Have you ever tried to remember a word in a foreign language? What strategy did you use? In several studies, we examined the beneficial effects of viewing pictures and performing gestures while learning foreign language words. Both pictures and gestures helped primary school kids and adults to better remember the meanings of foreign language words compared to learning by just listening. For kids, pictures and gestures were equally helpful. For adults, gestures were more helpful than pictures. Both visual and motor brain areas helped with learning the foreign language words. Our studies suggest that learning foreign language words with pictures and gestures is helpful for learners, because pictures and gestures allow both kids and adults to experience the meanings of words through multiple senses.

For students of English as a foreign language (EFL), a certain level of knowledge of vocabulary is required for successful communication to occur. Based on personal experiences in the classroom which have shown that students often lack language variation, accuracy, coherence and descriptiveness, this paper deals with the issue of teaching vocabulary in a more conscientious and focused way to help ensure that students will become more competent in using the language effectively. The Swedish curriculum for English, LGR11, is built up around the ideology known as communicative language teaching (CLT). This entails that as long as a learner is exposed to a foreign language, and has sufficient opportunities to use that language, the learning of the language will occur. The results of this paper suggest that we cannot only rely on a pure form of CLT for students to reach higher ability levels, but that a certain amount of focused vocabulary teaching, in context with classroom activities, is also necessary.

The study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the educational games as a technique in the preschool-level English vocabulary learning of four year-olds. A true-experimental study design, specifically randomized pre-test, post-test control group design, was adopted. The sample was 33 private preschool children who were four years old. There were 17 females and 16 males in total. Data collection instrument was the 24-item English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Vocabulary Performance checklist prepared in accordance with the Total Physical Response (TPR) lessons&rsquo / content by the researcher. A pilot study, reliability and validity checks were done. In a four-week period, totally 24 vocabulary items were presented with picture cards by using Total Physical Response Method to both groups. In the experimental group, picture vocabulary games were used additionally while the control group did not receive picture vocabulary games. At the end, independent-samples t-test was conducted and the results indicated a significant difference in English Vocabulary achievement in favor of the experimental group which was taught by the educational picture vocabulary games with a large effect size. In addition, whether or not there was a gender effect on learning vocabularies of English as a foreign language with picture vocabulary games in the experimental group and without picture vocabulary games in the control group was investigated by means of t-tests. As a result, non-significant gender effect was found for both experimental and control group in learning English vocabulary. Upon understanding the remarkable effectiveness of the picture vocabulary games on English language learning for four year-olds, it can be implied that more picture vocabulary games should be devised for very young learners by the experts for the classroom use and the number of the books about educational vocabulary games should be increased. Furthermore, policy makers ought to prepare English as a foreign language curriculum including games for early childhood education programs, and integrate a new course about teaching English to very young learners into foreign language teacher training and education programs of the universities for pre-service teachers in the scope of a national foreign language policy.

This microanalytic study focuses on the mutimodal word look-up practices of Japanese foreign language learners of English at the novice level using electronic dictionaries (e-dictionaries) in pair conversations. Not yet investigated with a Conversation Analysis (CA) approach, this analysis examines reoccurring interactional and collaborative repair practices (Schegloff, Jefferson, & Sacks, 1977; Schegloff, 2000) of the learners' look-ups, and explicates from the sequential turn-taking procedures (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974), the underlying social organization of the e-dictionary look-up sequence. Recent research has found that not-yet-fluent learners are capable of relatively smooth turn-taking (Carroll, 2000, 2004), and they employ various embodied actions (Olsher, 2004) to complete their turns. Nonvocal resources such as gaze movement (Goodwin, 1981) and gestures were also investigated in order to better understand how learners collaboratively utilize vocal and nonvocal resources in hybrid actions, to co-construct the meaning of look-up words, and maintain intersubjectivity. While enrolled in a university intensive English program, thirteen native speakers of Japanese video-recorded thirty-minute conversations; and during these conversations, they completed look-up sequences as interactional achievements. The results indicated that EFL novice learners display sophisticated competencies when using e-dictionaries for communication. While collaboratively completing look-up sequences, they display multimodal competencies by noticing trouble with words, initiating look-ups, making candidate proposals of word translations, correcting themselves, mutually acknowledging their understanding, and maintaining intersubjectivity and sequential relevance. In terms of language learning, learners' collaborative learning of words demonstrates instances of learning-as-interaction (Brouwer & Wagner, 2004; Firth & Wagner, 2007), making public the participants' socially situated cognition. Indications of a change in the participants' cognitive state can emerge in the look-up sequential organization. A lack of knowledge is displayed publically in before-look-up actions, encouraging collaboration in the look-up. Multiple proposals and acknowledgement sequences, often displayed in embodied expansions, provide multimodal indications of a possible change in cognitive state and possible gain in knowledge. Thus, the look-up sequence organization is proposed as an interactional organization for the learning of vocabulary. Finally, the understanding of sequential structures and practices that interactants use in looking up words can inform teachers concerning the efficacy of e-dictionary use in the classroom. / CITE/Language Arts

Language instructors play a decisive role in adult language learners' learning and retention of vocabulary through planning, selection, and teaching of vocabulary and strategies. However, some professional language schools lack extensive teacher-training programs that prepare instructors with the skills required to select and teach vocabulary, which results in a gap in practice. The purpose of this study was to explore teacher-related factors in beyond Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) Level 2 vocabulary instruction to adults in a classroom setting in intensive language-training programs. The conceptual framework consisted of the theory of noticing hypothesis, synformy, and the comprehensible input hypothesis. Research questions addressed instructors' experiences when teaching vocabulary and synforms, the training they received on how to teach vocabulary, and the resources they need. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with 9 language instructors of less-commonly taught languages. Data were analyzed using an open-coding strategy. Results indicated participants were uncertain about their roles in teaching and selecting vocabulary and about the use of strategies and approximate number of words and kinds of words that students require to achieve general proficiency (ILR Level 3). Participants reported they had no systematic approach to teaching vocabulary or synforms. Participants also expressed a desire to receive training on vocabulary learning strategies, evidence-based best practices in teaching vocabulary, and facilitating vocabulary retention. Findings may be used to guide directors of intensive language programs in developing systematic approaches to selecting and teaching vocabulary.