Abstract
Research and theories in the field of second language acquisition have long held that language comprehension is a stronger learning experience than language production, especially for learning the grammar of a second language. In contrast, psychology research shows that, at least at the single word level, the opposite is true: language production training, due to the memory processes involved, leads to better learning of words in a second language. The inherent differences between language production and comprehension were not well-balanced in prior research, potentially leading to these conflicting results. Thus, the present study’s protocol includes language comprehension and production training tasks that are balanced for listening experience, task-relevant choices, and attention. In the active production task, participants see a picture and are asked to describe it out loud. In the active comprehension task, participants see a picture and hear a phrase. They make a match/mismatch judgment on whether the phrase describes the picture or not. In both conditions, participants hear the correct description of the picture after the task. This full protocol includes computer-based language training in which participants gradually learn an artificial language, building up from single words to full sentences. Training alternates the active production or comprehension tasks with passive exposure to familiarize participants with the language. After training, participants’ learning is assessed using several tests that tap into both vocabulary and grammar learning. Versions of this protocol have been used for learning both artificial and natural languages and have consistently shown that participants in the production condition learn the language better than participants in the comprehension condition. Extensions of this protocol could be used for comparing the effects of comprehension versus production training on different language phenomena in different languages of interest.
