Although English and German are both Germanic languages, due to various historical changes, many of their cognates are no longer easily recognizable. This study examined whether knowledge of language history can be beneficial to learners when learning English-German cognates. Thirty-five English-speaking second language (L2) learners of…

This study examined linguistic development among both intermediate and advanced college-level second language (L2) learners during short-term study abroad summer programs in Spain. Participants completed a measure of overall proficiency, as well as assessments of receptive grammatical (morphosyntactic) and lexical (semantic) abilities at the…

Vygotsky's work on the acquisition of foreign language words has been criticized for lacking a formal view of language as a system and for taking little interest in questions such as the route and rate of language acquisition. We argue that word meanings really do not constitute a formal system, either in the way they develop, or in the way they…

This article argues in favor of a receptive vocabulary component in foreign language courses through consideration of: productive vs. receptive vocabulary knowledge; misconceptions in receptive vocabulary instruction; and classroom-tested approaches and activities for receptive vocabulary development. (CB)

This study investigates the effectiveness of three methods of learning vocabulary among 778 beginning second language (L2) learners. Rote memorization consists of memorizing the first language (L1) translation of a new L2 word by rehearsal. Semantic mapping displays L1 words conceptually related to the L2 word in a diagram. The keyword method…

Concerned the effects of questions about word meaning during an immediate lexical learning task. English-speaking learners of Spanish as a second language attempted to learn 24 new Spanish words while viewing word-picture pairs. Results indicated significantly greater cued-recall scores in the no questions condition than in the questions…

This study examines the relationship between English as a second language (ESL) learners' depth of vocabulary knowledge, their lexical inferencing strategy use, and their success in deriving word meaning from context. Participants read a passage containing 10 unknown words and attempted to derive the meanings of the unknown words from context.…

This study is intended to assist teachers of advanced second language students with the problems of vocabulary errors. The aim is to help avoid the formation of incorrect hypotheses about vocabulary when it is first presented, and more importantly, to help teachers deal with errors as they occur. (SL)

This study investigated semantic transfer in second language (L2) learning and provided a replication of the author's study (Jiang, 2002) in a different English as a Second Language (ESL) population. Korean ESL speakers were asked to perform a semantic judgment task in which they decided whether or not 2 English words were related in meaning. Two…

When college students (N=124) studying French performed a cloze test, translated additional text, and recalled the reading, results indicated that both syntactic and vocabulary proficiency positively affected reading comprehension and recall of text. This supports continued attention to grammar and vocabulary-building exercises for students in…

A study with 181 beginning-level college students of French investigated the effects of sentence-level native-language (L1) translations on retention of second-language (L2) vocabulary presented in a context designed to promote inference rather than word-to-word translation. Research was conducted to address the specific design of software for…