Acquiring or improving language skills is important for many international students. Difficulties with studying in a foreign language are not uncommon and the students’ success partly depends on how quickly they improve their language skills.
There are many tests to measure language proficiency, but there are hardly any tests that measure language-learning aptitude. However, we can measure that with a test that itself has low language requirements.
Does that sound like squaring the circle?
Let me introduce a test format we developed in the 1980s and that later proved its worth in several test programs: We used it in the test for foreign students (TestAS), in the admission test for foreign students at the University of Sankt Gallen and in a selection procedure for international doctors placed at German hospitals.
Evaluation of the test after a few years showed: The test results predict the doctors’ B2 and C1 language exams. The uncorrected correlations varied between r = .33 (score in a B2 exam) and r = .58 (score in the Telc test).
What is the format of this clearly very informative language aptitude test? Participants read simple words and sentences in a made-up language, and their translation. With this information, they have to find out what individual words mean and which grammatical rules apply. They are then able to translate new sentences. The format tests the ability to recognize structures and rules in language patterns and to transfer these rules to new sentences. A full test uses many different made-up languages to provide a diverse array of challenges.
Example:
- Koloa = I sleep
- Kolue = he slept
- Satoe = he eats
