Examined the relation between phonological memory and foreign language learning by analyzing the correlations between pseudoword repetition performance and English test performance among 41 Finnish primary school pupils. Results found significant correlations between pseudoword repetition and foreign language learning. (18 references) (MDM)

Two studies assessed the impact of short-term memory on English as a Second Language learning. The first involved 20 graduate students at a Taiwanese university, who were randomly divided into treatment and control groups. It investigated differences in the performance of phrase recollection when the information was chunked versus unchunked.…

A study of foreign students' English acquisition used short-term memory tasks to determine if phonological encoding of visually presented verbal material occurred during reading. Students not using oral repetition in English showed greater phonological interference and longer reaction times. Correlation with reading proficiency was small.…

A study investigated the immediate recall protocol as a means of determining what second language learners retain of a spoken text. Three factors in comprehension were considered: topic familiarity, topic accessibility, and topic structure. A dialogue, a news broadcast, and a popular song were all presented to groups of beginning-level students of…

More than 1,500 high school foreign language students were tested for comprehension of authentic texts. First- through fifth-year French, German, and Spanish students read texts of the types mentioned in the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines at the intermediate and intermediate high levels. All students captured some meaning from each of the texts.…

Study examined transfer of learners' first language (L1) orthographic processing strategies to second language processing. Two groups learning Japanese, differing by L1 writing system (phonographic vs. morphographic), were tested on ability to represent novel kanji characters in short-term memory. Results indicate learners with a morphographic L1…

This study determined the degree to which the phonological and executive components of memory reflect language-specific capacities in reading achievement. We tested whether the memory processes in a sample of English-language learners that played a major role in predicting second-language acquisition and risk for reading disability (RD) in Grade 1…

Previous research on second language acquisition with multimedia has suggested that individual differences, including working memory capacity, play an important role in L2 vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension. In this paper, we report on a study of 13 students in a second-year German language course who read a German short story on a…

Research with ESL students has begun to show that Chinese students experience particular challenges in English academic listening. This study focuses on their challenges as reported by Chinese ESL students in understanding English lectures. Seventy-eight Chinese ESL students at an American university participated in this study. This paper focuses…

This study investigated whether second language (L2) proficiency affects pragmatic comprehension, namely the ability to comprehend implied meaning in spoken dialogues, in terms of accuracy and speed of comprehension. Participants included 46 native English speakers at a U.S. university and 160 Japanese students of English in a college in Japan who…

To estimate reading difficulty of items on a sentence repetition task, a study had 50 adult English as a second language (ESL) students repeat each of 26 sentences immediately after two presentations. High-difficulty items were derivationally more complex than low-difficulty items, and the most difficult items involved the processing of…

Explores the relationship between teenagers' working memory and school achievement. Experiments revealed significant correlations between the two, specifically in the field of foreign language. Includes descriptions of the experiments with accompanying statistical tables. (MJP)

Comparison of three training conditions for Spanish-vocabulary development with 30 deaf undergraduates found no significant differences for short-term memory. However, long-term-memory scores under the repeated writing condition were significantly higher than scores under the fingerspelling or silent-reading conditions. (Author/DB)

A study compared the effects of cognitive complexity on the speech production of 14 advanced non-native speakers of English and 14 native English-speakers. Cognitively simple and complex tasks were distinguished based on text type (narrative versus expository). Subjects read one narrative and one expository text in separate sessions, then wrote…

Lexical interference in the recall of adult Finnish/Swedish bilinguals with Finnish dominant is studied. The error patterns of short-term recall of words presented by category in either Swedish or Finnish were examined for translations, lexical substitutions, and intrusions or false recalls of non-occurring words. Individual differences in…