This paper investigates the effects of watching an entire season of a French series with the streaming service Netflix in an out-of-classroom context. University Dutch-speaking low- to high-intermediate learners of French were divided into two groups: a control group who only took the tests (N = 37) and a treatment group (N = 65). Learners in the…

This multisite study replicates Webb, Newton, and Chang's (2013) study on the effect of repetition on incidental learning of multiword units (MWUs). Even though more researchers have started to investigate MWUs, most data have been collected from university students. Furthermore, the large effect of MWU repetition on learning reported by Webb…

Performing a stay in a country where the L2 is the official language can provide the perfect immersion for L2 development (traditional study abroad). In the case of English learners, internationalization and the role of English as a lingua franca make it unnecessary to perform the stay in an English-speaking country. Hence, an increasing number of…

This longitudinal study assessed the relative importance of second language exposure, motivational and attitudinal factors, and executive functions in predicting receptive vocabulary acquisition in children and adolescents after controlling for background characteristics (socio-economic status, non-verbal intelligence) and prior knowledge. The…

This study examines the effect of textual enhancement on learners' attention to and learning of multiword units from captioned audiovisual input. We adopted a within-participants design in which 28 learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) watched a captioned video containing enhanced (underlined) and unenhanced multiword units. Using…

This study investigates incidental vocabulary learning through captioned or subtitled videos and examines whether and how different learner- (prior vocabulary knowledge) and word-related factors (i.e., frequency of occurrence, cognateness, and imagery) influence learning gains from watching videos. Low-intermediate Dutch-speaking learners of…

Although children may productively use concrete nouns after limited exposure, complete mastery of adult-like patterns of noun usage can take up to 14 years. We evaluated whether a transition from universal to language-specific naming is part of the refinement in later lexical development, and we compared how this refinement plays out in…

While there is increasing evidence that learners pick up new words while viewing video with captions (i.e. L2 subtitles), little is known about the role of instructional interventions prior to viewing. This study uses eye-movement registration to investigate the effect of pre-learning vocabulary before watching a captioned video. Thirty…

This study focused on the mechanisms underlying incidental second language (L2) vocabulary acquisition prior to formal instruction. We designed a cross-sectional study to examine which learner-related and word-related variables affect young learners' vocabulary knowledge at the level of meaning recognition and meaning recall. We collected data…

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) has expanded in Europe, favored by the large body of research, often showing positive effects of CLIL on L2 development. However, critical voices have recently questioned whether these positive findings apply to any language, given that most research focuses on English. Taking into account this…

Television is considered an important source of comprehensible input for second language learners of English and there is some evidence that L2 words can be learned incidentally by watching television. Few studies have looked at the role of TV viewing for learning formulaic sequences, despite the ubiquity of formulaic sequences in spoken English,…

If known words can be defined psycholinguistically as "form-meaning mappings", the present article investigates whether prompting learners to evaluate whether the form of a new second language (L2) word fits its meaning generates "mapping elaborations" that aid recall. Thirty Dutch-speaking upper-intermediate learners of…

To date, research into vocabulary learning strategies has mainly made use of questionnaires about studying preferences in general or of interviews following a specific study task, focusing on finding out which strategies were most popular. The present investigation attempts to provide more insight into the effects of the parameters of timing and…

While most studies on L2 vocabulary learning through input have addressed learners' vocabulary uptake from written text, this study focuses on audio-visual input. In particular, we investigate the effects of enhancing video by (1) adding different types of L2 subtitling (i.e. no captioning, full captioning, keyword captioning, and glossed keyword…

Research has shown that prompting learners to elaborate on the appropriateness of form-meaning links can be an efficient vocabulary learning exercise (Deconinck, Boers & Eyckmans, 2017). In this paper we wish to shed more light on the mental processes that occur during this specific elaborative task by investigating the influence of individual…