The Use of Mnemonics to Minimize the Interfering Effects of Teaching New Words in Semantic Sets to Learners of English as a Foreign Language

Abstract

Most studies in the literature propose that new words should be presented in unrelated sets due to interfering effect of learning vocabulary in semantic sets. Semantically-related words are suggested to be taught in different sessions to avoid this negative effect. However, that is implausible for most second language (L2) teachers owing to the restrictions from curricula or coursebooks, most of which serve new words in semantic fields. The literature does not shed light on how to tackle that problem. Accordingly, this study involves three sets of classroom research conducted with 58 young EFL learners to investigate the effects of mnemonics on minimizing the interference of semantic clustering of new vocabulary. Within 15-week course, one intact class was taught target words through mnemonics while the control group received similar instruction with sentence-context method. The study results demonstrated that mnemonically-instructed L2 learners outperformed on both immediate and delayed recognition of target words.