This study examines the online writing and revision behaviors of university language learners. In small groups, 53 intermediate German students from three classes at three different universities created wiki pages with background information about a novel read in class. All meaning-and language-related revisions were analyzed to determine whether students revised only their own contributions (cooperation) or took responsibility for the text as a whole (collaboration). Results indicate that students utilized both collaborative and cooperative strategies to make formal revisions, but they worked more cooperatively when making content changes. Group members did not take on any specific task roles with regards to formal revisions, but they were engaged in the project to varying degrees. While most students contributed to content and editing of their wiki page as required, some students did not do their share of the work and engaged in social loafing and free riding. The study demonstrates wikis' great potential for collaborative and autonomous work, but it also underlines the need for clear tasks, teacher guidance and possibly even intervention. Suggestions to mitigate social loafing and free riding in group work are discussed.

The present study investigates the effects of pictorial and textual glosses and a combination thereof on incidental vocabulary growth of foreign language learners. Subjects from second‐semester German classes read a narrative text passage under one of three marginal gloss conditions: textual gloss (English translation); pictorial gloss; and text and pictures in the gloss. Subjects were tested on production as well as recognition of fourteen target words both immediately following and two weeks after the reading. Support was found for the hypothesis that subjects utilizing a combination of text and pictures in the gloss would outperform subjects under the other two gloss conditions on the recognition of target words on both short‐term memory and retention.

This study investigated the use of wikis for collaborative writing projects. Fourth-and sixth-semester German students wrote several of the regularly assigned essay topics during one semester in collaboration with another student using a wiki. Participants used a variety of strategies in the planning, writing and revision phases of their essays. They also achieved a very high success rate in correcting the formal mistakes they detected by pooling their knowledge about language issues. The students enjoyed working collaboratively as they could share ideas and work with each other's strengths, and they also liked the accessibility of the wiki. The wiki environment seems to benefit collaborative writing and promote successful revision behavior.

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The grammatical gender of German nouns continues to pose a challenge to second language learners. Following from a connectionist framework, this study explores the effect of two input enhancement techniques, color‐coding and gendered actors, on the learning of grammatical gender by beginning learners of German during a vocabulary acquisition activity. Results on an immediate post‐test show no significant differences between conditions. In the delayed post‐test, however, the control group experienced a significant decrease in accurate gender assignment of the target items, while the gendered actor group displayed a non‐significant loss in scores, and the color‐coding group actually displayed slightly better scores compared to the immediate post‐test. These results suggest that color‐coding might be the most effective, while also the least work‐intensive, technique for instructors to implement. Further pedagogical implications resulting from this study are discussed.