Volume 58, Issue 3

There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that the learning of new vocabulary during second language acquisition is facilitated by associating words with gestures. This study investigates the learning of new vocabulary words when paired with congruent and incongruent iconic gestures using instructional and testing procedures consistent with current second language pedagogical practices. Results indicate that incongruent gestures inhibit learning, while congruent iconic gestures facilitate vocabulary acquisition when participants were encouraged to pay attention to the use of the gesture when studying new words. Further analyses suggest that, as has been found repeatedly, nouns are easier to remember than verbs. However, gestures are most helpful with learning adjectives compared to nouns and verbs.

This study investigated 276 Danish first and third graders’ proficiency in English as a foreign language (FL) in relation to several socio-affective factors after their first year of instruction. The results showed that (a) both age groups made similar gains in receptive vocabulary and grammar, suggesting a similar rate of learning in this short time span; (b) the two groups had different socio-affective profiles. Younger learners exhibited lower levels of FL classroom anxiety and more positive English competence beliefs but had a less incremental mindset and relied more on external authorities as a source of motivation. In contrast, older learners relied less on external authorities and showed a more incremental mindset but exhibited higher levels of FL classroom anxiety and less positive English competence beliefs; and (c) only four socio-affective factors had a clear impact on proficiency: English competence beliefs and an incremental mindset had a positive influence while FL classroom anxiety and the influence of external authorities had a negative influence. The pedagogical implications of the different socio-affective strengths and weaknesses that characterize children in the two age groups are discussed.

This study examined whether native Japanese speakers and second language (L2) speakers of Japanese use information from numeral classifiers to predict possible referents. Using a visual-world eye-tracking paradigm, we asked participants to identify picture objects that take either the same or different numeral classifiers while they listened to Japanese sentences referring to one object. The results showed that native speakers looked to the target predictively more often when the classifier was informative about noun identity than when it was not. L2 learners also showed a facilitative effect of classifiers that was comparable to that of native speakers. In addition, we found that the level of proficiency played a role in the speed of real-time referent resolutions when the participants heard the target nouns in audio input. However, such an effect was not observed during the period when the predictions were generated.

Intraword awareness, i. e., of affixes and stems, helps L2 learners in inferring the meaning of unknown words. Learners draw inferences relying on suffixes, prefixes and stems since each element can independently contribute to comprehension. This study analyzes morphology-related strategies in inferencing and focuses on the contribution of suffixes for adult L1 English-speaking learners of Spanish. Differences among suffixes (i. e., transparency, biuniqueness, explicitness of instruction, and cognateness) are taken into account. In a cross-sectional design with learners ( n =209) of different proficiency levels (from 2 to 7 semesters of university study), intraword awareness was analyzed by means of two metalinguistic tasks. Participants of all proficiency levels relied on morphology-related strategies, with an increase of proficiency accompanied by an increase in strategy use. As for suffixes, instruction and cognateness mattered more than frequency in guiding students to successful inferencing. Nevertheless, knowledge of suffixes was still limited for the most advanced learners.