Do the cognitive benefits of interleaving-the method of alternating between two or more skills or concepts during training-extend to foreign language learning? In four experiments, we investigated the efficacy of interleaved versus conventional blocked practice for teaching adult learners to conjugate Spanish verbs in the preterite and imperfect past tenses. In the first two experiments, training occurred during a single session and interleaving between tenses began during the presentation of introductory content (Experiment 1) or during randomly ordered verb conjugation practice trials at the end of the training session (Experiment 2). This yielded, respectively, numerically higher performance in the blocked group and equivalent performance in the interleaved and blocked groups on a 2-day delayed test. In Experiments 3 and 4, the amount of training was increased across 2 weekly sessions in which the blocked group trained on 1 tense per session and the interleaved group trained on both tenses per session, with random interleaving occurring during verb conjugation practice trials. Interleaving yielded substantially better performance on a 1-week delayed test. Thus, although interleaving did not confer an advantage over blocking under 2 different single-session training schedules, it improved learning when used to practice conjugating verbs across multiple training sessions. These results constitute the first demonstration of an interleaving effect for foreign language learning. Educational Impact and Implications StatementThe current study examined whether interleaving, a learning technique which involves alternating between two or more skills or concepts during training, improves foreign language learning. In many foreign language courses, interleaving is rarely used; rather, one-skill-at-a-time blocked practice (blocking) is more common. Across four experiments, college students used interleaving or blocking to learn how to conjugate verbs in the Spanish preterite and imperfect past tenses. Interleaving yielded better verb conjugation skills than blocking when it was used to practice those skills across multiple training sessions. These results suggest that interleaving can be beneficial for foreign language learning.

The declarative/procedural (DP) model posits that the learning, storage, and use of language critically depend on two learning and memory systems in the brain: declarative memory and procedural memory. Thus, on the basis of independent research on the memory systems, the model can generate specific and often novel predictions for language. Till now most such predictions and ensuing empirical work have been motivated by research on the neurocognition of the two memory systems. However, there is also a large literature on techniques that enhance learning and memory. The DP model provides a theoretical framework for predicting which techniques should extend to language learning, and in what circumstances they should apply. In order to lay the neurocognitive groundwork for these predictions, here we first summarize the neurocognitive fundamentals of the two memory systems and briefly lay out the resulting claims of the DP model for both first and second language. We then provide an overview of learning and memory enhancement techniques before focusing on two techniques – spaced repetition and retrieval practice – that have been linked to the memory systems. Next, we present specific predictions for how these techniques should enhance language learning, and review existing evidence, which suggests that they do indeed improve the learning of both first and second language. Finally, we discuss areas of future research and implications for second language pedagogy.

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After studying a stimulus (e.g., a word triplet such as gift, rose, wine), taking a cued recall test on that stimulus (e.g., gift, rose, ?) improves later recall of the retrieved term (e.g., wine) relative to a restudy control. That testing effect, however, is specific to the tested term: later recall of a previously untested term from the same stimulus (e.g., gift or rose) is not enhanced. In the present research, two possibilities for that highly specific learning were investigated: (a) learning through cued recall is always highly specific to the tested term, or, alternatively, (b) learning specificity is unique to the case of retrieving a term from an episodic memory of a study event. We addressed those possibilities by using the pretesting paradigm, in which there is no study opportunity prior to cued recall testing, and hence retrieval occurs through semantic memory. The results of two experiments supported the latter hypothesis. Thus, it is not the recall attempt per se that produces highly specific learning, but rather the attempt to recall the response by accessing an episodic memory of a particular study event. Theoretical and practical implications for learning through cued recall are discussed.