2019) was administered to measure the participants’ “explicit” LA. To gauge aptitude for domain-general implicit learning, the probabilistic SRT (Kaufman et al., 2010) was administered. To measure the teachers’ general L2 French proficiency, an elicited imitation test (EIT, Tracy-Ventura et al., 2014) and a C-test (Cromheecke & Brysbaert, 2022) were used. Finally, the Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q, Marian et al., 2007) was used to obtain participants’ language learning experience. To address questions 1-3, data were collected in two phases between September and December 2024: an asynchronous phase 1, where the participants used their own devices to complete the LEAP-Q and EIT via Moodle, and a synchronous phase 2, where participants completed the SRT, the LLAMA tests and the C-Test on test laptops. To address question 4, qualitative interviews with 10 participants will be conducted in the second half of 2025. This poster outlines the rationale and study design, preliminary results to questions 1-3, and provides an outlook to question 4.
1) To what extent do pre-service L2 French teachers’ LA scores predict their L2 French proficiency scores?
2) Do pre-service L2 French teachers’ explicit and implicit LA load on different factors?
3) To what extent does pre-service L2 French teachers’ language history mediate their LA scores and their L2 French proficiency?
4) Do the data reveal a relationship between pre-service L2 French teachers’ explicit and implicit LA scores with their tendencies towards explicit and implicit instruction?
48 pre-service primary school L2 French teachers in their final year of their teacher training constitute the sample. The LLAMA test battery (Meara et al., 2005; Meara & Rogers, 2019) was administered to measure the participants’ “explicit” LA. To gauge aptitude for domain-general implicit learning, the probabilistic SRT (Kaufman et al., 2010) was administered. To measure the teachers’ general L2 French proficiency, an elicited imitation test (EIT, Tracy-Ventura et al., 2014) and a C-test (Cromheecke & Brysbaert, 2022) were used. Finally, the Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q, Marian et al., 2007) was used to obtain participants’ language learning experience. To address questions 1-3, data were collected in two phases between September and December 2024: an asynchronous phase 1, where the participants used their own devices to complete the LEAP-Q and EIT via Moodle, and a synchronous phase 2, where participants completed the SRT, the LLAMA tests and the C-Test on test laptops. To address question 4, qualitative interviews with 10 participants will be conducted in the second half of 2025. This poster outlines the rationale and study design, preliminary results to questions 1-3, and provides an outlook to question 4.
| Name of the event | Conference Host | Place of the event | Start date of the event | End date of the event |
The 34th Conference of the European Second Language Association (EuroSLA) | Arctic University Tromsø | Tromsø | June 25, 2025 | June 28, 2025 |
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