Both classic thought experiments and recent empirical evidence suggest that children frequently encounter new words whose meanings are underdetermined by the extralinguistic contexts in which they occur. The role that these referentially ambiguous events play in children's word learning is central to ongoing debates in the field. Do children learn…

Mathematics vocabulary plays a crucial role in students' mathematics learning. However, students, particularly those with learning disabilities (LDs), encounter challenges in understanding and grasping mathematical terms. This challenge becomes more evident as students progress into the elementary and secondary grades, where mathematics vocabulary…

With only about a third of students in US public schools achieving the NAEP Proficient level, many educators believe students are not getting enough reading practice. However, how much reading practice is enough? This study quantifies the relationship between the amount of book reading and the expected number of words learned. We collected 45…

Purpose: This study examines undergraduates' perceptions of the effectiveness of two metacognitive monitoring strategies, active comprehension monitoring (ACM) and audible elaborative rehearsal (AER), for gaining specialized vocabulary and concept (SVC) knowledge in communication sciences and disorders. Method: The participants were 64…

Numerous studies have documented the benefits of watching audio-visual materials with on-screen text for L2 vocabulary learning (Montero Perez, 2022). The provision of both auditory and textual input allows learners to link auditory and written forms (or L1 meanings) of unknown words during viewing, which could potentially facilitate vocabulary…

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the learning potential of French-speaking children, either with typical development (TD) or with developmental language disorder (DLD), when learning an invented inflectional morphological rule. We tested the children's performance in learning pseudomorphemes of gender and number with dynamic assessment…

Knowledge and its acquisition are central to the field of curriculum studies, but the ways in which empirical studies of pedagogical approaches relate to theories of knowledge acquisition are under researched. This paper reports the outcomes of a rapid evidence assessment about the impacts of "experiential learning" (EL), regarded by…

We investigated whether learning and retaining vocabulary in a second language (L2) can be improved by leveraging a combination of memory enhancement techniques. Specifically, we tested whether combining retrieval practice, spacing, and related manipulations in a 'multidomain' pedagogical approach enhances vocabulary acquisition as compared to a…

Although teachers have access to a great deal of scholarship on teaching academic vocabulary (AV), much less is known about the experiences and perceptions of English language learners regarding AV. To address this gap, we used an online metaphor elicitation survey and follow-up interviews to collect data from 432 undergraduates at a Hong Kong…

Creativity is a key 21st-century skill and a consistent predictor of academic learning outcomes. Despite decades of research on creativity and learning, little is known about the cognitive mechanisms underlying their relationship. In two studies, we examined whether creativity supports associative learning through associative thinking--the ability…

Learning vocabulary is a central but yet complex aspect of learning a language. Hence, researchers stress the importance of facilitating vocabulary development via a structured approach to target words and recycling. While teaching materials have the potential to provide this structure to all students in a classroom, few studies have investigated…

Aim: From the perspective of cognitive load theory, the present study examined the relative effectiveness of the sequential use of L1 and bilingual subtitles on incidental English vocabulary learning. Methods: A total of 162 upper-intermediate Chinese learners of English as a foreign language watched an English clip in one of 4 subtitling…

Human movement plays a foundational role in cognition and learning. This topical collection brings together theoretical and empirical work examining how gestures, physical activity, and virtual movement enhance learning in language, multimedia, and activity-based learning. Regarding language learning, interacting with virtual object improves…

Codeswitching is a common feature of bilingual language practices, yet its impact on word learning is poorly understood. Critically, processing costs associated with codeswitching may extend to learning. Moreover, verbs tend to be more difficult to learn than nouns, and the challenges of learning verbs could compound with processing costs…

This study investigates the effects of multilingualism and the degree of proficiency in different languages on vocabulary knowledge among Spanish language learners. Participants completed a 160-word meaning recall test designed to measure their knowledge of the 8,000 most frequent Spanish words and a self-assessment questionnaire on their…