Comparing mand training and other instructional methods to teach a foreign language

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to examine the effects of mand, tact, and native‐to‐foreign (NFI) and foreign‐to‐native (FNI) intraverbal training on the acquisition of a foreign language. We used a multiple‐baseline design across participants with an embedded adapted alternating treatments design to compare the effects of mand training, tact training, NFI training, and FNI training on the acquisition rate of Chinese words in four typically developing adults. We also examined the emergence of untrained foreign language responses for each training condition. Data for 3 out of the 4 participants suggest that mand training was the most efficient training procedure with respect to acquisition rate. The greatest amount of emergent responding was observed for the mand and tact training conditions.

Teaching a small foreign language vocabulary to children using tact and listener instruction with a prompt delay

“…Second, future research should explore the role of preference for stimuli on the acquisition of a foreign language repertoire. W. L. Wu et al (2019) suggested that teaching mands in a foreign language may be more efficient than teaching tacts or intraverbals, likely due to the motivational variables (Michael & Miguel, 2020) present during instruction. If motivational variables play an important role in learning a foreign language, then future research should manipulate these variables when teaching tacts and intraverbals (e.g., by teaching participants to tact preferred objects, or letting participants choose the topic of the conversation).…”

“…There is a growing body of literature examining the effectiveness of teaching a foreign language using behavior‐analytic procedures (Cortez et al, 2020; Daly & Douvani, 2020; Davidson & O'Connor, 2019; Dounavi, 2011, 2014; Matter et al, 2020; May et al, 2016, 2019; Petursdottir & HafliĐadóttir, 2009; Petursdottir et al, 2008; Rosales et al, 2012; H. Wu & Miller, 2007; W. L. Wu et al, 2019). Overall, these studies focused on teaching a subset of skills (e.g., listener and tact responses) and probing the emergence of others (e.g., intraverbal responses) to evaluate the most effective and efficient arrangements.…”

A systematic review of empirical intraverbal research: 2015–2020

“…(2016) and Jennings and Miguel (2017) used tact and intraverbal training to establish equivalence classes. Additionally, three experiments compared intraverbal training to tact training (6.1%; Daly & Dounavi, 2020; Maldonado et al., 2020; Wu et al., 2019). Nearly one third of experiments (29.2%) investigated the intraverbal as the dependent variable.…”

A systematic review of mands for information

“…Researchers should also evaluate procedures to teach mands for information to other populations. For example, if a child has a fully developed verbal behavior repertoire in one language, it is possible to only need to teach them to tact an item in the other language for the other verbal operants to emerge (i.e., derived relational responding; see Wu et al., 2019). In contrast, there are individuals with developmental disabilities who cannot communicate vocally.…”