Second Language Acquisition

Abstract

This article aims to discus what we know about the impact of gestures on memorisation of items. There have been few studies on that subject so far. I am specifically working on the impact of teaching gestures (very iconic movements used by teachers in classroom, especially in second language teaching) on young children (aged 5 years old). This article describes an experiment in which young subjects had to memorise words in L1. Theses words were heard on a video and were illustrated by gestures. Some of the children just had to look at the gestures and repeat the words heard, others had also to reproduce the gestures they saw. Results show that in a free recall task, children who have reproduced the gestures memorise better than those who only looked at them and than those of the control group. These results concern short term memorisation of L1 words but will help us to conduct further experiments on long term memorisation of L2 lexical items.

Modeling variability in number marking in additional-language Spanish

“…Some researchers might consider that these participants have acquired number marking on noun-modifier pairs, given that they used a plural modifier with a plural noun more than 90 percent of the time (cf. Gass et al, 2013). We believe, however, that examining learner populations like this one is important because the participants still show variability in use and it is possible to learn about later points along the developmental trajectory by modeling this type of additional-language behavior (cf.…”

Semantic Mapping or Rote Memorisation: Which Strategy Is More Effective for Students’ Acquisition and Memorization of L2 Vocabulary?

“…In like manner, there is a lack of consensus among researchers about the influence of rote memorization on students' acquisition and memorization of words. For instance, Pudewa (2005) and Oanh and Hien (2006) argue in favor of its positive influence on students' knowledge and memorization of L2 vocabulary, while Gass and Selinker (2013) describe it in vilifying terms and aver that it has negative influence on students' creativity on the one hand, and on their understanding and memorization of the target words on the other hand.…”

Native Language in English as a Foreign Language Classes: Teachers’ Lived Experiences

“…Thus, the Nepali language maintains its position as a native language (NL), for it bridges the linguistic communities (that have different NLs) in mutual intelligibility. However, in the Nepalese context, English is a second lingua franca because most people learn it after acquiring their NLs (Gass et al, 2013). Furthermore, English is used in everyday communication in informal settings via social media like SMS, Facebook, e-mail, the Internet, and so on.…”

“…This situation calls for the need for 'translingualism' (cf. Celic & Selzer, 2012/2013, Conteh, 2018, & Mertin, 2018.…”