The influence of the spacing effect on L2 vocabulary learning: A study on Chinese university students

This study investigated the effects of spacing on Chinese university students’ L2 vocabulary learning. Sixty-seven junior students of a Science and Engineering College in China learnt English words by two types of spacing schedules, massed versus distributed, and the results of vocabulary learning were measured by accuracy and reaction rate. Results showed that the massed practice might be more effective than the distributed practice, particularly in accuracy for long-term retention. Further, it was found that the advantage of the massed practice was more obvious for receptive than for productive vocabulary knowledge. Finally, several suggestions are put forward on the learning and teaching of L2 vocabulary.