Interleaved practice enhances grammar skill learning for similar and dissimilar tenses in Romance languages

IF 4.7 1区教育学 Q1 EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Learning and Instruction Pub Date : 2024-11-07 DOI:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2024.102045

Steven C. Pan , Sergio Rodríguez Flores , Michelle E. Kaku , Wing Hei Esmee Lai

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background

Interleaved practice (or interleaving), the strategy of alternating between categories or concepts during study or practice, can enhance second language grammar skills. It remains to be determined, however, whether that enhancement specifically involves identifying tenses, conjugating verbs, or both, and whether close similarity between tenses is essential.

Aims

This study investigated the language skills that interleaving can enhance and the extent to which that enhancement is limited to highly similar tenses.

Sample

Participants were college students (Experiment 1, 92 participants; Experiment 2, 109 participants) and adult learners (Experiment 3, 104 participants; Experiment 4, 88 participants).

Methods

In each experiment, participants completed two weekly learning sessions and a one-week delayed criterial test. In the blocked group, participants learned one tense per session. In the interleaved group, participants alternated between two tenses during each session. The criterial test assessed: verb conjugation skills (all experiments), tense identification ability for specific usage scenarios (Experiments 1–3), and the capacity to identify the language of a sentence written in a specific tense (Experiment 4).

Results

Interleaving improved verb conjugation skills in all experiments, tense identification ability in Experiments 1 and 3, and language identification skills in Experiment 4. Benefits of interleaving were observed across tenses varying in usage, meaning, and suffixes.

Conclusions

Interleaving enhances multiple language skills, including verb conjugation, tense identification, and language identification. Those benefits are not limited to highly similar tenses. Accordingly, these results challenge assumptions about interleaving and underscore its potential as an effective approach for improving language learning.

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交错练习可提高罗曼语中相似时态和不同时态的语法技能学习效果

背景交错练习（或称交错练习），即在学习或练习过程中交替使用类别或概念的策略，可以提高第二语言的语法技能。本研究调查了交错练习能提高哪些语言技能，以及这种提高在多大程度上仅限于高度相似的时态。方法在每个实验中，参与者完成每周两次的学习课程和为期一周的延迟标准测试。在封闭组，参与者每节课学习一种时态。在交错组，参与者在每次学习中交替使用两种时态。标准测试的评估内容包括：动词变位技能（所有实验）、特定使用场景下的时态识别能力（实验 1-3）以及识别以特定时态书写的句子的语言的能力（实验 4）。结论交错使用可提高多种语言技能，包括动词变位、时态识别和语言识别。这些好处并不局限于高度相似的时态。因此，这些结果对交错法的假设提出了挑战，并强调了交错法作为一种有效的语言学习方法的潜力。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Learning and Instruction Multiple-

CiteScore

11.30

自引率

4.80%

发文量

109

期刊介绍： As an international, multi-disciplinary, peer-refereed journal, Learning and Instruction provides a platform for the publication of the most advanced scientific research in the areas of learning, development, instruction and teaching. The journal welcomes original empirical investigations. The papers may represent a variety of theoretical perspectives and different methodological approaches. They may refer to any age level, from infants to adults and to a diversity of learning and instructional settings, from laboratory experiments to field studies. The major criteria in the review and the selection process concern the significance of the contribution to the area of learning and instruction, and the rigor of the study.