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The Categorical Facilitation Effects on L2 Vocabulary Learning in a
Classroom Setting
Yuko Hoshino
RELC Journal 2010 41: 301
DOI: 10.1177/0033688210380558
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Article
The Categorical Facilitation
Effects on L2 Vocabulary
Learning in a Classroom
Setting
RELC Journal
41(3) 301–312
© The Author(s) 2010
Reprints and permission: sagepub.
co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0033688210380558
rel.sagepub.com
Yuko Hoshino
Tokyo Fuji University, Japan
Abstract
In the field of vocabulary acquisition, there have been many studies on the efficacy of word lists.
However, very few of these were based on research in a classroom setting, and therefore, their
results may not be applicable to standard classroom situations. This study investigated which of
the five types of word lists (synonyms, antonyms, categorical, thematic, and arbitrary) facilitated
L2 vocabulary learning in a classroom setting. The participants were classified into four clusters
according to their learning styles, and the study compared the relative effectiveness of the types
of word lists on different types of learners. The results showed that the most effective type of
word list did not vary according to student clusters: all of the learners memorized the words in
the categorical list more effectively than those in the other lists. Hence, the type of word list had
a stronger effect on the efficacy of vocabulary learning than the individual learning style did.
Keywords
vocabulary learning, memorization, word list
Introduction
Vocabulary is the basis of language; thus, we can never underestimate its importance in
learning a target language. However, acquiring a sufficient amount of words is not easy:
the base line of learning is 2000 word families, but one must know 8000 to 9000 word
families in order to obtain 98% vocabulary coverage for newspapers or novels (Nation,
2006). To help learners reach this standard as quickly as possible, researchers have investigated more effective ways to learn L2 vocabulary. One popular comparison has been
made between intentional and incidental learning. Although a number of studies have
revealed that incidental vocabulary learning does occur (e.g. Day et al., 1991; Nagy
et al., 1985; Rot, 1999), intentional learning results in greater retention. Therefore,
Corresponding author:
Yuko Hoshino, Tokyo Fuji University, 3-8-1 Takadanobaba, Shinjuku, Tokyo 169-0075, Japan
[email: [email protected]]
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RELC Journal 41(3)
vocabulary acquisition is stronger when it is attempted through intentional learning, a
subject on which this study sheds light.
A large number of researchers have investigated which learning method is most effective during intentional vocabulary learning. Many have compared the effectiveness of
the rote-learning method with that of the keyword method (e.g. Miura, 2002; Rodriguez
and Sandusky, 2000; Samara and Alba, 2006; Wang et al., 1992). In three of the above
four studies, the keyword method was found to be more effective than rote-memorization
in an immediate test. The fourth study (Miura, 2002) did not show a significant difference between them. The depth of processing hypothesis (Craik and Lockhart, 1972) supports the superiority of the keyword method because the participants need to connect the
keyword to the target word; therefore, the keyword method is deemed to be more effective than the rote-learning method, in which students use repetition to memorize the
target words and their L1 translations. However, the effect of the keyword method appears
to be somewhat limited. First, it is more commonly recommended for young learners
(Nation, 2001), and its effect on adult learners remains unknown. Second, some words
are not suitable for the keyword technique because they cannot be connected with the
keyword; in such cases, images are not created. This indicates that the keyword method
may limit the possible types of target words. Third, it may restrict learners’ use of strategies to imaging strategies alone. This may prove problematic in that not all learners
prefer imaging to other strategies. Because the effects of vocabulary learning may vary
according to students’ different learning styles, this study uses word list learning rather
than the keyword method and examines how the effects of different types of word lists
differ among students with different learning styles.
In addition to the learning method, a factor that affects the effectiveness of vocabulary learning is the types of words learners memorize along with the target word (word
clusters). There have been some studies concerning this effect, but there has been no
consensus yet about the results (see review by Erten and Tekin, 2008). One of the classical studies on this topic was carried out by Higa (1963), who found that synonyms,
categorical words, and free-association words significantly inhibited vocabulary learning when compared to unrelated pairs, and that antonyms also inhibited learning
although the difference was not significant. In more recent studies, Tinkham (1993) and
Waring (1997) paid special attention to categorical words, and both studies found that
categorical words significantly hindered vocabulary learning. However, all the studies
mentioned above compared the number of times the participants looked through the
words until they memorized all the target words (the number of trials), but they did not
compare the number of words that their participants remembered, which the typical
vocabulary tests have measured.
This shortcoming was addressed by Schneider et al. (1998), who used accuracy and
latency as dependent variables to compare the effect of categorically blocked words and
mixed (i.e. unrelated) words on the efficacy of vocabulary learning. The results suggested that in the first stage of learning, the categorical condition overtook the mixed
condition, but this effect was reversed in the later stage. They concluded that categorical
words facilitated initial vocabulary learning, but not retention; therefore, their findings
stood in contrast to Higa (1963), Tinkham (1993), and Waring (1997), whose findings
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demonstrated the overall inefficacy of categorical words. However, all the above studies
had the same limitation: the effect was not investigated in a classroom situation.
One study has compared the efficacy of the categorical and the unrelated words in
a classroom (Crow and Quigley, 1985). Although there was no clear difference in the
number of words that students remembered correctly when they used the lists, the
researchers concluded that the words in the categorical cluster facilitated vocabulary
learning more because their participants were exposed to twice as many words when
they remembered the categorically-related words than when they remembered the
unrelated words. Therefore, the categorical words were theoretically twice as easy as
the unrelated ones. However, in fact, participants were required to take different learning approaches toward the categorical and unrelated words: for the categorical words,
they were instructed to replace the target word with the associated word and excluded
unrelated words from the cluster of related words; for the unrelated words, they
remembered the word in the context of multiple-choice and sentence-level questions.
These facts indicate that the issue of whether the word types themselves or the method
of learning facilitates vocabulary learning is far from clear. Therefore, it is necessary
to investigate specifically the effect of word types on vocabulary learning in classroom settings.
As can be seen, most of the research that has addressed which word clusters are the
most effective in vocabulary learning has compared only categorical and unrelated words,
but Tinkham (1997) also compared thematic and unrelated words and found that, for
vocabulary learning, the thematic clusters of words offered an advantage over categorical
and unrelated clusters. However, as in his previous study (Tinkham, 1993), he compared
the number of trials rather than the number of words remembered. Thus, it is uncertain
whether this result might apply in standard classroom situations, which often focus on
assessing how many words students learn. Further, none, if any, of the previous research—
except for Higa’s (1963) classical study—compared the effect of synonym and antonym
words in terms of efficacy. Hence, it is worth investigating further whether learning clusters of synonyms and antonyms are better at facilitating vocabulary learning than unrelated
clusters of words.
With the limitations inherent in the previous research in mind, this study compared
the five word types (synonyms, antonyms, categorical, thematic, and unrelated) and tried
to identify which are more effective for vocabulary learning. In this study, vocabulary
learning is defined as correctly recalling the translation or meaning of L2 target words.
Although ‘knowing a word’ has many different dimensions (Nation, 2001), connecting
the form and the meaning of the word is the core of vocabulary knowledge. Therefore,
the other dimensions of vocabulary knowledge are not treated in this study. The purpose
of this study is to investigate which kinds of vocabulary pairs are the most effective for
different types of English learners of Japanese to memorize L2 word meanings.
Furthermore, according to Griffin and Harley (1996: 445) who wrote that ‘word pair
learning is not a question of simple association; rather, it is open to learner strategy,’ it is
possible that the effectiveness of various learning methods may vary depending on the
participant. Hence, this study investigated whether the efficacy of types of vocabulary to
memorize differ by learners’ learning styles.
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Method
Participants
A total of 119 university students, all of whom were Japanese EFL students, participated
in this study. According to Schmitt’s (1997) research on vocabulary learning strategies
for Japanese students, word lists are widely used as a tool for vocabulary learning among
Japanese EFL learners, especially junior high school and high school students (67%) and
university students (50%). Hence, the participants in this study were assumed to be
familiar with this method.
Materials
Forty English words were prepared for each word type: synonym, antonym, categorical,
thematic, and unrelated. Each particular relationship was formed by two words, so there
were 20 pairs of words for each word type (e.g. synonym: fabric and textile, odor and
scent). This was done because the relationship of antonyms is usually established by two
words that have opposite meanings. The other word types were made to have two-word
relationships in order to equalize the condition between the word lists. These words were
divided into two 10-item lists and one 20-item list, which means there were two 5-pair
lists and one 10-pair list. Item sets, each with different numbers of target words, were
created in order to prevent possible floor or ceiling effects. All of the target words were
higher than level 4 in the JACET list of 8000 basic words (Committee of Revising the
JACET Basic Words, 2003), which was produced especially for Japanese learners of
English. The difficult words were selected so that the participants were assumed to have
no knowledge about the target words.
The synonym, antonym, and categorical words were selected using WordNet 3.0
(Princeton University Cognitive Science Laboratory, 2006). However, there was no
clear criterion that could be used to distinguish between the thematic words, nor was
there a clear definition of thematic words in the article using thematic lists (HippnerPage, 2000; Tinkham, 1997). Therefore, in this study, words were selected from within
the same theme, according to various picture dictionaries (Goodman, 1991, Let’s Learn
English Picture Dictionary; Rosenthal and Freeman, 1987, Longman Photo Dictionary;
Klevberg, 2005, The Heinle Picture Dictionary; Ashworth and Clark, 1997, The
Longman Picture Dictionary American English; Shapiro and Adelson-Goldstein, 1998,
The Oxford Picture Dictionary). After this, 12 university and graduate students, all of
whom were majoring in English education, confirmed that each word type has a particular relationship (either synonym, antonym, categorical, or thematic). Some who
had university teaching experience also evaluated whether the target words would be
unknown to most Japanese university students. For the unrelated list of words, the
researcher chose the words from the JACET list of 8000 basic words (JACET, 2003),
and three graduate students verified that the words in every arbitrary pair had no relationship with each other. One thing to note is that it was impossible to control for the
word class, since antonyms are more likely to be adjectives, whereas most categorical
words are nouns, and synonyms included both nouns and verbs. Although some studies
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Hoshino
Figure 1. An Example of a 10-item Vocabulary List and Test (the categorical list)
Note. The left side is the list, and the right side is the test.
have suggested that the learnability of words changes according to different word
classes (e.g. Laufer, 1997), this study balanced this difference by allowing for mistakes
of word class in test scoring.
All the target word lists showed the English target words on the left and their Japanese
translation words on the right. The lists were formatted so that each of the target vocabulary pairs were separated by lines; this allowed the participants to see each pair, as can be
seen in the example in Figure 1. Although there was no relationship between the words
in the 2-word pair in the unrelated list, the lines were printed in order to equalize the
condition with the other four types of lists. There was no mention of what relationship
each pair had in any of the lists.
Procedures
The experiment was conducted in two sessions: the learning session and the testing session. In the learning session, the participants received a vocabulary list three or four days
before the testing session. They tried to learn the meaning (Japanese translation words of
the English target words) of all the words in the list by the time of the testing session.
They could bring the list home and use any learning strategy or process of their choice.
Then, in the testing session, the participants wrote the meanings of the target words in a
classroom. The order of the items in the test was changed from the list they received in
the learning session by the use of the rand function in Microsoft Excel 2003. This ensured
that no specific order was imposed and that the participants could not answer correctly
merely by memorizing the order of the Japanese translation words.
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Table 1. The Questionnaire Used in This Study (Horino and Ichikawa, 1997)
No.
Items
1.
Project an image of the spelling of each word, so that the letters themselves
can be easily recalled
Write words repeatedly until the hand and mind “memorize” them
Memorize words by associating various forms (noun and verb) of a word
Group words that have similar spellings or meanings
Group associated vocabulary that can be used in the same situation
Gauge a deeper understanding of how the alphabet is arranged, by looking
at various words
Pick out synonyms and antonyms and memorize them as groups
Look at the words repeatedly to create a mental image of them
Memorize words by associating them with other words
Memorize unknown words and their meanings using repetition; use a pen
and paper to check the efficacy of recall
Memorize idioms or phrases that include target words
Make puns when the pronunciation of the target words are similar to
Japanese words
Write words from English to Japanese and vice versa, repeatedly
Classify verbs into intransitive and transitive
Write the words with pronouncing them
Group the verb patterns
Underline the new and unknown words
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
The above procedures were repeated 15 times so that each participant went through
each list, including the two 10-item lists and the 20-item list for each word type. In the
first ten sessions, the participants received the 10-item lists, and in the last five sessions,
they received the 20-item lists. In the first session, they received the 10-item synonym
list followed by the antonym, categorical, thematic, and unrelated word lists. In the sixth
to tenth sessions, the above order was repeated. In the eleventh to fifteenth sessions, the
participants received the 20-item synonym lists followed by the antonym, categorical,
thematic, and unrelated word lists.
The time allocation for the testing session was two minutes for the 10-item tests and
four minutes for the 20-item tests. In test scoring, answers were regarded as correct as
long as the meaning was correct, even when the word class was incorrect; this was
because full control had not been set with regard to the word classes in the different
vocabulary lists.
After all of the sessions were completed, the participants took Horino and Ichikawa’s
questionnaire (1997) to report the vocabulary learning strategies that they had used during the learning sessions. The questionnaire appears above in Table 1.
Results and Discussion
Because this study was conducted over a long duration of time, quite a few participants
missed some of the tests for various reasons. Participants who could not complete all the
experiment phases were excluded from the analysis; therefore, the final number of
participants was 46 (20 first-year students, 13 sophomores, and 13 juniors).
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Hoshino
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
Q5
Q6
Q7
Q8
Q9 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17
1st cluster
3rd cluster
2nd cluster
4th cluster
Figure 2. The Average Scores of Each Cluster from the Questionnaire
Cluster Analysis
First, the participants were classified according to how they learned or memorized the
vocabulary in this study. This classification was assigned based on their responses to
Horino and Ichikawa’s (1997) questionnaire. The results of the cluster analysis revealed
the four clusters and the average scores of each question as shown in Figure 2.
Cluster 1: Repeating Cluster (n = 11). This cluster was far more likely than the others to
score highly on Q2 (write the words many times until both the hand and mind are familiar
with them and memorize them), Q10 (memorize the unknown words and their meanings
repeatedly by using pen and paper to check the efficacy of recall). Further, this cluster
scored significantly higher than Clusters 3 and 4 on Q13 (write the target words from
English to Japanese and from Japanese to English repeatedly) and than Clusters 2 and 3 on
Q15 (write the words while pronouncing them). They tended to spend their time writing or
memorizing words repeatedly; hence, this cluster was named the repeating cluster.
Cluster 2: Grouping Cluster (n = 12). The participants in this cluster rated Q7 (look at
synonyms and antonyms and memorize them as groups) significantly higher than the
other three clusters. Moreover, they were also far more likely to rate Q5 (group associated vocabulary which can be used in the same situation) and Q16 (group the verb patterns)
highly than were Clusters 3 and 4. This cluster was named the grouping cluster.
Cluster 3: Without Writing Cluster (n = 11). This cluster’s specific distinctiveness can be
revealed by looking at which items they rated lower, rather than higher. For example, this
cluster rated Q15 (write words while pronouncing them) significantly lower than the
other three clusters and also rated Q2 (write words repeatedly until my hand and mind
‘memorize’ them), Q13 (repeatedly write the target words from English to Japanese and
from Japanese to English), and Q16 (group the verb patterns) lower than Clusters 1 and
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2. From these results, we can see that the participants in this cluster tended to memorize
words without writing them.
Cluster 4: Pronunciation Cluster (n = 12). It seems that this cluster did not have as clearly
defined learning strategy tendencies when compared with the other clusters: there was no
item that this cluster rated significantly higher or lower than the other three clusters did.
However, this cluster did rate Q12 (make puns when the pronunciation of the target
words are similar to Japanese words) and Q15 (write and pronounce words at the same
time) higher than Clusters 1 and 2. Therefore, it is assumed that students in this cluster
focused on pronunciation as their predominant learning strategy.
Descriptive Statistics and Reliability
Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics of the 10-item and 20-item tests. With each type
of vocabulary list, the 10-item tests were conducted twice. Table 2 presents the average
scores of each test. As Table 2 shows, ceiling effects exist in most of the cases in the
10-item tests because the scores of the mean plus one standard deviation exceed the full
score, which is 10. On the other hand, except for Clusters 3 and 4 in the categorical list,
no such effect appeared in the data from the 20-item tests. Therefore, in the following
analyses, only the data from the 20-item tests are used.
To assess reliability, Cronbach’s α was calculated for each test. The results for the
20-item test for synonym pairs were as follows: α = .89; antonym pairs: α = .91; categorical pairs: α = .90; thematic pairs: α = .86; and arbitrary pairs: α = .91. Overall, it can be
said that these tests have sufficient reliability.
The Effects of the Word Lists
In order to investigate which types of vocabulary lists are more effective than others and
whether the efficacy of lists varies according to the students’ use of vocabulary learning
strategies, a 4 (clusters) × 5 (types of vocabulary lists) two-way ANOVA was conducted.
The main effect of vocabulary lists was significant, F (3.57, 149.71) = 7.06, p = .00,
η2 = .28; however, there was no significant interaction, F (10.694, 149.714) = 0.91,
p = .53, η2 = .09 or main effect of cluster, F (3, 42) = 1.26, p = .30, η2 = .03. From these
results, it was shown that learning style did not determine which type of list the participants
learned the best. The effect of lists is similar across learning styles. It is surprising that
Cluster 2 demonstrated tendencies similar to the others, because the strategy of grouping
words was assumed to be greatly affected by the types of word list used. Potential reasons
for this could be that the effects of word lists are stronger than the individual difference of
strategy and that the influence of word lists on L2 vocabulary learning is universal.
The results of Tukey’s multiple comparison for types of word lists indicated that
students memorized categorical words far more effectively than the other four types of
words; there was no other significant difference, which indicates that presenting words
in categorical lists is a more effective way for L2 learners to memorize vocabulary than
presenting them in other kinds of lists. These results did not match the past studies that
used categorical words (e.g. Tinkham, 1993; Waring, 1997). Why might this be so? First,
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Table 2. Descriptive Statistics
10-item tests
Synonym
Cluster 1
Cluster 2
Cluster 3
Cluster 4
Total
Antonym
Cluster 1
Cluster 2
Cluster 3
Cluster 4
Total
Categorical
Cluster 1
Cluster 2
Cluster 3
Cluster 4
Total
Thematic
Cluster 1
Cluster 2
Cluster 3
Cluster 4
Total
Unrelated
Cluster 1
Cluster 2
Cluster 3
Cluster 4
Total
20-item tests
M
SD
M
SD
8.50
9.04
8.67
8.55
8.70
2.16
1.39
1.51
2.31
1.82
11.09
14.58
13.58
15.45
13.70
5.79
4.83
4.19
5.03
5.07
7.64
8.88
8.63
7.59
8.21
2.35
1.33
1.35
2.13
1.86
11.55
11.25
12.17
12.91
11.96
6.67
5.94
5.29
5.84
5.78
9.27
9.42
8.67
8.45
8.96
0.88
0.67
1.50
2.33
1.48
15.09
14.75
16.08
17.73
15.89
3.63
5.19
5.28
3.80
4.58
8.64
9.46
8.25
8.59
8.74
2.75
0.62
2.57
1.43
2.01
12.18
12.75
12.50
15.63
13.24
5.65
4.81
5.18
3.88
4.95
8.32
8.08
7.42
7.32
7.78
1.83
2.41
2.83
3.09
2.54
12.09
13.92
10.67
15.73
13.07
4.94
5.33
6.02
4.92
5.51
Note. The maximum score was 10 for the 10-item tests and 20 for the 20-item tests.
a comparison between the synonym and categorical lists seems to indicate that the synonym lists require less memory load in that the learners only need to memorize one
Japanese translation word for every two synonymic English target words (in total, three
words), whereas for categorical pairs, they have to memorize two Japanese words for
every two English words (in total, four words). However, according to Craik and
Lockhart’s (1972) depth of processing hypothesis, forming association leads to a higher
retention rate because it involves a deeper processing level. Therefore, it can be assumed
that the participants in this study formed a relationship between the two Japanese translation words in the categorical lists, which made these words more memorable.
As for antonym pairs, they share too many of the same features according to de Groot’s
(1992) distributed model; hence, it is possible that learners might confuse them. Perea and
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Rosa (2002) also showed that antonym pairs had significantly stronger relationships than
categorical pairs. Because of the strong connection between antonym pairs, learners easily
confuse antonyms. On the other hand, when the connection between the words was very
weak (e.g. the arbitrary pairs), it is almost impossible to establish a relationship between the
word pairs, and as a result, learners have to memorize word by word. Therefore, remembering arbitrary pairs requires far more memory load than remembering categorical pairs.
One aspect that has yet to be addressed is why the thematic pairs were harder to
memorize than the categorical pairs, despite the fact that these pairs were in the same
range of relatedness. This study fails to provide a reason for this, but one possibility is
that words that share the same category function as useful memory triggers for the other
word in the pair. This may be because they share more features than thematic words. To
integrate the results, if the features of two words overlap too much (as is the case with
antonyms), then cross-interference is likely to occur, whereas if the features of two words
share smaller features (i.e. thematic words), then it is likely that one word will not function as a memory trigger for the other words. Categorical pairs share a common semantic
field (e.g. insect for moth and wasp, disease for asthma and diabetes in the example in
Figure 1), but they are not completely alike. Therefore, it seems possible that moderate
overlap may facilitate vocabulary learning.
Conclusion
This study revealed that categorical lists are a more effective type of list for L2 vocabulary learning than other lists, regardless of the individual student’s learning style. This
conclusion does not support the findings of Tinkham (1993, 1997) and Waring (1997),
but it does support Crow and Quigley (1985), who conducted their study in a classroom
situation. Hence, it seems clear that the experiment method may have a significant effect
on the results of this type of study.
Within a classroom setting, this study makes it clear that presenting new vocabulary
in categorical lists promotes vocabulary learning. Categorical lists also offer other
advantages over unrelated lists in that they help learners acquire a broader and deeper
vocabulary at the same time. Association is one of the aspects of vocabulary knowledge
(Nation, 2001), and thus, if learners memorize words in lists where the target words are
related, they can increase not only their knowledge of the form-meaning relationship,
but also their knowledge of association. Therefore, learning from related word lists
rather than from unrelated lists should be encouraged. Further research should conduct
delayed tests as well as immediate tests, and a deeper investigation into the effect of
words is recommended.
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