Learning New Words Research Articles

Difficulty in artificial word learning impacts targeted memory reactivation and its underlying neural signatures.

Sleep associated memory consolidation and reactivation play an important role in language acquisition and learning of new words. However, it is unclear to what extent properties of word learning difficulty impact sleep associated memory reactivation. To address this gap, we investigated in 22 young healthy adults the effectiveness of auditory targeted memory reactivation (TMR) during non-rapid eye movement sleep of artificial words with easy and difficult to learn phonotactical properties. Here, we found that TMR of the easy words improved their overnight memory performance, whereas TMR of the difficult words had no effect. By comparing EEG activities after TMR presentations, we found an increase in slow wave density independent of word difficulty, whereas the spindle-band power nested during the slow wave up-states - as an assumed underlying activity of memory reactivation - was significantly higher in the easy/effective compared to the difficult/ineffective condition. Our findings indicate that word learning difficulty by phonotactics impacts the effectiveness of TMR and further emphasize the critical role of prior encoding depth in sleep associated memory reactivation.

Difficulty in artificial word learning impacts targeted memory reactivation and its underlying neural signatures

Sleep associated memory consolidation and reactivation play an important role in language acquisition and learning of new words. However, it is unclear to what extent properties of word learning difficulty impact sleep associated memory reactivation. To address this gap, we investigated in 22 young healthy adults the effectiveness of auditory targeted memory reactivation (TMR) during non-rapid eye movement sleep of artificial words with easy and difficult to learn phonotactical properties. Here, we found that TMR of the easy words improved their overnight memory performance, whereas TMR of the difficult words had no effect. By comparing EEG activities after TMR presentations, we found an increase in slow wave density independent of word difficulty, whereas the spindle-band power nested during the slow wave up-states – as an assumed underlying activity of memory reactivation – was significantly higher in the easy/effective compared to the difficult/ineffective condition. Our findings indicate that word learning difficulty by phonotactics impacts the effectiveness of TMR and further emphasize the critical role of prior encoding depth in sleep associated memory reactivation.

Strategies for Guessing Meaning of English Words among Secondary Schools in Gasabo District, Rwanda

This study focused on morphological strategies that may alleviate the students’ learning of new English words in Gasabo, Rwanda. The study used the descriptive research design. A systematic sampling technique determined three representative schools to participate. The total population in the three schools was 126 students and three teachers from language combinations. The sample of 56 students and three teachers participated through questionnaire and an interview guide. Data analysis took place through descriptive statistics and the thematic approach. Based on the findings, the study concluded that morphology is a vital tool for guessing the meaning of unknown words in English. Therefore, the awareness of morphology is necessary to improve learners’ attention when they predict the meaning of an unknown word. The study recommends that secondary school teachers need to encourage their learners to grasp the meaning of unknown words by identifying their morphemes and context. Teachers of English language should avoid defective educational practices, like teacher-centered activities that attract memorization instead of linguistic skills development strategies. Therefore, this study remains an eye-opening contribution to the linguistic development of teachers.

Young beginning learners’ vocabulary learning via input and output tasks: The role of working memory

Working memory (WM) is essential to vocabulary learning. However, limited attention has been paid to young beginner learners’ vocabulary development under various task conditions from the perspective of WM. This study investigates how two types of WM – complex WM and phonological short-term memory – may influence two instructional approaches (i.e., input and output tasks) on picking up new words. 93 young learners studying English as a foreign language (EFL) participated in input and output tasks and four vocabulary assessments. These assessments functioned as a pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest. The participants also took two WM tests: an operation span test for complex WM and a word repetition test for phonological short-term memory. The results demonstrated that: (1) both input and output tasks significantly influenced the learning and retention of new words, (2) complex WM did not substantially predict task effects on the learning and retention of new words, and (3) phonological WM had a notable impact on learning and retaining new words under the input and output task conditions. The findings emphasize the role of WM for EFL young learners’ vocabulary learning through tasks.

Neural mechanisms underlying improved new-word learning with high-density transcranial direct current stimulation

Neurobehavioral studies have provided evidence for the effectiveness of anodal tDCS on language production, by stimulation of the left Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG) or of left Temporo-Parietal Junction (TPJ). However, tDCS is currently not used in clinical practice outside of trials, because behavioral effects have been inconsistent and underlying neural effects unclear. Here, we propose to elucidate the neural correlates of verb and noun learning and to determine if they can be modulated with anodal high-definition (HD) tDCS stimulation. Thirty-six neurotypical participants were randomly allocated to anodal HD-tDCS over either the left IFG, the left TPJ, or sham stimulation. On day one, participants performed a naming task (pre-test). On day two, participants underwent a new-word learning task with rare nouns and verbs concurrently to HD-tDCS for 20 min. The third day consisted of a post-test of naming performance. EEG was recorded at rest and during naming on each day. Verb learning was significantly facilitated by left IFG stimulation. HD-tDCS over the left IFG enhanced functional connectivity between the left IFG and TPJ and this correlated with improved learning. HD-tDCS over the left TPJ enabled stronger local activation of the stimulated area (as indexed by greater alpha and beta-band power decrease) during naming, but this did not translate into better learning. Thus, tDCS can induce local activation or modulation of network interactions. Only the enhancement of network interactions, but not the increase in local activation, leads to robust improvement of word learning. This emphasizes the need to develop new neuromodulation methods influencing network interactions. Our study suggests that this may be achieved through behavioral activation of one area and concomitant activation of another area with HD-tDCS.

Language Distance Moderates the Effect of a Mixed-Language Environment on New-Word Learning for 4-Year-Old Children.

As bilingual families increase, the phenomenon of language mixing among children in mixed-language environments has gradually attracted academic attention. This study aims to explore the impact of language mixing on vocabulary acquisition in bilingual children and whether language distance moderates this impact. We recruited two groups of bilingual children, Chinese-English bilinguals and Chinese-Japanese bilinguals, to learn two first-language new words in a monolingual environment and a mixed-language environment, respectively. The results showed that the participants could successfully recognize the novel words in the code-switching sentences. However, when we compared the performance of the two groups of bilingual children, we found that the gaze time proportion of the Chinese-English bilingual children under the code-switching condition was significantly higher than that of the Chinese-Japanese bilingual children, while there was no significant difference under the monolingual condition. This suggests that language mixing has an inhibitory effect on vocabulary acquisition in bilingual children and that this inhibitory effect is influenced by language distance, that is, the greater the language distance, the stronger the inhibitory effect. This study reveals the negative impact of language mixing on vocabulary acquisition in bilingual children and also implies that there may be some other influencing factors, so more research is needed on different types of bilingual children.

Afijación: factor esencial para la Competencia Comunciativa

Introducción English language gives great advantages to speakers of any language that is why this is studied worldwide. One of the most important elements when studying English is its morphological structures which contribute to the communicative competence. Morphological features of words such as affix frequency may provide semantic cues that can help in the learning of new words. Therein, regular inflection applies by grammatical rules, such as addition of -ed to the word stems for English past tense. Irregular inflection, in contrast, is less predictable and comprises various alternations of the word form (e.g., sleep – slept). Understanding of affix knowledge development is of great importance for both researchers and practitioners, since it might shed light on the process of vocabulary acquisition and the role of affix knowledge in reading. Competence is what speakers do with the language so that communicative competence is the know-how of the language. It may be affected by the situational context. The common European Framework for references for languages (CEFR) includes 3 levels of language competences; basic user, independent users and competent users. Communicative approaches toward language learning and teaching suggest that the purpose of language subject is to develop learners’ communication and interaction ability. To sum up morphological structures which can be regular or irregular truly benefit the development of the speakers´ communicative competence. Objetivos The aim of the research was to determine the influence of affixation in the communicative competence of the students from the English Program at Technical University of Ambato. The specific objectives were focused on the identification of the prefixes and suffixes that denote opposition, pluralization, meaning and grammatical categories. Another specific objective has to do with the recognition of communicative competence elements such as linguistic and translinguistic. Método This was quantitative research due to all the items were transferred into numerical data to get percentages and tendencies. Bars and charts were used to show the data obtained from the survey. Additionally, the research had a descriptive focus with the application of a validated survey (Alpha de Cronbach 0.801) that included a pilot administration of the survey. The survey consisted of 21 closed questions applied to 100 students from the English Program at Technical University of Ambato. Principales resultados The results portrayed that 59% of students state that teachers always used morphological structures constructed by <-ed> to change the verb tenses into past in words like work and worked. On the other hand, 73% of students maintain that teachers never the verb suffix such as <-en> in words like shorten as well as the suffixes that form plurals based on other languages structures such as cactus and cacti. In the same path, 61% of students state that teacher never use prefixes for word meaning as <mono-> in words like monolingual and prefixes that express the opposite as <im-> in words like impolitic. Additionally, 49% of pupils think that teachers frequently use prefixes to form nouns such as <-ment> in words like achievement. 52% of students admit that teachers rarely use suffixes to make to change word into adverbs for instance <-ly>, <-wise>, <-ward> in words as rapidly, likewise or toward. Conclusiones The morphological structures rarely used by teachers and students are the ones that denote opposition, prefixes that give meaning to words and formation of plural in reference to other languages. Additionally, the morphological structures with more difficulty are the derivational morphemes such as formation of plurals that are originated from other languages as cactus and cacti, suffixes that express opposition as impolitic, dissimilar; suffixes that imply meaning as monolingual or biotechnology, verb suffixes like shorten, and adverb suffixes like rapidly. Very important to mention that morphological structures promote the development of linguistic and translinguistic elements of any language since they are connected to the increasing of vocabulary which is the building block of a language. The study of morphological structures must be part of teachers’ knowledge so learning takes place during lessons.

Investigating the Effectiveness of Korean Dramas with English Subtitles on the English Language Competence of Students

This research focused on students’ English language competence in watching Korean dramas with English subtitles. It investigated the advantages and disadvantages of watching Korean dramas with English subtitles and students’ English language learning in terms of language proficiency, reading speed in English, English communication skills, and English reading comprehension. This study used qualitative research utilizing a narrative approach to analyze the English language competence of the Senior high school students of Negros Occidental National High School who were enrolled for the Academic year 2022-2023. The participants of the study were chosen using purposeful sampling. Meanwhile, the data were thematically analyzed using the recursive textual analysis guided by the three C’s of Lichtman. The findings indicated that the student's English language learning in watching Korean dramas with English subtitles has both advantages and disadvantages, such as subtitles flashing up too quickly and occasionally pausing the Korean drama being watched. Moreover, the results also show that students’ language competence in watching Korean dramas with English subtitles have influenced their learning of new English vocabulary words, speed reading, comprehension, and English language proficiency.

Morphology as an aid in orthographic learning of new words: The influence of inflected and derived forms in spelling acquisition

Prior studies have shown that children are sensitive to the principle of root consistency, whereby root morphemes retain their spelling across related words. The current study used an implicit learning situation to examine, in 56 third grade and 56 fifth grade French-speaking children, whether orthographic learning of new morphologically simple words ending in a silent letter benefited from morphological relatedness with inflected and derived forms. In the morphological condition, the new words (e.g.,clirot with a final silentt) appeared in short stories along with a morphologically related form in which the silent letter of the root was pronounced, justifying the presence of the silent letter in the root word. The morphologically complex form was an inflectional form (e.g.,clirote) for half of the children and was a derived form (e.g.,clirotage) for the other half. In the nonmorphological condition, the new words were not accompanied by morphologically related forms. After children had read the stories, their orthographic learning was assessed by asking the children to choose the correct spelling of each nonword from among three phonologically plausible alternatives (e.g.,clirot,cliros, cliro). Children chose correct spellings more often in the morphological condition than in the nonmorphological condition for both types of morphology in Grade 5 but only for inflectional morphology in Grade 3. Our findings indicate that, in learning new spellings, French children seem to rely on the root consistency principle earlier for inflectional morphology than for derivational morphology. Possible reasons for this developmental delay in mastering derivational morphology are discussed.

The Effect of a Self-Regulated Intervention on Vocabulary Knowledge and Self-Regulated Learning Skills for English Language Learners

English language learners (ELLs) lack academic vocabulary knowledge, an essential component that explains much of the persistent achievement gap between students who start schools as ELLs and their monolingual peers. This single-subject experimental design study addressed this issue by focusing on self-regulated vocabulary learning that helps ELLs become effective and independent word learners. Nine upper elementary ELLs participated in an intervention for 16 sessions, with about 35 minutes per session. The intervention included the instruction of task-specific cognitive strategies (i.e., morphological and contextual analyses) and metacognitive strategies (i.e., goal-setting and monitoring) in authentic reading texts in social studies. Results indicated positive effects on ELLs’ vocabulary knowledge and self-­regulated vocabulary learning skills. Participants were also able to generalize both cognitive and metacognitive strategies to learning of new words. A lagging effect was observed for participants with low English proficiency levels.

INTEGRATING ‘UNDERLINE’ TECHNOLOGY IN TEACHING ESP REMOTELY

The article is devoted to the problem of integrating digital tool Underline into the remote classes in the framework of English for specific purposes course (ESP). Underline is a Google Chrome extension that is regarded as a reading tool. It enables students to develop their vocabulary while browsing foreign language content (article, forum etc). The aim of the article is to describe, Underline and assess its effectiveness in ESP remote class. To achieve this goal, we examined the options of Underline precisely and singled out its advantages. When studying the effectiveness of Underline, we conducted a survey based on an anonymous questionnaire created in Google Forms. The research was carried out among the students of 4th year of study of the Institute of Physical Education and Sports during the first semester, the 2023-2024 academic year at LNU Taras Shevchenko National University. The results of the study revealed that Underline facilitates students to process English language content on the Internet greatly. Thus, it has made reading online more enjoyable and attractive. Moreover, it has improved students’ motivation in dealing with reading professionally-oriented texts and contributed to autonomous learning of new words using Underline mobile application.

Positive Effects of Sleep on Memory Consolidation and Learning New English Words in Persian Language Speakers

Background and Objective The role of night sleep in learning and consolidating memory has been mentioned and researched in many studies. Different tools have been used to determine the effect of sleep. However, this kind of research in the Iranian population is limited. Thus, the objective of this study was to determine the role of sleep in immediate and late learning of new words of second language in a number of English language learners.Methods Forty Persian males aged 18–35 years old participated in our study in two groups. The first group completed learning steps at 8–10 AM and repeated the test after 12 hours. The second group performed the initial stages of learning at 8–10 PM and repeated the test next morning. Everyone completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index Persian version for evaluating their sleep habits during last month and the effect of their sleep habits on achieved task scores.Results Comparison of the number of recalled words (NRW) between the two groups showed a significant difference (p-value < 0.001) with better performance in night group. The NRW during the second stage was positively influenced by better subjective sleep quality, lower sleep latency, higher sleep efficiency, and more sleep duration significantly (p-value < 0.05). There was no significant relationship of NRW with sleep disorders, sleep medications, or daytime dysfunction.Conclusions Adequate night sleep could improve late learning of second language in our research subjects. Sleep quality, latency in falling asleep, and subjective sleep quality might play a role in this learning process.

Looking is not enough: Multimodal attention supports the real-time learning of new words.

Most research on early language learning focuses on the objects that infants see and the words they hear in their daily lives, although growing evidence suggests that motor development is also closely tied to language development. To study the real-time behaviors required for learning new words during free-flowing toy play, we measured infants' visual attention and manual actions on to-be-learned toys. Parents and 12-to-26-month-old infants wore wireless head-mounted eye trackers, allowing them to move freely around a home-like lab environment. After the play session, infants were tested on their knowledge of object-label mappings. We found that how often parents named objects during play did not predict learning, but instead, it was infants' attention during and around a labeling utterance that predicted whether an object-label mapping was learned. More specifically, we found that infant visual attention alone did not predict word learning. Instead, coordinated, multimodal attention-when infants' hands and eyes were attending to the same object-predicted word learning. Our results implicate a causal pathway through which infants' bodily actions play a critical role in early word learning.

Orthographic, Semantic, and Contextual Influences on Initial Processing and Learning of Novel Words During Reading: Evidence From Eye Movements

Abstract This study investigates how orthographic, semantic and contextual variables—including word length, concreteness, and contextual support—impact on the processing and learning of new words in a second language (L2) when first encountered during reading. Students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) were recruited to read sentences for comprehension, embedded with unfamiliar L2 words that occurred once. Immediately after this, they received a form recognition test, a meaning recall test, and a meaning recognition test. Eye-movement data showed significant effects of word length on both early and late processing of novel words, along with effects of concreteness only on late-processing eye-tracking measures. Informative contexts were read slower than neutral contexts, yet contextual support did not show any direct influence on the processing of novel words. Interestingly, initial learning of abstract words was better than concrete words in terms of form and meaning recognition. Attentional processing of novel L2 words, operationalized by total reading time, positively predicted L2 learners’ recognition of new orthographic forms. Taken together, these results suggest: 1) orthographic, semantic and contextual factors play distinct roles for initial processing and learning of novel words; 2) online processing of novel words contributes to L2 learners’ initial knowledge of unfamiliar lexical items acquired from reading.

Print referencing during e-storybook reading on a SMART board for kindergartners to promote early literacy skills

This study examined the effects of a classroom-focused intervention on different domains of early literacy. The intervention consisted of shared e-book reading combined with a print referencing technique done via a SMART board. The specific goal of the study was to examine whether children could be instructed simultaneously in print knowledge, phonological awareness, and vocabulary, without a loss of impact on the development of either skill. Results revealed significantly larger gains with high effect sizes in print knowledge (ηp2 = .474) and phonological awareness (ηp2 = .370) when children received the print referencing e-book intervention compared to the control conditions. Print referencing did not hinder children’s learning of new words, but enhanced vocabulary to the same extent, or even higher, as e-books typically do in kindergarten when print referencing is not involved. The findings indicate that e-book reading merged with print referencing is a beneficial method for enhancing essential early literacy skills simultaneously. The learning tool is particularly efficient for a tailor-made educational setting, as it allows differential attention to students and lessens the workload for teachers.

Concept of 'Meaning of Words and Terms' in Elementary School learning: A review of literature

Many words are associated with more than one meaning. Words are sometimes "ambiguous", applying to unrelated meanings, but most of the words that occur frequently are "polysemy" because they apply to several related meanings. In a pre-registration design that includes 2 tasks, we test the ability of adults and children aged 4.5 to 7 years to learn 4 new polysemy words or 4 new ambiguous words especially in Indonesian subjects in primary school learning in learning in elementary school. Both children and adults demonstrated the superiority of polysemic learning over ambiguity on each task after exposure, showing better learning of new words with multiple related meanings than new words with unrelated meanings in primary school learning. We concluded that participants were adept at learning polysemy words that varied across multiple dimensions. The current results are consistent with the idea that the ambiguous meanings of a word compete, but that polysemous meanings reinforce each other in primary school learning.

Problems and research prospects on learning of new words: Fast mapping vs explicit encoding

This article reviews the problem of finding the most efficient strategy for new word acquisition. The authors analyse studies aimed at finding the differences between two learning strategies: fast mapping (FM), which is based on deduction and deriving meaning from context, and explicit encoding (EE), which implies learning new information through explicit instruction. While behavioural findings on these strategies’ efficiency (in terms of new word acquisition) are controversial, neurophysiological studies proved the existence of different neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the two strategies. The authors deem it necessary to shift focus of FM — EE differences research from comparing the efficiency of new word acquisition onto analysing of the two strategies’ additional characteristics, such as sensitivity to interference, speed of lexical and semantic integration of new words, memory consolidation during sleep. A new approach to explaining the differences between FM and EE is offered. It suggests a comparison of the two learning strategies’ mechanisms to neural mechanisms of the visual perception system — according to ascending and descending pathways of hierarchy (bottom-up and top-down signals into cortical activities). In particular, the authors suppose that FM activates bottom-up information processing, whereas EE activates top-down information processing. Future perspectives of research on this subject are discussed, such as exploring the effects of object or phenomena labelling on language learning occurring through FM or EE. The authors claim that it is important to conduct such studies with the use of an eye tracker in order to test the aforementioned suggestion about mechanisms, underlying learning strategies, and explaining the differences between them in terms of efficiency of language learning.

Contextual diversity favors the learning of new words in children regardless of their comprehension skills

Recent research has shown the benefits of high contextual diversity, defined as the number of different contexts in which a word appears, when incidentally learning new words. These benefits have been found both in laboratory settings and in ecological settings such as the classroom during regular hours. To examine the nature of this effect in young readers aged 11–13 years, we analyzed whether these benefits are modulated by the individuals’ reading comprehension scores; that is, would better comprehenders benefit the most from contextual diversity? The manipulation of contextual diversity was done by inserting the novel words into three different contexts/topics, or into only one of them, while keeping constant their frequency of occurrence. Results showed that words encountered in different contexts were learned more effectively than those presented in the same context. More important, the effect of contextual diversity was similar regardless of the participants’ comprehension skills. We discuss the implications of these findings for models of word learning and the practical applications in curriculum design.

Wubble World

We introduce Wubble World, a virtual environment for learning situated language. In Wubble World children create avatars, called wubbles, which can interact with other other children's avatars through free-form spontaneous play or structured language games. Wubbles can also learn language from direct interaction with children, since the system uses principles from developmental psychology to restrict the complexity of this learning task: a shared attention model that includes deictic pointing, and a concept acquisition system that allows for rapid learning of new words from a limited number of exposures.Since we have complete knowledge of the state and structure of the virtual environment, we are able to track correspondences between utterances and the scene in which they are uttered. This sentence/scene corpus will be a valuable resource as we attempt to tackle more sophisticated language learning tasks, such as the acquisition of syntax and verb semantics from world dynamics.

Does narrator variability facilitate incidental word learning in the classroom?

Recent studies have revealed that presenting novel words across various contexts (i.e., contextual diversity) helps to consolidate the meaning of these words both in adults and children. This effect has been typically explained in terms of semantic distinctiveness (e.g., Semantic Distinctiveness Model, Jones et al., Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 66(2), 115, 2012). However, the relative influence of other, non-semantic, elements of the context is still unclear. In this study, we examined whether incidental learning of new words in children was facilitated when the words were uttered by several individuals rather than when they were uttered by the same individual. In the learning phase, the to-be-learned words were presented through audible fables recorded either by the same voice (low diversity) or by different voices (high diversity). Subsequently, word learning was assessed through two orthographic and semantic integration tasks. Results showed that words uttered by different voices were learned better than those uttered by the same voice. Thus, the benefits of contextual diversity in word learning extend beyond semantic differences among contexts; they also benefit from perceptual differences among contexts.