LLAMA Test
The LLAMA battery is a free, language-neutral suite of language-aptitude tests developed by Paul Meara at Swansea University and distributed through the Swansea Lognostics group. It was designed as a practical aptitude instrument that researchers and teachers could actually get their hands on, in contrast to the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) of Carroll and Sapon (1959), which remained the field's default for decades despite being commercial and in places culturally dated.
The Four Subtests
LLAMA has four components, loosely mapped onto the MLAT components that inspired them:
| Subtest | What it measures | Counterpart in MLAT |
|---|---|---|
| LLAMA_B | Vocabulary learning: paired associates of pictures and invented words | Paired associates |
| LLAMA_D | Sound recognition: detecting repeated auditory sequences | No direct counterpart; closest to phonetic memory |
| LLAMA_E | Sound-symbol correspondence: mapping invented sounds to invented letters | Phonetic script |
| LLAMA_F | Grammatical inferencing: deducing morphosyntactic rules from translated examples | Language analysis |
Each subtest is short (a few minutes), language-neutral (materials use invented words and pictures), and runs as a standalone computer program.
LLAMA_D and Implicit Aptitude
Gisela Granena's work argued that LLAMA_D, the sound-recognition subtest, indexes something different from the other three: an implicit learning aptitude for tracking distributional regularities in auditory input, as distinct from the explicit analytic aptitude captured by LLAMA_F. That two-dimensional reading of LLAMA became the empirical hinge for the broader claim that language aptitude is not a single construct but at least a pair, with different roles at different points in the learning trajectory.
Later work has been more cautious about LLAMA_D's construct validity, and subsequent papers in Studies in Second Language Acquisition by Granena, Meara and others have scrutinised the measure rather than taking it as settled.
Hi-LAB
The Hi-LAB (High-Level Language Aptitude Battery) developed at the University of Maryland Center for Advanced Study of Language is a related, more comprehensive instrument for the same construct. It includes serial-reaction-time and long-term memory tasks designed to isolate implicit aptitude more directly than LLAMA_D can. Granena's work on cognitive aptitudes for L2 speaking proficiency explicitly compares LLAMA and Hi-LAB scores, reporting substantial but not complete overlap.
Use and Availability
LLAMA is free for research and educational use and is widely cited in the current aptitude literature precisely because of that availability. Its main limits are the ones accepted by any short computer-administered battery: it samples a narrow window of cognitive functions, shows ceiling effects in some populations, and does not substitute for the deeper, longer, individualised assessment that high-stakes programmes sometimes need.
References
- Meara, P. (2005). LLAMA Language Aptitude Tests: The Manual. Lognostics.
- Granena, G. (2013). Reexamining the robustness of aptitude in second language acquisition. In G. Granena & M. Long (Eds.), Sensitive Periods, Language Aptitude, and Ultimate L2 Attainment. John Benjamins.
- Granena, G. (2019). Cognitive aptitudes for L2 speaking proficiency: Links between LLAMA and Hi-LAB. Applied Psycholinguistics.
- Rogers, V., Meara, P., Barnett-Legh, T., Curry, C. & Davie, E. (2017). Examining the LLAMA aptitude tests. Journal of the European Second Language Association, 1(1), 49–60.