Le rôle de la mémoire de travail dans l’acquisition incidente du vocabulaire en langue seconde durant la compréhension orale chez les enfants : une revue de littérature

Developing vocabulary to understand oral and written language in first language (L1) and second language (L2) is a major challenge for both adults and young learners. The learning of words also depends on the working memory (WM), which is central to human cognition and language learning; several studies have established its important role in learning L1 (Gathercole & Baddeley, 1989, 1990) and, even more so, in L2 (Baddeley & al., 1998; Gathercole & al., 1999; Service & Kohonen, 1995). Despite previous studies on the role of WM in the incidental acquisition of second language vocabulary during listening comprehension, the need for clarification on this role, especially in children, remains to be explored. The aim of this article is to present a synthesis of the literature on the role of WM in the incidental acquisition of second language vocabulary during listening comprehension in children to highlight this need for the necessary clarifications.