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Novices and experts: An information processing approach to the “good language learner” problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Robert Nation  and
Barry Mclaughlin
Robert Nation
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz
Barry Mclaughlin*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz
*
Barry McLaughlin, Psychology Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064
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Abstract

It is hypothesized that strategies and techniques employed by “expert” language learners differ from those of “novice” learners. In this study, the performance of multilingual subjects was contrasted to that of bilingual and monolingual subjects on two tasks that involved learning a miniature linguistic system. Under “implicit” learning conditions, multilingual subjects showed superior performance to that of the other two groups, but under “explicit” conditions, there were no differences. The results were interpreted in information processing terms as indicating that multilingual subjects have strategies that help them allocate processing resources more efficiently than our other subjects in formulating informal rules of limited scope under implicit conditions.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , March 1986 , pp. 41 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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