Vocabulary is no longer an overlooked, secondary aspect of language learning. Unfortunately, despite the increase in the field of vocabulary research, it seems that the new theoretical findings have not fully reached the practice of second and foreign language instruction (1). Although both teachers and learners tend to recognize the importance of vocabulary in mastering a new language, there is still an apparent lack of widely applied, efficient vocabulary learning and teaching methods. Some teachers see vocabulary acquisition as something…
Don’t Forget What You Just Learned – The Role of Memory in Vocabulary Acquisition
June 17, 2013The previous article laid out the complex nature of vocabulary acquisition: new words are not learned instantly, but through a multi-stage, incremental process which normally proceeds from receptive to productive vocabulary knowledge. The first stages of this process are essential: learning the correct spelling and pronunciation and the precise meaning(s) of a word builds a solid foundation for your language skills as a whole. But the next step can be defined as critical: if a learner is not able to…
Vocabulary acquisition is crucial for second and foreign language learning, as emphasized in our last article. We need to grow and cultivate our vocabulary to progress in our language studies, but how does it actually happen? When can you say you have successfully learned a new word? This article will examine these questions, which are worthy of consideration – not just in a theoretical sense, but because a basic understanding of the vocabulary acquisition process is highly important for establishing…
Words Will Get You Far: Why Is Vocabulary Acquisition So Important in Second and Foreign Language Learning?
February 25, 2013As discussed in the first post, vocabulary was for long an overlooked aspect of learning a new language. During the last decades, however, the vocabulary has moved from the periphery into a central position. Even a quick look at the recent linguistic research (1) reveals that more and more attention has been given to this disregarded “Cinderella of foreign language learning” (2). We find this attention truly well-deserved, as we are confident that vocabulary, including not just words but also…
We are truly excited to announce the launch of our new blog aimed at anyone interested in second and foreign language learning related topics. In this very first post – in addition to wishing you a warm welcome, of course – we would like to take the opportunity to give you a glimpse of what is to come. The aim of this blog is to go a little further than just providing you the latest product news. Our wish is…