Teaching a small foreign language vocabulary to children using tact and listener instruction with a prompt delay

Cortez et al. (2022) worked with four children who had trouble reading and writing. The team wanted to know which teaching order builds a tiny foreign vocabulary faster.

They compared two setups: tact-first (child says the foreign word) with a slow prompt fade, or listener-first (child points to the picture) with the same fade. Each child got both orders in an alternating-treatments design.

Tact-first plus prompt delay created stronger two-way translations. Kids could both say the foreign word for an English cue and give the English word for the foreign cue.

Listener-first left gaps; children often could point but not speak the new word. The tact route produced fuller emergent intraverbal relations.

DeVellis et al. (1979) saw the same pattern in children with developmental disabilities: productive training grew receptive skills, but receptive training hardly helped productive skills. Cortez extends that rule to foreign-language learning in kids with literacy delays.

Richardson et al. (2017) looks like a contradiction—they found pictures speed up sight-word mastery. The difference is population and skill: their mixed-ability readers learned familiar English words, while Cortez’s struggling readers tackled brand-new foreign terms. Pictures help when the word itself is hard; they can block when the whole task is already heavy.

Logan et al. (2000) and Sanders et al. (1989) back the no-picture view. Both showed that stripping visual prompts away led to faster verbal learning in students with intellectual disability, matching Cortez’s lean tact-first approach.

If you teach a second language or academic vocabulary to kids who read below grade level, start with expressive (tact) trials and a progressive prompt delay. Hold off on picture prompts and save listener-only drills for later. You will likely see fuller, bidirectional vocabulary without extra teaching time.