A new study co-authored by Professor Padraic Monaghan from the Department of Psychology has found that people learn the vocabulary and grammar of a new language depending on their memory skills and the type of instruction they receive. The findings may lead to the development of more personalised and effective language learning methods.

Conducted in collaboration with colleagues in Linguistics, the University of Tübingen and the Public University of Navarre, the study looked at how two types of memory (declarative and procedural) influence the learning of an artificial language under different teaching conditions.

Declarative memory is responsible for learning and recalling facts and information, whereas procedural memory supports the acquisition of skills and patterns through repeated practice. To explore how these different systems interact with teaching approaches, the study took 111 adult Mandarin speakers and introduced them to an artificial ‘language’ using short scenes paired with spoken sentences.

Participants were divided into three groups. One group received no information about the language structure, another was asked to search for patterns or rules, and the third was provided with explicit grammatical information on how the language worked. Learning relied on cross-situational learning, where participants guess word meanings and grammar by observing how language maps onto scenes across repeated exposures.

The results showed those with stronger declarative memory achieved better outcomes overall, particularly when encouraged to search for rules. This type of instruction allowed them to make meaningful use of their memory strengths to understand vocabulary and grammar. By contrast, procedural memory was found to have a weak or even negative association with learning, especially early in the process.

Professor Monaghan said: “This research shows how people learn languages in very different ways, and this means that providing different means of presenting languages to learners should be adapted to their individual strengths. Knowing about a language doesn’t help everyone – some people learn better just by listening and practising.”

The study also found more explicit forms of instruction had only a limited effect unless they engaged participants’ cognitive abilities. The group asked to search for rules showed the most improvement, suggesting that prompting the active exploration of patterns is more effective than simply providing information.

The study supports the theory of aptitude-treatment interactions (ATI), which suggests how effective instructions are depends on matching an individual’s cognitive abilities to the correct treatment approach. The study suggests moving beyond the current one-size-fits-all approach to a more ATI approach could provide benefits for everyone struggling to learn a new language.

The full paper is freely available in the Journal of Memory and Language