1.3 Factors affecting the retention of vocabulary
1.3.2 Effective vocabulary learning strategies
Like general learning strategies, English vocabulary learning strategies include those techniques that help learners to remember what have learnt - their storage and retention of new information.
Learning of any kind requires the retention of the desired, new information. In language acquisition, students have to learn grammar, the sound system, social and cultural behaviors, and of course, vocabulary. There are many strategies that have been found to be effective for retaining vocabulary items. However, Memory Strategies proposed by Oxford (1990) has been taken into consideration within the scope of the study. In other words,
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Oxford's memory strategies that are related to vocabulary learning will be presented below as a source of reference to designing classroom based vocabulary communicative activities.
Oxford's (1990) Memory strategies consist of 10 items as following:
* Grouping: Words are easier to memorize, store, and recall if they are put into groups.
Words can be grouped mentally or in writing according to their class, topic, function, similarity, dissimilarity or opposition, and so on.
* Associating/ Elaborating: New vocabulary items are easier to learn and use if they are associated to those, which are already in memory.
* Placing new words into a context: New vocabulary items should be learned as active items. That is, a new item should be put in a meaningful sentence, conservation, story, etc.
* Using imagery: New vocabulary items are related to concepts in memory by means of meaningful visual imagery either in the mind or in real drawings. The imagery can be a picture of an object, a set of collocations for remembering a sequence of words or expressions, or a mental presentation of the letters of a word.
* Semantic mapping: A key concept is put at the center of at the top, and related words and concepts are linked with the key concept by means of lines or arrows. This strategy involves meaningful imagery, grouping, and associations. It visually shows how groups of words relate to each other.
* Using keywords: A new word is linked to a known word (either in L1 or in L2) which sounds like the new word. The new word can be linked to a known word which has similar spelling as the known word has.
* Presenting sounds in memory: Students create a meaningful, sound-based association between the new word and known words in L1 or L2. Rhyme can also be exploited to remember new words.
* Structured reviewing: New words should be in spaced intervals, at first close together and then more widely spaced apart. Reviewing is essential for vocabulary learning.
* Using physical responses or sensation: Students should act out a new word or expression. That is, they should meaningfully relate a new word or expression to a physical action, a feeling or sensation.
* Using mechanical techniques: An example of this strategy is to write words on cards and moving cards from on stack to another when words are learned.
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Many factors-motivation, gender, cultural background, and type of task, age and learning style, however, influence the use of the above mentioned vocabulary learning strategies. For example, Asian students use strategies that are different from those used by students from other cultural backgrounds, such as students from European countries.
The evidence reveals from my teaching and learning experience is that Grouping, Associating/Elaborating, Placing new words into a context, Semantic mapping, and Structure reviewing strategies are the most frequently used and effective for Asian/Vietnamese students.
Most of EFL students in Vietnam confessed that remembering words by listing the difficult words was not effective. They said that new words should be learning in context so that they would be meaningful. The other left ( Using key words, Presenting sounds in mind, Using physical responses or sensation, Using mechanical techniques), for some reasons, has been rarely used by teachers and learners. Based on the observation, the learning atmosphere in the EFL classroom in the school in Vietnam is not as active and stimulating as in the ESL classroom, so the application of the strategies mentioned in proceeding sentence still faces many problems. In addition, students' learning habits that may originate from culture will also influence the use of certain strategies.
Generally, knowing the relationship between learning habits and the choice of memory strategies for vocabulary learning will help teacher not risk imposing a methodology that is not relevant to students' ability and their learning habit as well, and process the language more deeply, facilitating students' ability to retain vocabulary in their long term memory.