Does the availability of orthography support L2 word learning?

Availability of orthography during word learning has been found to facilitate learning the word’s spelling and pronunciation and has been proposed to facilitate learning its meaning. This has not been studied in second language (L2) learning yet, in which word learning often corresponds to translation learning. Therefore, an L2 word learning experiment was carried out. Grade 6 Dutch students (n = 92) were taught English words, with orthography available or absent. Words were divided into those that are spelled entirely like they sound (consistent, e.g., lilt) and those that are not (inconsistent, e.g., budgie). Students learned the words using forward translation (Dutch to English) or backward translation (English to Dutch). At post-test spelling, reading and forward as well as backward translation were measured. Results indicate that availability of orthography mainly facilitated word spelling and reading. There was a trend for orthography to affect learning the translation. Learning consistent words benefited most from orthography, especially when the post-test demanded forward translation. As forward translation requires retrieval of the word’s pronunciation, it is likely that students used orthographic mapping to better remember the pronunciations of the English words. Forward translation was easier if words were learned in the same direction, but backward translation was not affected by learning direction. Together, these results imply that orthography supports translation learning, although this is likely caused by learning the word’s pronunciation and not by establishing a direct link between orthography and word meaning.