There has been a plethora of studies investigating the effect of semantic relatedness on second language (L2) word learning.However, most prior studies failed to control for the lexical properties of target words, which may be responsible for the mixed results yielded. This study, therefore, sets out to revisit this issue by controlling for L1…

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…

The aim of this study was twofold: first, to develop an experimental technique as a tool to investigate learning outcomes of spontaneous, naturalistic second language (L2) learning under controlled laboratory conditions; and second, to explore how this technique can be used to understand the basic conditions and limits of this learning. Two…