Retention and Forgetting of Grammatical Structures in Learning English as a Foreign Language
AbstractGerman pupils (age 12–13 years) studying English as a foreign language were taught three grammatical structures (passive, gerund, and future tense). Following Wickelgren’s concept of memory trace strength, the remaining strength of the memory trace after 2 weeks and 6 weeks of learning was studied. The data confirmed Jost’s second law. Results suggest that the decay rate is a didactic measure of the grammatical structure difficulty.