A Spacing Contribution on the Retention of L2 Word Forms and Meanings

This study examined the contribution of spacing on facilitating learning and retention of L2 word forms and meanings. 38 Saudi Arabian learners of English studied 30 English words (beyond their current language proficiency) using a spaced and massed displays. The former refers to the frequent distribution of repetition across multiple learning sessions, whereas the latter deals with the repetition of words into one single learning session. The 15 lexemes, hence, under the massed condition were classified into three categories of five words, each set was studied three times in one of the three sessions, whereas the other set of words were studied under the spaced condition in which all 15 words were learned once in each of the three sessions. One offline test was conducted to measure the meaning of word knowledge, and one online lexical decision task measured respondents’ accuracy and speed in recognizing the form of target words. These two tests were administrated in immediate post-test (IPT) and delayed post-test (DPT), conducted two weeks later. The results show that the meaning and form of spaced L2 words are learned and retained better than those of massed L2 words. The reaction time (RT) results also show that L2 learners who are under the spaced condition are faster in recognizing L2 target word forms than those who are under the massed condition. These findings can have meaningful theoretical and pedagogical implications for developing L2 vocabulary learning and retention.