Comparative Effect of Presenting Vocabularies in Semantically Related and Unrelated Sets on Iranian EFL Learners’ short Term Retention

Abstract

Teaching vocabulary in semantically related sets is common practice among EFL teachers. This research was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of teaching vocabulary items through related and unrelated set to elementary Iranian EFL students. It investigated two types of clustering, semantically-related sets, semantically-unrelated sets, and their effectiveness in Persian -speaking learner’s retrieval at the end of each session. To this end, an experimental approach using two groups of participants (i.e. experimental and control) was employed. The experimental group was taught using related vocabulary instructional method while the control group was taught using unrelated clustering method. Then they were asked to complete a recall matched post-test immediately after the study phase to measure the impact of both techniques on learning. In analyzing the data, the statistical techniques of ANCOVA and T-test were utilized. Results of this matching test showed that participants recalled more words from the unrelated list than from the semantically related list. And words from the semantically related list were the least to be recalled by all participants. So, the results manifested that, while both techniques successfully help the learners to acquire new words, presenting words in unrelated sets seems to be more effective, and this represented the preference of semantically unrelated clustering over instructing words in related sets during short period of time.

Keywords: vocabulary; EFL; semantically related sets; semantically unrelated sets