Phonological Memory and L2 Vocabulary Learning in a Narrated Story Task

The objective of this study was to explore the role played by phonological memory (PM) in the learning of new second language (L2) vocabulary presented in a narrated story. The proposal was that individuals with a strong PM would do better on this largely auditory task than those with poor PM capacity, since fewer visual/written cues could make remembering vocabulary a more challenging task. Participants were French native speakers, advanced learners of English (N = 55). The results revealed that PM, measured by a nonword repetition task and a serial recognition task, did not predict vocabulary retention scores in the group as a whole. However, when low and high PM subgroups were formed, a significant association between PM and vocabulary retention was found in the low PM group only, suggesting the contribution of PM to short-term vocabulary learning in advanced learners is outweighed by other factors, except when PM is quite weak.