Two experiments explored the relative benefits of learning vocabulary in a second language by varying the learning formats both within and between participants. English monolingual speakers were taught vocabulary words in Spanish by pairing those words with their English translations, black-and-white pictures, or color pictures. Testing of those newly acquired words occurred via the use of a Lexical Decision Task (LDT) wherein participants were shown letter strings and were asked to identify them as either real words or nonwords in English (i.e., a word priming procedure). Letter strings were paired with either their correct Spanish translations or an unrelated Spanish word. In Experiment 1, all three learning conditions produced significant priming effects indicating that all the methods used to teach these words yielded similar success in their retrieval. Additionally, the black-and-white picture condition speeded up responses, as compared to the color picture condition. Experiment 2 presented the three learning conditions within subjects and revealed significant priming in the word-word condition and the black-and-white image condition. However, response times were significantly faster in the word-word condition overall supporting the notion of transfer appropriate processing. Results are discussed with regards to this theory of processing.
This study compared the effects of the Keyword Method and rote rehearsal on the quality of developing second language (L2) lexical representations. We assessed accuracy and latency of English-to-Spanish translations provided by English-speaking absolute beginning learners of Spanish after each of three learning phases. Each translation was primed by either a keyword used during the learning phase (dad for dado “dice”) or an unrelated word (book for dado “dice”). Keyword primes, which are similar in form to the target L2 words, speeded recall for the rote-rehearsal group but slowed recall for the keyword group. These findings demonstrate clear differences in the quality of developing L2 lexical representations between the two groups, disfavoring the Keyword Method of L2 vocabulary instruction.
Current views of vocabulary learning imply that second language (L2) words initially inherit the meaning of their first language (L1) translation equivalents. We describe a series of experiments that test this idea by examining semantic priming from newly learned words. The aspects of meaning that these words automatically activate were probed by manipulating the nature of the prime-target relationship. Although there were clear semantic priming effects, not all types of semantic relationship supported priming. The effects of variations in study conditions lead us to suggest an episodic view of word learning in which newly learned words do not simply inherit L1 meanings, but rather are associated with the aspects of meaning that were active at the time they were learned. We discuss the implications for teaching vocabulary, especially through the use of translation equivalents.
In this study, we used auditory priming to examine the phonological content of lexical entries for adult second language speakers. In particular, we investigated whether, for native speakers of Quebec French, words like they and day as well as three and tree have identical (i.e., homophonous) phonological forms in these speakers’ lexicons, which would explain these speakers’ difficulty producing and perceiving words containing difficult /ð/ and /θ/ consonants. We found that our participants did not distinguish between these pairs of words in their lexicons, but were able to produce at least some of the words containing English /ð/ and /θ/ accurately. We discuss both theoretical and pedagogical implications of these findings.
Recent research has indicated that L2 learners who carry out collaborative syntactic priming activities with trained interlocutors or their peers subsequently produce target constructions rather than interlanguage forms. However, studies to date have not explored whether certain types of syntactic priming materials are more useful for eliciting such constructions. The current study compares four collaborative syntactic priming activities in terms of their effectiveness at eliciting wh-questions with supplied auxiliary verbs. Thai English as a foreign language (EFL) university students (N = 33) carried out the activities as part of their required integrated skills English class. The learners’ interaction was audio-recorded and transcribed, and the transcripts were analyzed in terms of the amount and type of wh-questions produced during each activity. Results indicate that activities with lexical repetition elicited a significantly greater proportion of target wh-questions than activities without the lexical boost. Pedagogical considerations and future research involving the design and implementation of collaborative syntactic priming activities in L2 classrooms are discussed.
Second language (L2) users are typically less proficient in their L2 than in their first language. One explanation may be that the L2 requires more attentional capacity. To test this, English speakers of L2 French performed a semantic attentional blink (AB) task, in both languages. A significant AB effect was obtained in each language; however, the effect was smaller in the L2, indicating that the attention burden associated with the AB task was paradoxically lower in the L2. Also, the magnitude of the AB effect correlated positively with a measure of L2 lexical access efficiency. Results are discussed in terms of attention-based and automatic processing in L2 lexical access and in terms of their implications for L2 learning and teaching.
This chapter explores the ways in which secondary tasks utilized in on-line sentence processing experiments can influence second language (L2) learners’ processing behavior. After a brief introduction to sentence processing and the self-paced reading methodology, we present data from a self-paced reading study that investigates how task type (comprehension questions vs. grammaticality judgment tasks) affect intermediate L2 Spanish learners processing of two types of grammatical violations: noun-adjective gender agreement and subject-verb inversion in wh-questions. Our findings suggest that, for some structures, certain secondary tasks commonly used in sentence processing research can indeed influence how L2 learners’ process morpho-syntactic violations during comprehension. We discuss the implications of our findings for L2 learning research, as well as for L2 instruction.
A cross-modal priming task was used to examine listening comprehension by second language speakers. Participants were asked to perform a written lexical decision task on targets that were presented in different auditory sentential contexts. The context and the target were congruent (i.e., the target being highly predictable), neutral (i.e., possible but not predictable), or incongruent (i.e., inappropriate), as in “The girl mailed the letter without a stamp/sticker/stone.” Native speakers showed a priming effect for both congruent and neutral conditions in relation to the incongruent condition, but nonnative speakers showed a priming effect only for the congruent condition. No difference was observed between the neutral and incongruent conditions. Explanations of these findings and possible implications for language teaching are discussed.
The following study uses a bilingual version of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) false memory paradigm (Deese 1959; Roediger & McDermott 1995) to investigate conceptual mediation in second language (L2) learners. In this paradigm, participants are exposed to a list of words (e.g. bed, rest, dream, etc.) that are highly associated to a critical lure word that is not presented (e.g. sleep). Later, when asked to recall the words presented, participants will often falsely recall the critical lure that was implicitly generated in memory during encoding. Participants were native English-speaking learners of Spanish (N = 241) with varying proficiency in Spanish. The results suggest that proficiency constrains conceptual mediation. Theoretical and pedagogical implications are discussed.
Two experiments explored the relative benefits of learning vocabulary in a second language by varying the learning formats both within and between participants. English monolingual speakers were taught vocabulary words in Spanish by pairing those words with their English translations, black-and-white pictures, or color pictures. Testing of those newly acquired words occurred via the use of a Lexical Decision Task (LDT) wherein participants were shown letter strings and were asked to identify them as either real words or nonwords in English (i.e., a word priming procedure). Letter strings were paired with either their correct Spanish translations or an unrelated Spanish word. In Experiment 1, all three learning conditions produced significant priming effects indicating that all the methods used to teach these words yielded similar success in their retrieval. Additionally, the black-and-white picture condition speeded up responses, as compared to the color picture condition. Experiment 2 presented the three learning conditions within subjects and revealed significant priming in the word-word condition and the black-and-white image condition. However, response times were significantly faster in the word-word condition overall supporting the notion of transfer appropriate processing. Results are discussed with regards to this theory of processing.
This study compared the effects of the Keyword Method and rote rehearsal on the quality of developing second language (L2) lexical representations. We assessed accuracy and latency of English-to-Spanish translations provided by English-speaking absolute beginning learners of Spanish after each of three learning phases. Each translation was primed by either a keyword used during the learning phase (dad for dado “dice”) or an unrelated word (book for dado “dice”). Keyword primes, which are similar in form to the target L2 words, speeded recall for the rote-rehearsal group but slowed recall for the keyword group. These findings demonstrate clear differences in the quality of developing L2 lexical representations between the two groups, disfavoring the Keyword Method of L2 vocabulary instruction.
Current views of vocabulary learning imply that second language (L2) words initially inherit the meaning of their first language (L1) translation equivalents. We describe a series of experiments that test this idea by examining semantic priming from newly learned words. The aspects of meaning that these words automatically activate were probed by manipulating the nature of the prime-target relationship. Although there were clear semantic priming effects, not all types of semantic relationship supported priming. The effects of variations in study conditions lead us to suggest an episodic view of word learning in which newly learned words do not simply inherit L1 meanings, but rather are associated with the aspects of meaning that were active at the time they were learned. We discuss the implications for teaching vocabulary, especially through the use of translation equivalents.
In this study, we used auditory priming to examine the phonological content of lexical entries for adult second language speakers. In particular, we investigated whether, for native speakers of Quebec French, words like they and day as well as three and tree have identical (i.e., homophonous) phonological forms in these speakers’ lexicons, which would explain these speakers’ difficulty producing and perceiving words containing difficult /ð/ and /θ/ consonants. We found that our participants did not distinguish between these pairs of words in their lexicons, but were able to produce at least some of the words containing English /ð/ and /θ/ accurately. We discuss both theoretical and pedagogical implications of these findings.
Recent research has indicated that L2 learners who carry out collaborative syntactic priming activities with trained interlocutors or their peers subsequently produce target constructions rather than interlanguage forms. However, studies to date have not explored whether certain types of syntactic priming materials are more useful for eliciting such constructions. The current study compares four collaborative syntactic priming activities in terms of their effectiveness at eliciting wh-questions with supplied auxiliary verbs. Thai English as a foreign language (EFL) university students (N = 33) carried out the activities as part of their required integrated skills English class. The learners’ interaction was audio-recorded and transcribed, and the transcripts were analyzed in terms of the amount and type of wh-questions produced during each activity. Results indicate that activities with lexical repetition elicited a significantly greater proportion of target wh-questions than activities without the lexical boost. Pedagogical considerations and future research involving the design and implementation of collaborative syntactic priming activities in L2 classrooms are discussed.
Second language (L2) users are typically less proficient in their L2 than in their first language. One explanation may be that the L2 requires more attentional capacity. To test this, English speakers of L2 French performed a semantic attentional blink (AB) task, in both languages. A significant AB effect was obtained in each language; however, the effect was smaller in the L2, indicating that the attention burden associated with the AB task was paradoxically lower in the L2. Also, the magnitude of the AB effect correlated positively with a measure of L2 lexical access efficiency. Results are discussed in terms of attention-based and automatic processing in L2 lexical access and in terms of their implications for L2 learning and teaching.
This chapter explores the ways in which secondary tasks utilized in on-line sentence processing experiments can influence second language (L2) learners’ processing behavior. After a brief introduction to sentence processing and the self-paced reading methodology, we present data from a self-paced reading study that investigates how task type (comprehension questions vs. grammaticality judgment tasks) affect intermediate L2 Spanish learners processing of two types of grammatical violations: noun-adjective gender agreement and subject-verb inversion in wh-questions. Our findings suggest that, for some structures, certain secondary tasks commonly used in sentence processing research can indeed influence how L2 learners’ process morpho-syntactic violations during comprehension. We discuss the implications of our findings for L2 learning research, as well as for L2 instruction.
A cross-modal priming task was used to examine listening comprehension by second language speakers. Participants were asked to perform a written lexical decision task on targets that were presented in different auditory sentential contexts. The context and the target were congruent (i.e., the target being highly predictable), neutral (i.e., possible but not predictable), or incongruent (i.e., inappropriate), as in “The girl mailed the letter without a stamp/sticker/stone.” Native speakers showed a priming effect for both congruent and neutral conditions in relation to the incongruent condition, but nonnative speakers showed a priming effect only for the congruent condition. No difference was observed between the neutral and incongruent conditions. Explanations of these findings and possible implications for language teaching are discussed.
The following study uses a bilingual version of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) false memory paradigm (Deese 1959; Roediger & McDermott 1995) to investigate conceptual mediation in second language (L2) learners. In this paradigm, participants are exposed to a list of words (e.g. bed, rest, dream, etc.) that are highly associated to a critical lure word that is not presented (e.g. sleep). Later, when asked to recall the words presented, participants will often falsely recall the critical lure that was implicitly generated in memory during encoding. Participants were native English-speaking learners of Spanish (N = 241) with varying proficiency in Spanish. The results suggest that proficiency constrains conceptual mediation. Theoretical and pedagogical implications are discussed.
Two experiments explored the relative benefits of learning vocabulary in a second language by varying the learning formats both within and between participants. English monolingual speakers were taught vocabulary words in Spanish by pairing those words with their English translations, black-and-white pictures, or color pictures. Testing of those newly acquired words occurred via the use of a Lexical Decision Task (LDT) wherein participants were shown letter strings and were asked to identify them as either real words or nonwords in English (i.e., a word priming procedure). Letter strings were paired with either their correct Spanish translations or an unrelated Spanish word. In Experiment 1, all three learning conditions produced significant priming effects indicating that all the methods used to teach these words yielded similar success in their retrieval. Additionally, the black-and-white picture condition speeded up responses, as compared to the color picture condition. Experiment 2 presented the three learning conditions within subjects and revealed significant priming in the word-word condition and the black-and-white image condition. However, response times were significantly faster in the word-word condition overall supporting the notion of transfer appropriate processing. Results are discussed with regards to this theory of processing.
This study compared the effects of the Keyword Method and rote rehearsal on the quality of developing second language (L2) lexical representations. We assessed accuracy and latency of English-to-Spanish translations provided by English-speaking absolute beginning learners of Spanish after each of three learning phases. Each translation was primed by either a keyword used during the learning phase (dad for dado “dice”) or an unrelated word (book for dado “dice”). Keyword primes, which are similar in form to the target L2 words, speeded recall for the rote-rehearsal group but slowed recall for the keyword group. These findings demonstrate clear differences in the quality of developing L2 lexical representations between the two groups, disfavoring the Keyword Method of L2 vocabulary instruction.
Current views of vocabulary learning imply that second language (L2) words initially inherit the meaning of their first language (L1) translation equivalents. We describe a series of experiments that test this idea by examining semantic priming from newly learned words. The aspects of meaning that these words automatically activate were probed by manipulating the nature of the prime-target relationship. Although there were clear semantic priming effects, not all types of semantic relationship supported priming. The effects of variations in study conditions lead us to suggest an episodic view of word learning in which newly learned words do not simply inherit L1 meanings, but rather are associated with the aspects of meaning that were active at the time they were learned. We discuss the implications for teaching vocabulary, especially through the use of translation equivalents.
In this study, we used auditory priming to examine the phonological content of lexical entries for adult second language speakers. In particular, we investigated whether, for native speakers of Quebec French, words like they and day as well as three and tree have identical (i.e., homophonous) phonological forms in these speakers’ lexicons, which would explain these speakers’ difficulty producing and perceiving words containing difficult /ð/ and /θ/ consonants. We found that our participants did not distinguish between these pairs of words in their lexicons, but were able to produce at least some of the words containing English /ð/ and /θ/ accurately. We discuss both theoretical and pedagogical implications of these findings.
Recent research has indicated that L2 learners who carry out collaborative syntactic priming activities with trained interlocutors or their peers subsequently produce target constructions rather than interlanguage forms. However, studies to date have not explored whether certain types of syntactic priming materials are more useful for eliciting such constructions. The current study compares four collaborative syntactic priming activities in terms of their effectiveness at eliciting wh-questions with supplied auxiliary verbs. Thai English as a foreign language (EFL) university students (N = 33) carried out the activities as part of their required integrated skills English class. The learners’ interaction was audio-recorded and transcribed, and the transcripts were analyzed in terms of the amount and type of wh-questions produced during each activity. Results indicate that activities with lexical repetition elicited a significantly greater proportion of target wh-questions than activities without the lexical boost. Pedagogical considerations and future research involving the design and implementation of collaborative syntactic priming activities in L2 classrooms are discussed.
Second language (L2) users are typically less proficient in their L2 than in their first language. One explanation may be that the L2 requires more attentional capacity. To test this, English speakers of L2 French performed a semantic attentional blink (AB) task, in both languages. A significant AB effect was obtained in each language; however, the effect was smaller in the L2, indicating that the attention burden associated with the AB task was paradoxically lower in the L2. Also, the magnitude of the AB effect correlated positively with a measure of L2 lexical access efficiency. Results are discussed in terms of attention-based and automatic processing in L2 lexical access and in terms of their implications for L2 learning and teaching.
This chapter explores the ways in which secondary tasks utilized in on-line sentence processing experiments can influence second language (L2) learners’ processing behavior. After a brief introduction to sentence processing and the self-paced reading methodology, we present data from a self-paced reading study that investigates how task type (comprehension questions vs. grammaticality judgment tasks) affect intermediate L2 Spanish learners processing of two types of grammatical violations: noun-adjective gender agreement and subject-verb inversion in wh-questions. Our findings suggest that, for some structures, certain secondary tasks commonly used in sentence processing research can indeed influence how L2 learners’ process morpho-syntactic violations during comprehension. We discuss the implications of our findings for L2 learning research, as well as for L2 instruction.
A cross-modal priming task was used to examine listening comprehension by second language speakers. Participants were asked to perform a written lexical decision task on targets that were presented in different auditory sentential contexts. The context and the target were congruent (i.e., the target being highly predictable), neutral (i.e., possible but not predictable), or incongruent (i.e., inappropriate), as in “The girl mailed the letter without a stamp/sticker/stone.” Native speakers showed a priming effect for both congruent and neutral conditions in relation to the incongruent condition, but nonnative speakers showed a priming effect only for the congruent condition. No difference was observed between the neutral and incongruent conditions. Explanations of these findings and possible implications for language teaching are discussed.
The following study uses a bilingual version of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) false memory paradigm (Deese 1959; Roediger & McDermott 1995) to investigate conceptual mediation in second language (L2) learners. In this paradigm, participants are exposed to a list of words (e.g. bed, rest, dream, etc.) that are highly associated to a critical lure word that is not presented (e.g. sleep). Later, when asked to recall the words presented, participants will often falsely recall the critical lure that was implicitly generated in memory during encoding. Participants were native English-speaking learners of Spanish (N = 241) with varying proficiency in Spanish. The results suggest that proficiency constrains conceptual mediation. Theoretical and pedagogical implications are discussed.