Hamada & Koda (2011)
investigated whether the extent to which the phonological loop contributes to
learning and remembering visually introduced words varies between college-level
Chinese ESL learners and native speakers of English. The results demonstrated
that both groups’ recall declined when the phonological loop was made less
available (with irregularly spelled words and in the articulatory suppression
condition), but the decline was greater for the native group.
The authors concluded
that word learning entails phonological encoding uniformly across learners, but
the contribution of phonological varies among learners with diverse linguistic
backgrounds. I am confused by this finding. Does this mean phonological loop affect
L1 word learning more than L2 word learning in English? Or does it mean Chinese
native speaker is more sensitive to visual input than English native speaker?
Hamada, M.
& Koda K. (2011). The role of the phonological loop in English word
learning: A comparison of Chinese ESL learners and native speakers