Previous studies have shown that motor encoding of verbal phrases facilitates recall or recognition performance comparing with verbal or imagery encoding. This phenomenon is called Subject-performed tasks (SPTs) effect. Although many researches confirm the effect under various conditions, most of the research covers first language (L1) of the participants. An experimental study was conducted to examine whether motor Encoding is superior to verbal or imagery encoding even in second language (L2). The participants were twelve college students learning Japanese as a second language in Japan. They were all in the first level of The Japanese-Language Proficiency Test. The participants were asked to encode three lists of verbal phrases presented visually on a monitor. Three conditions were used as encoding tasks. Under the SPT condition, the participants enacted the denoted action. Under the imagery task (IT) condition, the participants drew visual images of someone, as though they were really watching him or her performing the action in front of them. Under the verbal task (VT) condition, the participants wrote down the verbal phrases shown on a monitor. They were required to recall freely the verbal phrases by writing after learning each list. An incidental recognition test was adopted after three free-recall tests. As a result, there was significant SPTs effect in free recall test, but there was no encoding effect in recognition test. It was suggested that the SPTs effect were observed even in L2. However, recall performance of SPT condition was not superior to that of IT condition. There results were discussed from the view point of the function of motor system on memory representation.