Sammendrag
This study examined the role of Non-verbal Reasoning (NVR) and Short-term Memory (STM) in learning English as a foreign language (EFL). 30 high-school students from different high schools in a central city in Vietnam participated in the study. The participants’ average age was 16.6 years, they all spoke Vietnamese as their first language and had learned EFL at school. None of them had any reading or writing difficulties, or any visual or auditory impairments. A Raven's Progressive Matrices test, a non-word repetition (NWR) test, and English proficiency tests of grammar and vocabulary were used to assess the impact of NVR and STM on English proficiency. Results of the study showed a moderately positive correlation between (1) NVR and English grammar, and (2) STM, as measured by the English NWR test, and English vocabulary. These findings indicate a selective impact of NVR and STM on different domains of English proficiency. In addition, the fact that no significant correlation was found between background factors and English performance suggests the dominant role of these two cognitive factors in English competence. Finally, the present study yielded two main findings that recommend further research, i.e., (1) the lack of correlation between STM, as measured by the Vietnamese NWR test, and English vocabulary gives an indication that language knowledge and experience of the language tested can influence performance in NWR tests, and (2) the moderate correlation between NVR and STM, as measured by the English NWR test, implies that these two factors might not contribute particularly to grammar or vocabulary, but rather affect many aspects of L2 learning.
Keywords: non-verbal reasoning, short-term memory, foreign language learning, English learning, correlation.