Intercultural simulations, such as Barnga (Thiagarajan & Steinwachs, 1990), along with the use of critical incidents (Gibson, 2002; Gropper, 1996), have long been a mainstay of intercultural communication courses and have found their way into English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms (Apedaile &…

In the development of their semantic networks, bilinguals can be influenced by the levels of proficiency they have in their second language (L2) and by the age at which they acquired the language. Two exercises, one in word association and one in forced-choice decision-making, were used to test whether the pattern of relative awareness of thematic…

Differing amounts and ordering of pictorial content were compared to determine their effect on learning word-referent relations in a second language. Findings indicated there is an optimal level at which nonverbal context facilitates the process of inferring word meanings in a foreign language. (Author/DS)

Reviews psychological aspects relevant to second language (L2) vocabulary list learning and reports on an experiment conducted with high school students learning French. Findings reveal that presenting vocabulary items in first language-second language order is the more versatile form of presentation if both production and comprehension of L2…

A series of four experiments explored a discrepancy in the findings of research regarding the use of the keyword method for learning vocabulary, specifically whether the presentation method (paced vs. unpaced) or the treatment administration (subjects in groups vs. subjects as individuals) determines its effectiveness. Two experiments involved…