In a recent study, preschoolers adapted their syntactic expectations about a familiar phrase in French; this adaptation affected later word learning. In two experiments, we probed the generality of this finding by replicating the experiment and extending it to a different expression in English. We examined the ambiguous phrase "the…

There is considerable lab-based evidence for successful incidental learning, in which a learner's attention is directed away from the to-be-learned stimulus and towards another stimulus. In this study, we extend incidental learning research into the language learning classroom. Three groups of adult second language (L2) learners (N = 52) engaged…

Second language (L2) viewing with captions (i.e., L2 on-screen text) is now a proliferating as well as promising area of L2 acquisition research. The goal of the present meta-analysis was to examine (a) the relationship between captioned viewing and incidental vocabulary learning and (b) what variables related to learners, treatment, methodology,…

The present study compared learning gains at both form recall and meaning recall levels across three learning conditions: viewing without note-taking, viewing with conventional note-taking, and viewing with guided note-taking. A total of 134 Chinese learners of English were assigned to three experimental groups and a no-treatment control group.…

A strong predictor of children's language is performance on non-word repetition (NWR) tasks. However, the basis of this relationship remains unknown. Some suggest that NWR tasks measure phonological working memory, which then affects language growth. Others argue that children's knowledge of language/language experience affects NWR performance. A…

Second language (L2) grammar learning is difficult. Two frameworks--the psycholinguistic lexical bottleneck hypothesis and the neurocognitive declarative/procedural model--predict that faster L2 lexical processing should facilitate L2 incidental grammar learning. We tested these predictions in a pretest-posttest syntactic adaptation study of…

This study revisits the roles of different aspects of phonological vocabulary knowledge in second language (L2) listening. Japanese learners of English (n = 114) completed the TOEIC Listening test and three phonological vocabulary tests assessing (a) ability to recognize the meanings of aural forms (meaning recognition), (b) ability to recall the…

This study explored the effects of practice schedule on the processing of new second language (L2) vocabulary and resulting knowledge. Participants were 107 low-achieving adolescents attending a vocational high school in Korea. They were randomly assigned to one of three practice groups and completed a L2 English-L1 Korean paired-associates…

This study investigated how repeating a video-lecture-based task affects second language (L2) learners' processing and incidental acquisition of technical vocabulary as well as the relationship between processing and lexical gains. The participants were 75 Chinese learners of L2 English. Thirty participants performed the task once (control group),…