Vocabulary retention: A comparison of four methods of learning vocabulary in French. August 2007 By Shirley Stananought Ardmore School

Rationale  Nation (1999) need exposure on more than one occasion  Quality of the knowledge and the strength of that quality  Extra effort will result in faster and longer retained learning  Did any of the methods require more effort and lead to more retained learning?  How long was learning retained?

Rationale  Kachroo(1962) words repeated 7 times in course book were known  Crothers and Suppes (1967) in vocabulary learning experiments words were learned after 6 or 7 times  My class had the opportunity to learn words 5 times is this sufficient?  Nation (1999) strategy for learning vocabulary must be complex  Were the strategies tested sufficiently complex to allow retained learning?

Methodology  une famille  un père  une mère  un frère  une soeur  un chat  un chien  rouge  blanc  bleu  vert  un sac  une calculatrice  une trousse  une règle  une gomme  un cahier  un stylo  un crayon  un livre

Methodology  French word – picture  French word – English word  Mime  Notebook  Pre and post test  10 minutes each day to learn words  Re-tested 5 weeks later

Results

Ranking Pre-testPost testDifferenceWk 6 FirstMime (2.0)Picture cards (19.7) Picture cards (18.0) Picture cards(20.0) SecondWord cards=1 (2.0) Notebook(18.8)Notebook(17.5)Mime(17.7) ThirdPicture cards (1.7) Word cards=2 (18.8) Word cards(16.8) Notebook(16.8) FourthNotebook(1.3)Mime(17.8)Mime(15.8)Word cards(15.1)

Conclusion  Picture cards aids vocabulary learning and retention  The mime group appeared to retain the words  Argued that picture cards and miming require more effort – supports Nation’s theory ‘extra effort will result in faster and longer retained learning’

Conclusion  Children given the opportunity to learn the words at least 5 times  Average score over the group = 18.7 words  Supports the theories of Kachroo (1962) and Crothers and Suppes (1967)  Giving the children the vocabulary made the unit easier to teach

Constraints  Results based on 26 children of varying ability  Research does have a theoretical base Nation (1999)  It can be repeated in other classrooms and a comparison made

Next steps  Explicitly teaching vocabulary retention methods  Strategy has to require effort  Teach vocabulary at the start of a unit  Allow children at least 5 opportunities to learn words