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Effects of Presenting New Words in Semantic sets or Semantically Unrelated sets on English Vocabulary Acquisition for Chinese Primary School Students
Abstract
This paper aims to examine the effect on vocabulary acquisition of teaching new words via two different methods. According to the findings of Tinkham (1993), introducing new English words with semantic relatedness at the same time may actually hinder young learners to remember and retain the meaning of the target words. One class, including 31 sixth graders in Hangzhou Greentown Yuhua Primary School, were taught 40 carefully selected words either in semantic sets or semantically unrelated sets. The experiment was consisted of several steps, in which pre-tests were given before each presentation of these selected English words and the same post-tests were repeated as an immediate one just after the presentation and as a delayed test with a reshuffled order to prevent any memory effects as practiced in the field. All these were designed to evaluate the effectiveness of both teaching methods. Then what under the investigation was the effect of these two methods on post-tests completion and the scores which participants obtained in test paper. According to the statistical analysis, learning new words in semantically unrelated sets proves to be better than in semantically related sets. The gap was obvious in the long term. Furthermore, according to the test observation, the time that those young learners spent on the post-tests was much longer for the semantically related vocabulary items, which indicated a slower recall of the target words. 47110
The result of this paper, contrary to frequent practice in many English textbooks and classes, revealed that presenting new words in the same semantic set may cause interference because of cross-association and may even hinder learning of English vocabulary. Therefore such practice, teaching English words in semantic sets, needs to be questioned and further tested. At the same time, the author attempted to explore the possibility of an alternative method of selection and presentation to make learning of English words easier, which may involve introducing vocabulary in semantically unrelated sets. But still it needs further developing and utilizing.
Keywords: Interference theory; semantic sets; semantically unrelated sets; vocabulary acquisition
新词呈现过程中语义相关和语义无关方式对中国小学生英语词汇习得的影响
摘要本文旨在探讨新词呈现过程中两种不同方法对于学生英语词汇习得的影响。据汀克汉姆（1993 年）相关研究结果表明，同时引入语义相关的新单词实际上可能阻碍了年轻的英语学习者记忆目标单词的意义。31位杭州绿城育华小学六年级的学生参与了本次研究，研究者精心挑选了40个新词，并将它们按照语义相关和语义无关进行分组。此次研究包括以下几个步骤，首先，在呈现和教授这些目标词汇之前，相关的前测会在课堂上进行；词汇教学完成之后，相关的即时后测也会在课堂上进行；此外延迟后测则会在隔天后进行，此时词汇测试试题顺序有所调整，为了避免和防止任何之前测试所保留的相关记忆效应。所有这些都旨在评估这两种词汇呈现方法的有效性。研究者所要调查和分析的数据分别是两种词汇呈现方式对于后测完成情况以及学生的测试得分情况的影响。根据分析数据来看，在新词呈现过程中，语义无关词汇相对于语义相关词汇产生了更好的效果。长期测试也证明了这一差异是存在的。此外，根据研究观察显示，呈现语义相关词汇的实验过程持续时间相对较长， 这就表明学生对于这些词的回忆反应也相对较慢。
本次研究所得出的结果，与很多教科书上的实践教学方法相反，这揭示了同时呈现语义相关词汇会对学生造成干扰从而妨碍他们对词汇的记忆。在相同的语义集介绍新单词可能会造成干扰，由于跨协会，甚至可能妨碍学习英语词汇的相反的结果。因此教科书上所采用的语义相关呈现教学法是有争议的，需要进一步验证。同时，作者试图探讨出另一种更有效的替代词汇呈现方式，使学生学习英语单词更为容易，而这种词汇教学法极有可能与语义无关词汇呈现方式相关，但这仍需要进一步检验和发展。