The Role of Working Memory among Non-Traditional Foreign Language Students

Authors

Gabriela Olivares-Cuhat, University of Northern IowaFollow
Michelle H. PloofFollow

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book/Conference Title Title

UNIveristas

Volume

12

Abstract

Over the last 40 years, a growing number of nontraditional students have joined the ranks of higher education. However, due to a number of internal and external factors, these students face multiple social, economic, and academic challenges that may limit their success in postsecondary education. The focus of this article is to examine the implications of these challenges on the learning of a foreign language (FL), and more specifically on the role played by working memory (WM) with nontraditional FL learners. To this end, research studies in the fields of psycholinguistics, cognitive psychology and neuroscience are reviewed and their findings are analyzed to uncover meaningful relationships between WM and FL learning among nontraditional students. To conclude, FL teaching methodologies and guidelines are recommended.

Department

Department of Languages and Literatures

Comments

First published in UNIversitas, v.12 (2016-2017), by the University of Northern Iowa Graduate College.

Original Publication Date

2017

Repository

UNI ScholarWorks, University of Northern Iowa, Rod Library

Copyright

©2017 Gabriela Olivares-Cuhat and Michelle H. Ploof. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Attribution-Noncommerical-No Derivative Works International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/, which permits you to download the work and share it with others as long as they credit the copyright owner, but you can’t change the work in any way or use it commercially.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Date Digital

2017

Language

EN

File Format

application/pdf

Recommended Citation

Olivares-Cuhat, Gabriela and Ploof, Michelle H., "The Role of Working Memory among Non-Traditional Foreign Language Students" (2017). Faculty Publications. 4.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/ll_facpub/4