Research in cognitive psychology is increasingly influential in second language acquisition (SLA) studies. It is one source of valuable guidelines for research in the classroom, helping us to shape the questions we ask about how language is learned, processed, remembered, used, and, in some cases, apparently forgotten. Psychological research on learning and retrieving what we have learned can provide insights into the processes underlying the learning that occurs in different types of second/foreign language instruction.

In this chapter, some psychological perspectives on memory – learning and retrieving information – are examined for their relevance to second language acquisition and instruction. The emphasis is on transfer appropriate processing (TAP). The fundamental tenet of TAP is that we can better remember what we have learned if the cognitive processes that are active during learning are similar to those that are active during retrieval (Blaxton, 1989; Morris et al., 1977). On the one hand, this suggests that learning to use language in a communicative context may improve the ability to retrieve it in such contexts (Segalowitz & Lightbown, 1999). On the other hand, TAP may also offer a way of explaining why learners in communicative, contentand task-based language learning environments have difficulty in the acquisition of some features of the target language (e.g. Barcroft, 2006; Trofimovich, 2005; VanPatten, 1990).

To be sure, we cannot simply transfer the findings of research in cognitive psychology to second language classroom practice. Studies in psychology, linguistics, general education, and even some SLA research can help us form questions about how languages can be taught most effectively, but we can understand the real relevance of this research only by carrying out studies in classrooms where languages are taught and learned (Lightbown, 2000). Carefully controlled conditions for studies in cognitive psychology are very different from the conditions that are typical of classrooms.