The positive effects of writing practice on integration of foreign words in memory.

Abstract

The effect of copying foreign language vocabulary words and/or pronouncing them aloud while attempting to learn their English counterparts was investigated. In Experiment 1, writing practice enhanced written recall of the foreign words in response to their English equivalents. Recall of the foreign words in the oral modality was not influenced by these variables. In Experiment 2, when recall of English words was measured, neither variable was found to have a significant effect. In Experiment 3, written free recall of foreign language words was found to be enhanced by writing practice, whereas associative recall, as measured by a matching test, was not reliably influenced by this variable. The overall pattern of results is interpreted as supporting the view that copying foreign language words assists in the formation of memory codes for their written forms.

Can writing a new word detract from learning it? More negative effects of forced output during vocabulary learning

“…The combined findings of Thomas and Dieter (1987) and the present study also suggest that the effects of word writing may depend upon experimental paradigm and methodology. Whereas Thomas and Dieter found positive effects for word writing on some measures and null effects on others, the present study revealed negative effects for word writing using LPSP-written scoring.…”

“…Three potentially critical differences between the present study and Thomas and Dieter's (1987) study concern task difficulty, presentation format, and scoring. First, more target words were used in Thomas and Dieter's study, but the inclusion of an additional repetition for each word and an additional 4 seconds for every repetition may have resulted in a less demanding vocabulary learning task than that of the present study.…”

“…The RDO hypothesis predicts negative effects for this type of output. Thomas and Dieter (1987) conducted a study on word writing among English-speaking learners of L2 French. The results of their first experiment indicated that word writing positively affected performance on an English-to-French translation task using scoring based on complete words (W) and complete words plus words with one letter wrong (Wϩ(W -1)) but not based on scoring that included word fragments (Wϩ(W -1)ϩF).…”

The Effects of Inferring, Verifying, and Memorizing on the Retention of L2 Word Meanings

“…Moreover, such a verification stage can contribute to retention in combination with the act of writing down the inferred and verified meaning (Schouten-van Parreren; cf. Thomas & Dieter, 1987). An additional point of interest concerning the meaning-inferred method is the amount of time the procedure takes.…”

Effects of Hierarchy Vocabulary Exercises on English Vocabulary Acquisition

“…However, previous research has offered mixed perceptions about the effect of copying vocabulary exercises. Thomas and Dieter (1987) stated that copying practice was beneficial for the accuracy and completeness of writing a word. Hummel (2010) confirmed the merits of rote-copying for learning L2 words that copying exercises promoted vocabulary recall in terms of immediate memory.…”