Should EFL teachers present vocabulary in semantically related sets?

Abstract

La enseñanza de vocabulario agrupado en campos semánticos es práctica habitual en el aula de inglés como lengua extranjera. En este estudio se compara esta técnica con su contraria, la presentación de vocabulario no relacionado, con dos grupos de alumnos de un instituto. Tras presentar las palabras con ambas técnicas los alumnos completaron un post-test. Los resultados muestran la efectividad de ambas técnicas pero con una ligera ventaja para la enseñanza de vocabulario no relacionado semánticamente.

Teaching vocabulary in semantically related sets is common practice among EFL teachers. The present study tests the effectiveness of this method by comparing it to the alternative technique: presenting vocabulary in an unrelated way. In the study two intact classes of Spanish learners of English in high-school were presented with a set of unrelated and related words and were then asked to complete a post-test to measure the impact of both techniques on learning. The results indicate that, while both techniques successfully help the learners to acquire new words, presenting words in unrelated sets seems to be more effective.