scholarly journals A Bizarre Virtual Trainer Outperforms a Human Trainer in Foreign Language Word Learning

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 24-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuela Macedonia
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Word Learning

Form-first approach in foreign language word learning

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-68
Author(s):  
Aleck Shih-wei Chen
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Cognitive Load ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
First Graders ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Word Use ◽  
English Novel ◽  
Learning Success ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Beginning Learners

This article reports a study examining whether foreign language (FL) word learning can be improved with reduction in cognitive load. Cognitive load theory has received substantial supports in various fields of learning but never in FL word learning. Due to the defined poverty in exposure to the FL, hence deprived cognitive pre-requisites for natural FL development, cognitive load could be critical to FL learning success. Thus while word learning may be a simple attempt of associating word forms with their meanings for L1 children, for FL learners, the cognitive load is multiplied by the additional task of taming the often intractable phonological forms (both perceptive and productive) at the same time they are making the association. In light of cognitive burden reduction, FL learners could thus benefit from learning phonological forms first as their L1 counterparts do. The present study examined whether beginning learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) learn English novel names better if first familiarized with the phonological rimes of target names whose referents are taught only later. Chinese-speaking first graders were assigned to one of three teaching conditions: rime familiarization, which familiarized children with rimes through rhyming activities without any meanings involved; spoken vocabulary, which taught words in rhyming groups together with their referents; and semantic control, which focused on word use. As the results showed, the rime familiarization group outperformed the other two by an improvement score several times greater, suggesting the critical role of cognitive load in FL word learning success.

Bimodale Aanbieding en Consolidatie Bij Woord-Verwerving

1998 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 185-192
Author(s):  
Lydius Nienhuis ◽  
Heleen de Hondt
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Foreign Language Learning ◽  
Test Results ◽  
Subsequent Research ◽  
Reading Condition ◽  
Bimodal Condition ◽  
French Words

In this article we address the question whether in word learning the effects of a bimodal (reading and pronouncing) condition are superior to the effects obtained in a monomodal (written only) condition. Research in the domains of psychology, psycholinguistics and foreign language learning lends support to the hypothesis that the effects of bimodal presentation and learning of words will be superior. In our experiment, pupils of intermediate classes from three different schools had to learn twelve French words in a bimodal condition: the words were presented in a text in a listening + reading condition; then the pupils learned the words by reading and pronouncing them. Pupils of three other (parallel) classes from the same three schools only read the same text and learned the words in a writing condition. The results of our investigation provide modest evidence for better retention in the bimodal condition: overall scores of the imodal' classes proved superior to scores of the monomodal classes. But this result is almost exclusively due to the results of only one school; in the two other schools test results did not differ significantly. This may be due to the small number of words. In subsequent research, the number of words to be learned will have to be larger than the modest number of twelve, in order to provide more convincing results.

scholarly journals Depth of Encoding Through Observed Gestures in Foreign Language Word Learning

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuela Macedonia ◽  
Claudia Repetto ◽  
Anja Ischebeck ◽  
Karsten Mueller
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Word Learning

scholarly journals Phonological similarity influences word learning in adults learning Spanish as a foreign language

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 490-502 ◽  
Author(s):  
MELISSA K. STAMER ◽  
MICHAEL S. VITEVITCH
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Neighborhood Density ◽  
Spanish Language ◽  
New Words ◽  
Learning Tasks ◽  
Language Classes ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Native English Speaking ◽  
Novel Words

Neighborhood density – the number of words that sound similar to a given word (Luce & Pisoni, 1998) – influences word learning in native English-speaking children and adults (Storkel, 2004; Storkel, Armbruster & Hogan, 2006): novel words with many similar sounding English words (i.e., dense neighborhood) are learned more quickly than novel words with few similar sounding English words (i.e., sparse neighborhood). The present study examined how neighborhood density influences word learning in native English-speaking adults learning Spanish as a foreign language. Students in their third semester of Spanish-language classes learned advanced Spanish words that sounded similar to many known Spanish words (i.e., dense neighborhood) or sounded similar to few known Spanish words (i.e., sparse neighborhood). In three word-learning tasks, performance was better for Spanish words with dense rather than sparse neighborhoods. These results suggest that a similar mechanism may be used to learn new words in a native and a foreign language.

scholarly journals Vois-tu le kem? Do you see the bos? Foreign word learning at 14-months

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chelsea da Estrela ◽  
Krista Byers-Heinlein
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Old English ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Word Form ◽  
Sentential Context ◽  
Foreign Word ◽  
Preferential Looking ◽  
Word Forms

How easily can infants regularly exposed to only one language begin to acquire a second one? In three experiments, we tested 14‐month‐old English and French monolingual infants’ ability to learn words presented in foreign language sentence frames. Infants were trained on two novel word‐object pairings and then tested using a preferential looking task. Word forms were phonetically and phonotactically legal in both languages, and cross‐spliced across conditions, so only the sentence frames established the word as native or foreign. In Experiment 1, infants were taught one native and one foreign word and successfully learned both. In Experiment 2 and 3, infants were taught two foreign words, but only showed successful learning of the first word they encountered. These results demonstrate that infants can successfully learn words embedded in foreign language sentences, but this is more challenging than native word learning. More broadly, they show that the sentential context of a novel word, and not just the word form itself, influences infants’ early word learning.

Woordverwerving in Een Vreemde Taal

1989 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 26-31
Author(s):  
P.J.M. Groot
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Foreign Language Teaching ◽  
Semantic Equivalence ◽  
Selection Problems ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Mental Operations ◽  
Unknown Words ◽  
Word Selection ◽  
Working Out

In communicative foreign Language teaching there is more emphasis on vocabulary than in traditional structural approaches where it takes second place to grammar. Two important questions concerning the vocabulary are: what words to present and how to present them? The first question can be answered on the basis of a (socio)linguistic analysis of the communicative needs of the target group. The answer to the second question must be derived from psycholinguistic and semantic theories about how words are learned and stored in the mental lexicon. This paper deals with one aspect of the first question (viz. how many words?) and discusses some possible applications of psychological theories about word learning and word storage. As to the first question it is argued for the intermediate levels that to (partially) avoid word selection problems (what and how many?) the syllabus should include twice as many words (say 6.000) as are traditionally presented. If students master 50% of this list, they should be able to handle semi-authentic reading and listening material by contextually guessing the unknown words since most of the texts (about 95%) will be covered by the words they know. As to the second question (how to present words) it is argued that for intentional word learning, a contextualised presentation is preferable since it provides the student with more possiblities to embed the word in the interrelated networks of various kinds that constitute our memory. A distinction should be made however between "easy" and "difficult" words, easy implying a direct syntactic and semantic equivalence between the LI and L2 (i.e. same concept, different label) and difficult referring to cases where there is no such similarity (i.e. concept and label different). Some emperical evidence is discussed that leads to the conclusion that it is more efficient (taking time and output into consideration) to present difficult words only in context and easy words without context. Finally an experimental technique is discussed (called graded contextual desambiguation) that tries to grade the mental operations necessary for working out the meaning of an unknown word.

Brief training with co-speech gesture lends a hand to word learning in a foreign language

2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Spencer D. Kelly ◽  
Tara McDevitt ◽  
Megan Esch
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Brief Training
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