Prior research showed that interleaved practice (studying multiple skills at once) is more effective than blocked practice (studying only one skill at a time). This study aims to replicate the benefits of interleaved practice on the proceduralization of second language (L2) syntax and further examines the role of working memory (WM) in different practice schedules. Sixty English learners studied five types of relative-clause constructions under either blocked- or interleaved-practice conditions. The blocked-practice group engaged in systematic form-focused speaking practice with exemplars blocked by syntactic category, while the interleaved-practice group received mixed exemplars from the different categories. The proceduralization of grammatical knowledge was measured by analysing the accuracy and speed indices from a picture description test, which was administered immediately and one week after the training session. Learners’ WM capacity was measured using a listening-span task. Results showed that interleaved practice led to more accurate performance on both immediate and delayed posttests than blocked practice. The advantage of interleaved practice was less pronounced for the speed dimension of performance. Furthermore, interleaved practice facilitated skill development regardless of learners’ WM capacity, whereas in the blocked-practice condition, learners with higher WM capacity benefited more than those with lower WM capacity in speeding up of relative clause use, which presumably reflects the proceduralization–automatization stage.
BaddeleyA.D. (2012). Working memory: Theories, models, and controversies. Annual Review of Psychology, 63, 1–29.
2.
BarrD.J.LevyR.ScheepersC.TilyH.J. (2013). Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal. Journal of Memory and Language, 68, 255–278.
3.
BatesD.MächlerM.BolkerB.WalkerS. (2014). Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67, 1–48.
4.
BjorkR.A. (2018). Being suspicious of the sense of ease and undeterred by the sense of difficulty: Looking back at Schmidt and Bjork (1992). Perspectives on Psychological Science, 13, 146–148.
5.
BoersmaP.WeeninkD. (2016). Praat: Doing phonetics by computer: Version 6.0.14. Available at: http://www.praat.org (accessed March 2020).
6.
CarpenterS.K.MuellerF.E. (2013). The effects of interleaving versus blocking on foreign language pronunciation learning. Memory & Cognition, 41, 671–682.
7.
CarvalhoP.F.GoldstoneR.L. (2014). Putting category learning in order: Category structure and temporal arrangement affect the benefit of interleaved over blocked study. Memory & Cognition, 42, 481–495.
8.
CarvalhoP.F.GoldstoneR.L. (2017). The sequence of study changes what information is attended to, encoded, and remembered during category learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 43, 1699–1719.
9.
ConwayA.R.A.KaneM.J.BuntingM.F.HambrickD. Z.WilhelmO.EngleR. W. (2005). Working memory span tasks: A methodological review and user’s guide. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 12, 769–786.
10.
CronbachL.J.SnowR.E. (1977). Aptitudes and instructional methods: A handbook for research on interactions. New York: Irvington Pub.
11.
De JongN.H.SteinelM.P.FlorijnA.SchoonenR.HulstijnJ. (2013). Linguistic skills and speaking fluency in a second language. Applied Psycholinguistics, 34, 893–916.
12.
DeKeyserR.M. (1997). Beyond explicit rule learning. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 19, 195–221.
13.
DeKeyserR.M. (2007). Practice in a second language: Perspectives from applied linguistics and cognitive psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press.
14.
DeKeyserR.M. (2015). Skill acquisition theory. In VanPattenB.WilliamsJ. (Eds.), Theories in second language acquisition: An introduction (pp. 94–112). 2nd edition.New York: Routledge.
15.
DoughtyC. (1991). Second language instruction does make a difference: Evidence from an empirical study of SL relativization. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 13, 431–469.
16.
EglingtonL.G.KangS.H.K. (2017). Interleaved presentation benefits science category learning. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 6, 475–485.
17.
ErlamR. (2005). Language aptitude and its relationship to instructional effectiveness in second language acquisition. Language Teaching Research, 9, 147–172.
18.
ForsterK.I.ForsterJ.C. (2003). DMDX: A windows display program with millisecond accuracy. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 35, 116–124.
19.
GranenaG. (2016). Cognitive aptitudes for implicit and explicit learning and information-processing styles: An individual differences study. Applied Psycholinguistics, 37, 577–600.
20.
GranenaG.JacksonD.O.YilmazY. (2016). Cognitive individual differences in second language processing and acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
21.
Gurzynski-WeissL. (2017). Expanding individual difference research in the interaction approach. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
22.
HallK.G.DominguesD.A.CavazosR. (1994). Contextual interference effects with skilled baseball players. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 78, 835–841.
23.
HulstijnJ.H.Van GelderenA.SchoonenR. (2009). Automatization in second language acquisition: What does the coefficient of variation tell us?Applied Psycholinguistics, 30, 555–582.
24.
IzumiS. (2003). Processing difficulty in comprehension and production of relative clauses by learners of English as a second language. Language Learning, 53, 285–323.
25.
JonesC. (2018). Practice in second language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
26.
KangS.H. (2016). The benefits of interleaved practice for learning. In HorvathJ.C.LodgeJ.M.HattieJ. (Eds.), From the laboratory to the classroom: Translating science of learning for teachers (pp. 79–93). New York: Routledge.
27.
KangS.H.PashlerH. (2012). Learning painting styles: Spacing is advantageous when it promotes discriminative contrast. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 26, 97–103.
28.
KornellN.BjorkR.A. (2008). Learning concepts and categories: Is spacing the ‘enemy of induction’?Psychological Science, 19, 585–592.
29.
LiM.DeKeyserR.M. (2017). Perception practice, production practice, and musical ability in L2 mandarin tone-word learning. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 39, 593–620.
30.
LiS. (2013). The interactions between the effects of implicit and explicit feedback and individual differences in language analytic ability and working memory. The Modern Language Journal, 97, 634–654.
31.
LiS.TaguchiN. (2014). The effects of practice modality on pragmatic development in L2 Chinese. The Modern Language Journal, 98, 794–812.
32.
LinckJ.A. (2016). Analyzing individual differences in second language research: The benefits of mixed effects models. In GranenaG.JacksonD.O.YilmazY. (Eds.), Cognitive individual differences in second language processing and acquisition (pp. 105–128). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
33.
LinckJ.A.HughesM.M.CampbellS.G.,, et al. (2013). Hi-lab: A new measure of aptitude for high-level language proficiency. Language Learning, 63, 530–566.
34.
LysterR.SaitoK. (2010). Oral feedback in classroom SLA. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 32, 265–302.
35.
MackeyA.GooJ. (2007). Interaction research in SLA: A meta-analysis and research synthesis. In MackeyA. (Ed.), Conversational interaction in SLA: A collection of empirical studies (pp. 408–452). New York: Oxford University Press.
36.
MayfieldK.H.ChaseP.N. (2002). The effects of cumulative practice on mathematics problem solving. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 35, 105–123.
37.
MochizukiN.OrtegaL. (2008). Balancing communication and grammar in beginning-level foreign language classrooms: A study of guided planning and relativization. Language Teaching Research, 12, 11–37.
38.
NakataT.SuzukiY. (2019). Mixing grammar exercises facilitates long-term retention: Effects of blocking, interleaving, and increasing practice. Modern Language Journal, 103, 629–647.
39.
OsakaM.OsakaN.KondoH., et al. (2003). The neural basis of individual differences in working memory capacity: An fMRI study. NeuroImage, 18, 789–797.
40.
PanS.C.TajranaJ.LovelettJ.OsunaJ.RickardT. (2019). Does interleaved practice enhance foreign language learning? The effects of training schedule on Spanish verb conjugation skills. Journal of Educational Psychology, 111, 1172–1188.
41.
PavesiM. (1986). Markedness, discoursal modes, and relative clause formation in a formal and an informal context. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 8, 38–55.
42.
PlonskyL.OswaldF.L. (2014). How big is ‘big’? Interpreting effect sizes in L2 research. Language Learning, 64, 878–912.
43.
RohrerD. (2012). Interleaving helps students distinguish among similar concepts. Educational Psychology Review, 24, 355–367.
44.
RohrerD.TaylorK. (2007). The shuffling of mathematics problems improves learning. Instructional Science, 35, 481–498.
45.
RohrerD.DedrikR.F.BurgessK. (2014). The benefit of interleaved mathematics practice is not limited to superficially similar kinds of problems. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 21, 1323–1330.
46.
SanaF.YanV.X.KimJ.A. (2017). Study sequence matters for the inductive learning of cognitive concepts. Journal of Educational Psychology, 109, 84–98.
47.
SanzC.LinH.-J.LadoB.StaffordC.A.BowdenH.W. (2016). One size fits all? Learning conditions and working memory capacity in ab initio language development. Applied linguistics, 37, 669–692.
48.
SheaJ.B.MorganR.L. (1979). Contextual interference effects on the acquisition, retention, and transfer of a motor skill. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 5, 179–187.
49.
ShintaniN.LiS.EllisR. (2013). Comprehension-based vs. production-based grammar instruction: A meta-analysis of comparative studies. Language Learning, 63, 296–329.
50.
SkehanP. (2002). Theorising and updating aptitude. In RobinsonP. (Ed.), Individual differences and instructed language learning (pp. 69–94). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
51.
SkehanP. (2016). Foreign language aptitude, acquisitional sequences, and psycholinguistic processes. In GranenaG.JacksonD.O.YilmazY. (Eds.), Cognitive individual differences in second language processing and acquisition (pp. 17–40). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
52.
SuzukiY. (2017). The optimal distribution of practice for the acquisition of L2 morphology: A conceptual replication and extension. Language Learning, 67, 512–545.
53.
SuzukiY.DeKeyserR.M. (2017a). Effects of distributed practice on the proceduralization of morphology. Language Teaching Research, 21, 166–188.
54.
SuzukiY.DeKeyserR.M. (2017b). Exploratory research on L2 practice distribution: An aptitude × treatment interaction. Applied Psycholinguistics, 38, 27–56.
55.
SuzukiY.SunadaM. (2018). Automatization in second language sentence processing: Relationship between elicited imitation and maze tasks. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 21, 32–46.
56.
SuzukiY.SunadaM. (2019). Dynamic interplay between practice type and practice schedule in a second language: The potential and limits of skill transfer and practice schedule. Studies in Second Language Acquisition. Epub ahead of print 13September2019. DOI: 10.1017/S0272263119000470.
57.
SuzukiY.NakataT.DekeyserR.M. (2019). The desirable difficulty framework as a theoretical foundation for optimizing and researching second language practice. Modern Language Journal, 103, 713–720.
58.
SwainM. (2005). The output hypothesis: Theory and research. In HinkelE. (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (pp. 471–483). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
59.
TaylorK.RohrerD. (2010). The effects of interleaved practice. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24, 837–848.
60.
UllmanM.T. (2015). The declarative/procedural model: A neurobiologically-motivated theory of first and second language. In VanPattenB.WilliamsJ. (Eds.), Theories in second language acquisition: An introduction (pp. 135–158). 2nd edition. New York: Routledge.
61.
UnsworthN.EngleR.W. (2007). The nature of individual differences in working memory capacity: Active maintenance in primary memory and controlled search from secondary memory. Psychological Review, 114, 104–132.
62.
WenZ.SkehanP. (2011). A new perspective on foreign language aptitude research: Building and supporting a case for ‘working memory as language aptitude’. A Journal of English Language, Literatures in English and Cultural Studies, 60, 15–44.
63.
WenZ.BiedrońA.SkehanP. (2017). Foreign language aptitude theory: Yesterday, today and tomorrow. Language Teaching, 50, 1–31.
64.
YilmazY. (2013). Relative effects of explicit and implicit feedback: The role of working memory capacity and language analytic ability. Applied linguistics, 34, 344–368.
65.
ZulkiplyN.BurtJ. S. (2013). The exemplar interleaving effect in inductive learning: Moderation by the difficulty of category discriminations. Memory & Cognition, 41, 16–27.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
