Knowledge of lexical items is arguably the most essential aspect of being able to communicate in a foreign language (Richards, 2000). Many studies have examined effective strategies for retaining the meaning of foreign words, but studies investigating the effectiveness of different methods for the retention of essential grammatical features of those words are unfortunately fewer. This study investigates whether memorizing the gender of German nouns concomitantly to their meaning results in a decreased ability by undergraduate native speakers of English to remember noun meaning, and whether a mnemonic approach to retaining the grammatical gender of German nouns may prove effective. In possibly the largest study of its kind (n = 283), the effectiveness of several mnemonic devices (colors, voices, images, and a combination of these) is also investigated for the retention of noun gender in German. The sole use of images simultaneously coding for noun meaning and gender led to the best observed results, as indicated by scores on two post-tests. The use of images seems to be a promising mnemonic technique for helping learners remember the gender of German nouns, while at the same time not significantly compromising their ability to recall noun meaning. The results of the present study have possible implications for German materials development and teaching, and for computer assisted language learning (CALL) in general.

backings for assumptions in the interpretive argument of the CAT-PAV will be presented. 2.11. Research Questions Five are the research questions that will guide the research into the CAT-PAV, each of them connected to a specific warrant in the interpretive argument for the CAT-PAV: Research Question 1 (Warrant 1): Are the CAT-PAV task, as well as the knowledge and abilities required to correctly complete its items typical of those encountered in ESL classes in an English-medium institution of higher education? Research Question 2 (Warrant 2): Is the CAT-PAV a psychometrically robust assessment tool? Research Question 3 (Warrant 3): Can the CAT-PAV scores be shown to generalize to different test conditions (different test forms, items, and occasions) and to indicate knowledge of productive and contextualized academic vocabulary in English that goes beyond merely those academic words tested on the CAT-PAV? Research Question 4 (Warrant 4): Can CAT-PAV scores be shown to significantly and positively correlate with other theoretically related measures and to be attributed primarily to breadth of contextualized knowledge of frequent academic words in English? Research Question 5 (Warrant 5): Are CAT-PAV scores indicative of ESL placement for ISU students and do these students, as well as ESL instructors at ISU, express positive views regarding the test, its format, its impact, and its intended uses?

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