Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

We investigated the impact of teachers’ multimodal cues on L2 word learning in naturalistic teaching. 169 university students randomly watched 12 of 54 clips of English vocabulary instructions and took subsequent word recognition and learning tests. The learning outcomes were analysed as a function of teachers’ prosodic, linguistic and gestural input during the instruction of each vocabulary while controlling for students’ characteristics and varying teachers’ influences. Results showed that a shorter mean length of utterances, fewer L2 English words, and more questions for students and “phrase” teaching predicted better learning outcomes. Furthermore, students learning improved with teachers’ slower speaking rate but fewer pauses and more iconic gestures. These results were robust even after controlling for other significant factors such as students’ English proficiency, working memory, degree of liking of teachers and different teachers. Overall, multimodal cues enhance L2 vocabulary learning, with implications for educators, linguists, and cognitive scientists.