Aikynaro Wrote:The only test I can think of that would be much use would be to test if they can withstand working on something every day for several years. Test their enthusiasm!

yudantaiteki Wrote:That sounds like a nonsensical idea; there's no way you can identify "aptitude" for learning Japanese with students who haven't even started. The best you can do is identify the students you think will actually do the work necessary because they're motivated.

yudantaiteki Wrote:That sounds like a nonsensical idea; there's no way you can identify "aptitude" for learning Japanese with students who haven't even started. The best you can do is identify the students you think will actually do the work necessary because they're motivated.

ktcgx Wrote:Interest in the subject can be created and maintained by the teacher, and it can also be destroyed by the teacher. Even after deciding that a student has an aptitude for Japanese, any such aptitude or motivation can be extinguished if you go about teaching in certain ways.

My advice is not to believe that any intrinsic aptitude on the students' part will make for better learning outcomes, but rather to look at the style of teaching you will use in your classes. If you go for the traditional 'Japanese' approach of very rigid, teacher centred lessons, you can really be sure that no matter how much motivation your students had, or how much aptitude they had, it will quickly die, and they will be bored or disinterested.

I would very much advise figuring out what the goals of the course are (jlpt n1? communicative fluency? being able to cope with daily life in Japan after a set amount of months?) and working out how to fit those goals into student centred lessons that engage the students' learning processes and bring out their own intrinsic motivation, and most importantly, keep that motivation going throughout the course.

I say this as someone with 4 years' full time language teaching experience, and the enormous change I saw in even my most 'dekinai' students after managing to switch my approach.

tendou Wrote:This is 13-17 years old students. And they don't just have to learn this, they have lots of other subjects to study too. So it is a long term thing. Which may be stressful at certain points.If you're just learning japanese that's different. They only have at most 2 class per week. With lots of ground to cover. So you can see, this is working with lots of constraints.

yogert909 Wrote:

tendou Wrote:This is 13-17 years old students. And they don't just have to learn this, they have lots of other subjects to study too. So it is a long term thing. Which may be stressful at certain points.If you're just learning japanese that's different. They only have at most 2 class per week. With lots of ground to cover. So you can see, this is working with lots of constraints.

If these are the constraints, it seems judging the students by interest seems more appropriate than judging by aptitude. Maybe by making the test more informal than a paper and pencil one like scheduling the class at a time where only devoted students will consider taking the class. Or imposing other "costs" to keep out the pretenders like requiring up-front that they need to come to school earlier or stay later then otherwise. Maybe if you do give an aptitude test, hold the test on a saturday. In other words let them self-select based on qualities that you are looking for.

sholum Wrote:Ability to learn a language requires dedication, but I think that critical-thinking and logic are important as well (easier to see how things fit together when you know how to think); students that are dedicated and show these qualities would be the best pool to pull from, but it really all comes down to interest.

As for a testing method... Most things should be discernible from past observations (test averages, performance in honors classes or above and beyond programs), but, depending on the age-group, a survey of hobbies and interests might help: assuming they answer truthfully, you'll have an idea of how dedicated they are to things they are interested in. Then, all that's left is finding out if they're interested.

I don't have any experience with the tests mentioned above, so I can't recommend or caution against them.

Helena4 Wrote:

sholum Wrote:Ability to learn a language requires dedication, but I think that critical-thinking and logic are important as well (easier to see how things fit together when you know how to think); students that are dedicated and show these qualities would be the best pool to pull from, but it really all comes down to interest.

As for a testing method... Most things should be discernible from past observations (test averages, performance in honors classes or above and beyond programs), but, depending on the age-group, a survey of hobbies and interests might help: assuming they answer truthfully, you'll have an idea of how dedicated they are to things they are interested in. Then, all that's left is finding out if they're interested.

I don't have any experience with the tests mentioned above, so I can't recommend or caution against them.

I never stuck at anything till I started learning Japanese. I would be very annoyed if it was decided that I wouldn't stick to Japanese because I never stick to anything else. Learning Japanese has helped me stick to things more. Like playing the guitar because I like Jrock. You really can't anticipate anything here. The only way you could try to choose would just get you in trouble for discriminating against kids: you could give them a IQ test and tell anyone under 120 that they need to work hard or they'll be thrown out. That's obviously just mean and though it may make it easier to teach by selecting the brightest kids, it will also not work if they don't work hard too and even the most enthusiastic of the normal kids will get stressed. Basically what I'm saying is, there is no solution. Do a year, make them take a test after that year, weed the lazy ones out then.

Ash_S Wrote:I don't have any experience teaching young children so this answer might be way of the mark but.....

Sticking with the idea of interest over aptitude, could you set them a short essay (one side of A4?) on something like "What I like about Japan", or even more to the point "Why I want to learn Japanese". And make sure it is stressed that this is completely optional.
Predicted outcome: most kids of that age aren't going to bother to write a page if they know its optional so you will get a good short list just from the people who hand it in. If you still have too many people, you'll have to make a subjective judgement based on who seems the most interested/motivated in their essay.

Stansfield123 Wrote:I don't see how you could objectively evaluate someone's interest, especially in something they haven't even tried yet. All you can do is look at past performance in related areas.

For 13 to 17 yos, I'd give a:

-40% weight to language learning ability (as reflected by their actual knowledge of whatever foreign language they've been studying in school; actual test, not their grades - foreign language classes are mediocre at best in most school systems, and grades usually just reflect the ability to memorize last week's lesson, not any actual ability),

-20% to interest taken in literature (the question should be something along the lines of how many and what kind of novels have you read in your life?),

-20% to interest taken in film and other art forms, possibly also documentaries (same question as with literature)

-20% to grades in all subjects related to their native language (literature, grammar, history, whatever else there is that's highly dependent on reading, writing and listening skills)

P.S. There is one other criteria, that might override everything else (but doesn't always apply): the ability to speak a language you never studied. That language is usually going to be English, for kids in non-English speaking countries. If a kid is able to pick up English just from TV and movies, without having ever been in an English speaking environment of having taken an English class, that betrays enough natural curiosity for language learning that they should get an automatic in.

Helena4 Wrote:

sholum Wrote:Ability to learn a language requires dedication, but I think that critical-thinking and logic are important as well (easier to see how things fit together when you know how to think); students that are dedicated and show these qualities would be the best pool to pull from, but it really all comes down to interest.

As for a testing method... Most things should be discernible from past observations (test averages, performance in honors classes or above and beyond programs), but, depending on the age-group, a survey of hobbies and interests might help: assuming they answer truthfully, you'll have an idea of how dedicated they are to things they are interested in. Then, all that's left is finding out if they're interested.

I don't have any experience with the tests mentioned above, so I can't recommend or caution against them.

I never stuck at anything till I started learning Japanese. I would be very annoyed if it was decided that I wouldn't stick to Japanese because I never stick to anything else. Learning Japanese has helped me stick to things more. Like playing the guitar because I like Jrock. You really can't anticipate anything here. The only way you could try to choose would just get you in trouble for discriminating against kids: you could give them a IQ test and tell anyone under 120 that they need to work hard or they'll be thrown out. That's obviously just mean and though it may make it easier to teach by selecting the brightest kids, it will also not work if they don't work hard too and even the most enthusiastic of the normal kids will get stressed. Basically what I'm saying is, there is no solution. Do a year, make them take a test after that year, weed the lazy ones out then.

Stansfield123 Wrote:@sholum, congrats on sticking with Japanese. On your next job application (or any other application that seeks to evaluate you), telling them that you were able to learn Japanese on your own will put you above candidates who don't have a comparable achievement.

Do you think that's unfair? Do you think the person evaluating your application should instead disregard your achievement?

sholum Wrote:I don't understand what you're referring to, and apparently my post wasn't clear to you.