Why Prognose in the Foreign Languages?

Conceptualizing Language Learners: Socioinstitutional Mechanisms and their Consequences

“…In keeping with previous decades, learners were frequently described simply as ‘students’ or as members of a particular year or grade level. Beginning a conversation that would feature prominently in future decades, Kaulfers () critiqued ‘prognostic’ selection practices, which were widespread and based on measures such as mother tongue proficiency, achievement in junior high school exploratory classes (e.g., Lindquist, ), IQ, and standardized tests of linguistic aptitude. Both Kaulfers () and Warshaw () questioned the validity of these measures and their role in excluding less prepared students from language study—whom Lindquist called “the linguistically unfit” (p. 289)—when questionable teaching practices were perhaps to blame for student course failure.…”

“…Beginning a conversation that would feature prominently in future decades, Kaulfers () critiqued ‘prognostic’ selection practices, which were widespread and based on measures such as mother tongue proficiency, achievement in junior high school exploratory classes (e.g., Lindquist, ), IQ, and standardized tests of linguistic aptitude. Both Kaulfers () and Warshaw () questioned the validity of these measures and their role in excluding less prepared students from language study—whom Lindquist called “the linguistically unfit” (p. 289)—when questionable teaching practices were perhaps to blame for student course failure. The use of assessments for course placement was also viewed with some distrust by practitioners in university language programs, like Sammartino (), who suggested that “the addition of a grain of salt” (p. 272) to assessment scores was necessary to adequately place students in appropriate classes.…”

“…Prognostic assessments were often used in foreign/world language programs as selection criteria, in order to weed out the ‘linguistically unfit’ (Lindquist, ) from language study or to counsel them from taking languages that were deemed more difficult (Barrutia, ). As Kaulfers () suggested, this practice might in fact have diverted attention away from the impact of teachers’ pedagogical shortcomings. Further, while we do not wish to question the psychometric validity of any specific aptitude measure, we draw attention to practices such as basing prognostic decisions on measures like students’ previous grades, which likely serve as proxies for students’ past responses to formal instruction generally rather than their probable responses to language instruction specifically; similar critiques can be made of IQ tests.…”