Intelligence and aptitude

[Ramin Akbari]

Dear Funknetters,
Last week I mailed a question about the relationship among some
psychological concepts(mind,thought,cognition and intelligence),and I
received many helpful comments and suggestions.I would like to thank you all.
However,another problem has come up, and I wish to have your opinion about
the relationship between Intelligence and Aptitude.
In foreign language teaching,it is believed that some people "have a knack
for learning languages".There are also some tests which claim to measure
this aptitude.But do you think that aptitude is really different from
intelligence?Don't you think that a person who is intelligent also knows how
to learn a foreign language (through his use of language learning
strategies),and in a sense linguistically more talened than the others?
And is it not the case that a person who is claimed to have a high aptitude
for learning a foreign language is in a sense capable of solving his
problems(in this specific case,linguistic problems) ,and as a result more
intelligent? I look forward to receiving your comments.
Ramin Akbari,
English Department,
Tarbiat Modares University,
Tehran,Iran