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BRIEF REPORT
Don’t just repeat after me: Retrieval practice
is better than imitation for foreign vocabulary learning
Sean H. K. Kang &Tamar H. Gollan &Harold Pashler
#Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2013
Abstract Second language (L2) instruction programs often
ask learners to repeat aloud words spoken by a native
speaker. However, recent research on retrieval practice has
suggested that imitating native pronunciation might be less
effective than drill instruction, wherein the learner is re-
quired to produce the L2 words from memory (and given
feedback). We contrasted the effectiveness of imitation and
retrieval practice drills on learning L2 spoken vocabulary.
Learners viewed pictures of objects and heard their names;
in the imitation condition, they heard and then repeated
aloud each name, whereas in the retrieval practice condition,
they tried to produce the name before hearing it. On a final
test administered either immediately after training (Exp. 1)
or after a 2-day delay (Exp. 2), retrieval practice produced
better comprehension of the L2 words, better ability to
produce the L2 words, and no loss of pronunciation quality.
Keywords Human memory .Human associative learning
Advances in technology have made communication, travel,
immigration, and other forms of personal exchange across
national boundaries ever more feasible and convenient. As a
result, people are increasingly likely to be confronted with
linguistic diversity, and many aspire to be proficient in more
than one language (whether by choice or by necessity). The
proliferation of language classes (e.g., English as a Second
Language courses around the world) and various language-
learning computer software are testaments to the growing
desire by many to acquire a foreign language.
In order to acquire mastery over a second language (L2),
it is critical for learners to traverse rapidly from a concept
that they wish to express and the L2 word(s) appropriate for
expressing this concept (or vice versa). In L2 instruction
programs, this has often been accomplished by drills in
which the learner sees a concept represented either in his
or her first language or in pictorial form, hears a native
speaker say the word or phrase in the L2, and then tries to
imitate. Anyone who has studied a foreign language in the
classroom or with audiotapes or CDs will recall hearing
“repeat after me”in these drills. Such modeling (by the
instructor) and repetition (by the learner) has long been a
prominent feature of L2 teaching practices, in traditional
classrooms as well as in self-study with audio recordings
(Macdonald, Yule, & Powers, 1994;O’Malley, Chamot,
Stewner-Manzanares, Kupper, & Russo, 1985). In more
recent L2 instruction software (e.g., Berlitz Guaranteed,
Pimsleur Method, Linguaphone), this kind of drilling is still
often used.
Contemporary language instructors and software de-
signers have attempted to improve instruction by making it
more similar to natural language acquisition. For example,
the popular Rosetta Stone software provides exercises in
which people see images of several objects and hear a
spoken L2 word or phrase and then are asked to learn via
guessing to match pictures to words. The need to learn via
guessing is meant to resemble how children learn new
words. In this spirit, because children generally do not learn
language by translating to another language, the programs
for English users go to great lengths to avoid using any
English whatsoever during training. Perhaps viewing imita-
tion as the gold standard in L2 instruction, the Rosetta Stone
software also includes a CD that instructs learners to pro-
duce L2 words by imitation in additional training sessions.
This imitation is done without any reminder or guidance
about what the words mean as the learner repeats the utter-
ances (to avoid any use of English).
S. H. K. Kang :H. Pashler
Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego,
La Jolla, CA, USA
S. H. K. Kang (*)
Department of Education, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
03755, USA
e-mail: Sean.H.Kang@dartmouth.edu
T. H. Gollan
Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, La
Jolla, CA, USA
Psychon Bull Rev
DOI 10.3758/s13423-013-0450-z
Relatively little research has contrasted the specific L2
instruction techniques that are commonly in use (although
see Carpenter & Olson, 2012), and given the ubiquity of
imitation in L2 instruction, it is important to investigate its
effectiveness as a pedagogical technique. Some evidence has
suggested that imitation plays a role in vocabulary learning.
For instance, spontaneous imitation by infants of words spo-
ken by caregivers has been found to predict later vocabulary
growth (Masur, 1995). Also, an early study on foreign vocab-
ulary learning showed that saying aloud the L2 vocabulary
produced better learning than did studying the items silently
(Seibert, 1927). More recently, Ellis and Beaton (1993)found
that for English-speaking college subjects learning German
vocabulary, repeated imitation (saying aloud) of the German
words produced better performance on a later production test
(i.e., giving the German equivalent when cued with the En-
glish word) than did learning using the keyword mnemonic,
which involved visual imagery to associate the English and
German equivalents, but no overt production. These findings
are consistent with the broader idea that the phonological loop
has a critical function in supporting the learning of novel
phonological forms, and hence new vocabulary (Baddeley,
Gathercole, & Papagno, 1998).
Retrieval practice
The use of imitation, in which learners model their pronun-
ciation on a native speaker’s, might seem particularly suited
for promoting native-like pronunciation. The ability to pro-
duce accurate pronunciations, however, is by itself insuffi-
cient for speaking in a foreign language; one needs to
associate the L2 words with the concepts that they express.
Many different kinds of evidence have demonstrated that
people learn more robust associations when they are re-
quired to actively retrieve the association, rather than having
both of the associated elements presented together (for a
review, see Roediger & Karpicke, 2006). The benefit of
retrieval practice (often referred to as the testing effect) has
been shown in studies using a wide variety of instructional
materials (e.g., prose, word lists, or paired associates). Most
relevant for the issue of foreign language vocabulary train-
ing are studies that have compared retrieval practice with
rereading English–L2 word pairs. For example, Carrier and
Pashler (1992) found that producing the English word given
an Eskimo (Yupik) cue strengthened the association be-
tween the two words more powerfully than did rereading
the words paired together (see also Karpicke & Roediger,
2008). In addition, Kang (2010) observed a retrieval prac-
tice advantage when the criterial task was to recall (write
out) the Chinese logographs (characters) that had been
paired with English translations during an initial study
phase. These studies suggest that imitation might not be
the most efficient way to learn the association between a
concept and a word. However, these studies did not require
people to pronounce an unfamiliar word. It seems entirely
possible that imitation might be useful, and perhaps even
optimal, when this difficult form of response learning is
required, as it is in L2 learning. Moreover, these studies
did not address the possible benefits of imitation—for in-
stance, imitation may lead to better pronunciation than do
other forms of practice.
Present study
In two experiments, we compared the relative efficacy of
retrieval practice versus imitation for learning L2 words.
English-speaking learners were trained on the Hebrew names
for40commonobjects.Intheimitation condition, the training
consisted of hearing the Hebrew name and then repeating it
aloud immediately afterward while viewing a picture of the
corresponding object. In the retrieval practic e condition, the
picture was used as a retrieval cue, and learners attempted to
retrieve the Hebrew name before the correct pronunciation
was provided. Both training conditions, it should be noted,
required activity on the part of the learner, and neither was
identical to the passive viewing/rereading control conditions
that are commonly used in studies of retrieval practice. As
compared with silent reading, overt production has been
found to improve retention via enhanced distinctiveness of
the produced items (e.g., Gathercole & Conway, 1988;Mac-
Leod, Gopie, Hourihan, Neary, & Ozubko, 2010). For the
final test, we used two different kinds of assessment. The first
involved selecting the appropriate picture (referent) when
subjects were presented with the Hebrew word auditorily.
The second required production of the Hebrew name when
subjects were given a picture of the object. The main differ-
ences between the two experiments lay in the amount of
training andin the delay before the final test was administered:
In Experiment 1, the final test occurred immediately after
training; in Experiment 2, training was more extensive, and
the final test was given 2 days later. Experiment 2 served two
purposes: as a replication of Experiment 1 and for demon-
strating that any difference in learning efficacy between the
training conditions would persist over a longer delay.
Method
Subjects
Two groups of undergraduates from the University of Cal-
ifornia, San Diego, Psychology Subject Pool participated in
return for course credit: 41 took part in Experiment 1, and
59 in Experiment 2. All of the subjects were fluent speakers
Psychon Bull Rev
of English, and none had any significant prior exposure to
Hebrew.
1
Stimuli
Forty Hebrew nouns served as the to-be-learned foreign
vocabulary. Following common practice in foreign language
instruction, the words were trained in four lists of themati-
cally related items. Each list contained ten nouns from one
of the following four semantic categories: body parts (e.g.,
ear,hand), eating/food (e.g., fork,bread), animals (e.g.,
dog,elephant), and household objects (e.g., clock,chair).
Across the categories, the Hebrew words were equated in
terms of average numbers of syllables (M=1.95, SD =
0.55) and phonemes (M=4.65, SD =1.10).Anaudio
recording of each word was made (spoken by a native
Hebrew speaker), and these were presented in the learning
and test phases as described below (learners were never
presented the written forms of the words, whether in trans-
literated or Hebrew script). On average, the audio recordings
were about 1 s in duration. Four different photographs
depicting the referent of each noun (i.e., 40 sets of four
photographs) were selected from the Internet; a random
three from each set were presented during training, whereas
the fourth was used in the final tests. All photographs were
standardized to a size of 400 × 400 pixels.
Design
The Hebrew nouns were learned in one of two training
conditions—retrieval practice or imitation—that were ma-
nipulated within subjects across separate blocks and seman-
tic categories. The subjects’degrees of learning were
assessed after training in two ways: (1) comprehension, in
which learners heard each Hebrew word and had to choose
the corresponding referent from an array of 40 pictures
(representing all of the words learned during training), and
(2) production, in which learners were cued with pictures
and had to say aloud the corresponding Hebrew words.
Procedure
Learners were tested individually in sound-attenuated rooms.
They were seated in front of a computer and wore headphones
equipped with a microphone. Learners were informed at the
start that they would be learning 40 Hebrew words, divided
into sets of ten according to object category. They were also
informed about the types of tests that they would be given at
the end.
During the training phase, subjects were presented with
Hebrew words to learn in four separate blocks, with each
block featuring ten words from one of the four semantic
categories. Each block began with learners hearing each
Hebrew word once, and while each word was played over
the earphones, learners saw the appropriate picture (referent)
on the computer screen. After the initial presentation, train-
ing cycled three times (Exp. 1) or six times (Exp. 2) through
all ten words, with the order of items being randomized for
each cycle (with the constraint that the first item for each
cycle could not be the last item on the preceding cycle). In
both training conditions, learners were presented with pic-
tures and audio recordings of the corresponding Hebrew
words, with the aim of learning the association between
the meaning and pronunciation of each word.
In Experiment 1, the order of the semantic categories
across the four blocks was held constant, while the assign-
ment of blocks to training conditions was counterbalanced
across learners (either the first two blocks/semantic catego-
ries were assigned to retrieval practice and the last two
assigned to imitation, or the reverse). In Experiment 2, the
assignment of blocks to training conditions was identical to
that in Experiment 1, but the order of semantic categories
was counterbalanced using a Latin-square design.
A schematic of the sequence of events in the two training
conditions is presented in Fig. 1. For the imitation condition,
pictures and audio recordings of the corresponding Hebrew
words were both presented, and subjects were asked to
imitate what they heard. On each trial, the picture was
displayed on the computer screen for 4 s, with the auditory
presentation of the Hebrew word beginning at the same
time. A 2-s blank interval was inserted between trials. Sub-
jects were instructed to repeat aloud the pronunciation as
closely as possible immediately after hearing the Hebrew
word, and at the same time to focus on connecting the word
to its meaning. For the retrieval practice condition, the
presentation of the audio recording of the Hebrew word
did not begin until about 3 s after the presentation of the
corresponding picture, and learners were asked to try to
retrieve and produce the target Hebrew name during the
lag. Each trial consisted of the presentation of a picture
(on the computer screen) for 4 s, and the timing of the
presentation of the audio recording of the Hebrew word
was such that the end of the audio recording coincided with
the offset of the picture. A 2-s blank interval was inserted
between trials. Learners were instructed to attempt the pro-
nunciation of the corresponding Hebrew word when they
saw each picture, before the audio recording of the word
1
The majority of our subjects reported using at home either a non-
English language or a non-English language in combination with
English (only four and six subjects in Exps. 1 and 2, respectively,
reported having an English-only home environment). To examine
whether subjects’language backgrounds modulated the results, we
performed additional analyses in which three language background
variables (age of exposure to English, primary language used at home,
and speaking proficiency in one’s non-English language) were includ-
ed as factors in the ANOVAs. None of these factors interacted signif-
icantly with the main factor Training Condition.
Psychon Bull Rev
came online. They were encouraged to guess if they could,
but if they could not, they were to wait for the audio
recording, and then imitate it immediately after hearing it.
After the training phase, learners received two final tests,
both of which were self-paced. In the test of comprehension,
learners heard the 40 Hebrew words one at a time, and for each
of the words they had to pick the picture that corresponded to
the meaning of the word. Displayed on the computer screen
were thumbnails of the 40 pictures that had not been presented
during training (each corresponding to one of the Hebrew
words that had been trained with different pictures), and
learners responded by clicking on one of the thumbnails. In
the production test, subjects were presented one at a time with
the same 40 pictures that were used in the comprehension test,
and they tried to produce the corresponding Hebrew word.
They were encouraged to guess if they were not sure. Spoken
responses were recorded by a microphone. The order of items
in each test was randomized for each learner. In Experiment 1,
the comprehension test was given first, followed by the pro-
duction test. In Experiment 2, the order of both tests was
counterbalanced across learners,
2
and a 48-h delay was intro-
duced before the tests were administered. Upon completion of
both tests, learners were debriefed and thanked.
Results
Performance was analyzed separately on the comprehension
and production tests. The αlevel for all analyses was set at
.05.
Comprehension (accessing semantics when
given phonology)
Learners’ability to select the correct picture/meaning (out of
40 options) when presented with the Hebrew words auditorily
was compared across the two training conditions. The retriev-
al practice condition yielded better performance than did the
imitation condition in both experiments, as is shown in Fig. 2.
In Experiment 1, this advantage (.63 vs. .57) was marginally
significant, t(40) = 1.96, p=.057,d= 0.31. In Experiment 2,
the advantage (.57 vs. .44) was significant, t(58) = 3.99, p<
.001, d=0.52.
Production (retrieving phonology when given semantics)
A native Hebrew speaker scored the spoken responses made
by learners in their attempts to pronounce the corresponding
Hebrew words when presented with the pictures. Since our
learners had no preexperimental exposure to Hebrew and were
not expected to be able to properly articulate (or perceive) the
whole range of Hebrew phonemes (several of which are not
present in the English language), we instructed our Hebrew
rater to be lenient in the scoring. She listened to the responses
blind as to condition and was asked to score them as correct if
the pronunciation was good enough that a “native Hebrew
speaker would probably be able to understand the word,”even
if the pronunciation deviated from what is regarded as an ideal
Hebrew pronunciation. For responses that were scored as
correct, the rater made an additional judgment of pronuncia-
tion quality on a 10-point scale (10 = perfect).
3
Final test of production Retrieval practice training yielded
more correct productions than did imitation training, as is
shown in Fig. 2. In Experiment 1, the advantage of retrieval
practice over imitation was significant (.40 vs. .27), t(40) =
3.95, p< .001, d= 0.62. For the responses scored as correct,
the pronunciation quality ratings were almost exactly the
same (and not significantly different) for the retrieval prac-
tice and imitation conditions (5.6 and 5.4, respectively), t<
1. Likewise, in Experiment 2, retrieval practice produced
better performance than did imitation training (.34 vs. .19),
t(58) = 6.53, p< .001, d= 0.85, and the pronunciation
quality ratings for correct responses were again not signifi-
cantly different across the retrieval practice and imitation
conditions (8.2 and 8.0, respectively), t(48) = 1.35, p= .184.
Performance during training Although it was not the main
focus of the present study, we also report production perfor-
mance during the final cycle of training (i.e., 3rd cycle of
practice for Exp. 1, and 6th cycle for Exp. 2). As one would
expect, given that in imitation but not in retrieval practice
learners had just heard a native speaker produce the target
word, performance was better in the imitation than in the
retrieval practice condition. In Experiment 1, this difference
in proportions correct (.90 vs. .35) was significant, t(40) =
20.92, p< .001, d= 3.27, and for the responses judged as
being correct, the pronunciation quality was also higher in
the imitation than in the retrieval practice condition (6.5 vs.
5.7), t(40) = 3.70, p= .001, d= 0.58. Similarly, in Exper-
iment 2, the difference in proportions correct (.90 vs. .55)
was reliable,
4
t(49) = 10.51, p< .001, d= 1.49, and the
pronunciation quality of correct responses was higher in the
imitation than in the retrieval practice condition (8.2 vs.
7.6), t(49) = 4.05, p< .001, d= 0.57.
2
The order of types of test did not have any effect, and therefore is not
discussed further.
3
The final production test data from a random 28 of the subjects (13
and 15 subjects from Exps. 1 and 2, respectively) were scored for
accuracy by a second native Hebrew speaker (who was blind as to
condition), and the interrater agreement was high (Cohen’sκ= .82).
4
Due to equipment malfunction, some of the spoken responses during
training for nine subjects were lost, and hence data from those subjects
were excluded from the analysis.
Psychon Bull Rev
Discussion
The experiments reported here contrasted two different
ways of learning L2 vocabulary. The first was the retrieval
practice procedure, modeled after traditional flashcard-type
drills, which required the learner to produce (say aloud) the
L2 word when cued by the concept (presented in the form of
a picture), followed by presentation of the correct answer.
The second was the imitation procedure modeled after prac-
tice drills commonly found in language instruction pro-
grams; here, the learner viewed a picture of the referent of
the word and repeated aloud a native speaker’s pronuncia-
tion of the word. In two experiments, the retrieval practice
procedure proved robustly superior to the imitation procedure.
Although prior research has demonstrated the advantage
of retrieval practice in learning L2 vocabulary, those studies
almost exclusively used a (passive) rereading control con-
dition and assessed learners’ability to recall the English
translations (presumably due to the ease of scoring English
responses). Our study is the first to have examined the
effects of retrieval practice on learning of L2 phonological
word forms. Focusing on learning of these unfamiliar sound
sequences (as opposed to learning familiar English responses)
provides a powerful demonstration of the versatility of retriev-
al practice and has significant theoretical and practical impli-
cations (discussed below). Furthermore, one could reasonably
expect when learning difficult, unfamiliar responses that imi-
tation practice would be advantageous, especially in the early
(a) Imitation
4 seconds
2 seconds
Show picture
Play L2
word
Learner repeats aloud L2 word
(b) Retrieval Practice
4 seconds
2 seconds
Show picture
Play L2
word
Learner tries to produce L2
word
4 s – duration of L2 soundfile
Fig. 1 Sequences of events in a
single training trial of the (a)
imitation and (b) retrieval
practice conditions
Fig. 2 Final test performance
as a function of training
condition and test type. Error
bars indicate standard errors of
the means
Psychon Bull Rev
stages of learning (i.e., a potential boundary condition for the
testing effect), or that any benefits of retrieval practice would
come at the expense of poorer pronunciation quality. Our
findings, however, disconfirm these suggestions.
Theoretical implications
One potential explanation for the observed superiority of
retrieval practice over imitation is that the former engages
the same sorts of mental operations that are required on the
final production test (in both cases, the learner is cued with a
picture and has to retrieve and produce the appropriate L2
word). This line of reasoning is consistent with the transfer-
appropriate processing framework, which proposes that per-
formance is optimized when the processes required at test
overlap with those recruited during learning (Morris,
Bransford, & Franks, 1977). It should be noted, however,
that the advantage of retrieval practice was not limited to the
criterial test that most resembled the retrieval practice train-
ing procedure. The benefits extended to a reception test that
assessed learners’listening comprehension of the L2 words.
The fact that retrieval practice can enhance learning even
when the criterial test differs from the testing procedure used
in training has been observed in past studies of learning
from prose passages (McDaniel, Anderson, Derbish, &
Morrisette, 2007), maps (Rohrer, Taylor, & Sholar, 2010),
and paired-associate learning (Carpenter, Pashler, & Vul,
2006).
The present results are also consistent with the neural-
network model of test-enhanced learning proposed by
Mozer, Howe, and Pashler (2004). According to this model,
learning entails a comparison between a desired output and
the actual output, upon which the connections between input
and output units are adjusted so as to reduce the discrepancy
between the desired and actual outputs. When the cue and
target are presented together (imitation condition), the error
correction mechanism is short-circuited, reducing the effi-
ciency of learning. But when the network is allowed to
produce a response to a cue and then receives feedback
(retrieval practice condition), error correction is facilitated
and the learning system reaches the desired state more
quickly.
Some recent accounts of the testing effect have empha-
sized the role of mediators in promoting later retrieval of the
target. For instance, when one is presented with a cue (e.g.,
donor–?) and attempts retrieval, there is a greater tendency
for information related to the cue to become activated (e.g.,
blood) than when one merely rereads the cue–target pair
(donor–heart), and the activated information then serves as
an effective mediator for subsequent retrieval (Carpenter,
2011). When subjects are explicitly instructed to generate
mediators (between cues and targets), evidence also shows
that retrieval failures during practice encourage a shift to
more effective mediators (Pyc & Rawson, 2012), thus im-
proving later retrieval. However, these studies involved
target responses that were English words; it is unclear how
mediators could be generated (whether spontaneously or
deliberately) to support the retrieval or production of unfa-
miliar Hebrew words.
Practical considerations
We found numerically larger effect sizes in the criterial tests
of production (cf. comprehension). Given that productive
abilities in language learning generally lag behind (or are
more difficult/slower to acquire than) receptive abilities, it is
noteworthy that retrieval practice produced especially robust
gains in the more difficult task (i.e., from meaning to L2
phonology; e.g., Kroll & Stewart, 1994; Schneider, Healy,
& Bourne, 2002). When considering various procedures for
use in training, presumably an ideal candidate would be one
that enhances learning in more challenging (or harder-to-
learn) domains.
Why, then, is imitation so popular a learning strategy
in L2 instruction programs? One possibility is that de-
signers of training programs often assume that condi-
tions that optimize performance during training are the
conditions that best promote the goals of training—that is,
long-term posttraining performance (Bjork, 1994). Indeed, if
performance during training were the determining criterion,
imitation would seem to be an ideal training procedure, as
evidenced by the near-ceiling production accuracy and quality
(during imitation training) found in our experiments. Howev-
er, procedures that yield quick acquisition and high perfor-
mance during training often produce illusions of competence,
and may not support durable learning and performance in the
long term. A more effective way to encourage long-lasting
learning is to incorporate desirable difficulties during training
(Bjork, 1999), of which retrieval practice is one example.
Of course, our results do not imply that imitation
practice is a completely futile strategy for L2 learning
(see Ellis & Beaton, 1993), nor that L2 instruction
programs rely on imitation as their sole pedagogical
strategy (in fact, many programs include some time
spent on some form of testing/retrieval practice). How-
ever, given that the present findings unambiguously
demonstrate a more effective method of training than
imitation—one that requires only a subtle modification
in training procedure, without any increase in training
time—we contend that for L2 vocabulary learning, im-
itation should not be automatically assumed to be the
tried and true instructional procedure. On the basis of
our data, it would appear that time spent imitating a
native speaker’s utterance could be much better spent
engaging in retrieval practice with corrective feedback
on pronunciation.
Psychon Bull Rev
Author note S.H.K.K. is now at the Department of Education,
Dartmouth College. This work was supported by the Institute of
Education Sciences (US Department of Education, Grant No.
R305B070537 to H.P.), the National Science Foundation (Grant No.
BCS-0720375, H.P., PI; and Grant No. SBE-0542013, G. W. Cottrell,
PI), a collaborative activity award from the J. S. McDonnell Founda-
tion, and the National Institutes of Health (Grant Nos. NIDCD 011492
and NICHD 050287, T.H.G., PI). We acknowledge the contributions of
the following individuals: Jeff Estacio programmed the experiment;
Noriko Coburn assisted with data collection; and Shira Cabir, Efrat
Golan, and Ronit Snyder scored our subjects’oral pronunciations.
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