Physical activity in active school settings: Twelve-and fourteen-year-old school children differentially benefit from gesture- and picture-enriched vocabulary training

Both young children and adults benefit from the integration of multimodal enrichment into pedagogy. We examined benefits of multimodal enrichment in twelve- to fourteen-year-olds in the context of foreign langu-age (L2) vocabulary learning. The children were trained over 5 consecutive days on auditorily-presented L2 vocabulary that was learned under picture-, gesture-, and non-enriched (auditory-only) conditions. Recall and translation tests were performed at 3 days, 2 months, and 6 months post-learning. Compared to non-enriched learning, both enrichment interventions benefitted children's L2 retention for up to 6 months post-training. Interestingly, gesture-enriched learning was even more beneficial than picture-enriched learning for fourteen-year-olds, while twelve-year-olds benefitted equivalently from picture- and gesture-enriched learn-ing. These findings provide evidence for opting to integrate gestures rather than pictures into L2 pedagogy starting at fourteen years of age.