The Effects of Spaced and Massed Practice Schedule on L2 Contextualized Grammar Learning of a Simple and a Complex Structure

ABSTRACT Research evaluating the effects of spaced versus massed practice on grammar learning has shown a superiority of the spaced schedule due to the existence of a distributed learning effect. However, these studies were conducted in a laboratory setting in a decontextualized manner. The present study therefore targeted contextualized grammar learning, where two target structures, the possessive adjective and the past tense in French, were practiced in an information‐gap activity. The aim was to analyze the possible interaction between linguistic difficulty and spacing schedule. Unlike decontextualized practice, the production of the structures here required the production of personal ideas, making the activity more cognitively demanding. Two groups ( N = 32 and N = 33) from two classes of Chinese learners studying French practiced the structures three times, either without spacing or with a spacing of 1 day. A fourth session took place 1 week later. The massed practice group showed greater fluency, especially for the complex structure, whereas the spaced practice group used the structures more accurately. An interaction between linguistic difficulty and spacing schedule was found: spacing practice presents an undesirable difficulty for the fluent use of the complex structure, but it is desirable for accurate use.