The series brings together volumes dealing with different aspects of learning and teaching second and foreign languages. The titles included are both monographs and edited collections focusing on a variety of topics ranging from the processes underlying second language acquisition, through various aspects of language learning in instructed and non-instructed settings, to different facets of the teaching process, including syllabus choice, materials design, classroom practices and evaluation. The publications reflect state-of-the-art developments in those areas, they adopt a wide range of theoretical perspectives and follow diverse research paradigms. The intended audience are all those who are interested in naturalistic and classroom second language acquisition, including researchers, methodologists, curriculum and materials designers, teachers and undergraduate and graduate students undertaking empirical investigations of how second languages are learnt and taught.

We propose a previously unexamined factor instrumental in learning vocabulary accounting for the differences between learning a native and a foreign language: the development of critical thinking in adolescence. We hypothesize that the difficulties experienced in foreign vocabulary development result from the learner’s readiness to question new information. Following Gilbert’s (1991) claim that rigorous critical thought is the last to emerge and children are prone to accept propositions uncritically, we suggest that it is to this absence of doubt that children owe their success in remembering lexical items after a single exposure, a phenomenon referred to as fast mapping. The rationale is that the mental belief systems are memory’s filtering mechanism for what to retain: information labelled as questionable is allowed to decay without being granted access to long-term memory. We present the results of an experiment suggesting that memory of new language forms is enhanced by the learner’s conviction in their validity.