Production Practice During Language Learning Improves Comprehension

• Published in: Psychological science Vol. 29; no. 6; pp. 961 - 971
• Main Authors: Hopman, Elise W. M., MacDonald, Maryellen C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.06.2018; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Comprehension; Individual differences; Language; Learning; Memory; Vocabulary; language learning; learning transfer; artificial language learning; language production; language comprehension; open materials; open data
• ISSN: 0956-7976; 1467-9280
• DOI: 10.1177/0956797618754486

Language learners often spend more time comprehending than producing a new language. However, memory research suggests reasons to suspect that production practice might provide a stronger learning experience than comprehension practice. We tested the benefits of production during language learning and the degree to which this learning transfers to comprehension skill. We taught participants an artificial language containing multiple linguistic dependencies. Participants were randomly assigned to either a production- or a comprehension-learning condition, with conditions designed to balance attention demands and other known production–comprehension differences. After training, production-learning participants outperformed comprehension-learning participants on vocabulary comprehension and on comprehension tests of grammatical dependencies, even when we controlled for individual differences in vocabulary learning. This result shows that producing a language during learning can improve subsequent comprehension, which has implications for theories of memory and learning, language representations, and educational practices.