Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery

The Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery (PLAB) is an assessment developed to predict student success in foreign language learning, or language learning aptitude, and for diagnosing language learning disabilities.

The Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery (PLAB) was developed to measure language learning aptitude. Language learning aptitude does not refer to whether or not an individual can or cannot learn a foreign language (it is assumed that virtually everyone can learn a foreign language given adequate opportunity). According to John Carroll and Stanley Sapon, the authors of the Modern Language Aptitude Test (a similar language aptitude test intended for older subjects), language learning aptitude does refer to the “prediction of how well, relative to other individuals, an individual can learn a foreign language in a given amount of time and under given conditions.” The PLAB is intended for use with students in grades 7 through 12.

The Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery was developed by Dr. Paul Pimsleur, also known for the Pimsleur language learning system. The PLAB is the culmination of eight years of research by Pimsleur and his associates from 1958 to 1966, which involved the review of 30 years of published studies regarding a variety of linguistic and psychological factors involved in language learning. Pimsleur and his colleagues grouped these studies into seven research topics: intelligence, verbal ability, pitch discrimination, order of language study and bilingualism, study habits, motivation and attitudes, and personality factors. Of the seven, motivation and verbal intelligence were the clearest factors contributing to success at learning a foreign language.

Subsequent research involving students learning French at the college level, taking several different tests and subjecting the resulting data to factor analysis and multiple correlation analysis also showed motivation and verbal intelligence to be primary factors in language learning success. After field testing a preliminary version of the Aptitude Battery on secondary school students of French and Spanish, Pimsleur and his associates identified verbal intelligence, motivation and auditory ability as the three most significant factors in predicting success at learning a foreign language. They developed seven tests that would measure these three factors.

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