(AW) Journal Summary

Name    : Safitri Dyah Utami

NIM       : 2201411058

Class      : 101-102

Journal Summary

Vocabulary Learning in a Second Language: Person, Task, Context and Strategies

Rote Rehearsal and Vocabulary Learning

When a person has learned many words in foreign language he/she will face a problem, that is memorize all of the words. Then the first and easiest strategy people pick up and use naturally is, simply, repeating new words until they can be recognized. There are four of the most interesting issues on word list learning will be introduced:

1.       Number of repetitions needed to remember a word list

Remembering word pairs is the aim, a surprising amount can be learned within a relatively short time (Thorndike, 1908; Webb, 1962), and not many repetitions are needed before the L2-L1 word pairs can be remembered. [-10-]

2.       The optimum number of words to be studied at one time

It depends on the difficulty level of the words on the list. Crothers and Suppes (1967), for example, examined list sizes ranging from 18 to 300 and discovered that when words were difficult, small list sizes were better, and that when words were easy, large sizes were more efficient. It was thus suggested that if a word list does not contain a lot of difficult words, lists of 100 or more words can be studied at one time.

3.       The timing for repetition

Almost all studies focusing on the pacing of repetition and recall of word lists arrived at the same conclusion: that forgetting mostly occurs immediately after initial encounter, and that the rate of forgetting slows down afterwards. Anderson and Jordan (1928) examined the number of words that could be recalled immediately after initial learning, 1 week, 3 weeks, and 8 weeks thereafter and discovered a learning rate of 66%, 48%, 39%, and 37% respectively. It was therefore suggested that students should start repeating newly learned words immediately after the first encounter. Spaced recall and repetition should follow afterwards at longer intervals.

4.       Repeating aloud vs. repeating silently

There is an empirical results in this studies that repeating words aloud helps retention far better than silent repetition. Seibert (1927) studied three conditions: studying aloud, studying aloud with written recall, and studying silently, and found that the first condition always produced better results than the other two. Then he studied about the time for relearning after a few weeks after that, and he found that learning aloud was more efficient.

It is worth noting that recent literature shows that individual differences play an important part in determining a person's memorization capacities (Miyake & Shah, 1999). This will mean, among other things, that vocabulary retention is very much a function of an individual's skillfulness in memory strategies. It also means that the ability to memorize and the preference for memorization are dependant upon the cultural background of the learner. With this in mind, let us turn to deeper strategies for vocabulary learning.

Gu, P. Y. (2003). Vocabulary Learning in a Second Language: Person, Task, Context and Strategies. TESL–EJ 7:2.