Differences in Attainment and Performance in a Foreign Language: The Role of Working Memory Capacity

Аннотация

The goal of this study is to investigate the role of working memory capacity in L2 attainment and performance. The study uses an L1 reading span task to measure working memory of a group of 59 highintermediate/advanced learners of English, and a film retelling task to measure their oral production. The analysis first showed a moderate to high correlation between proficiency measured by a general proficiency test and learners’ fluency, lexical complexity, and accuracy but not structural complexity on the retelling task