International Journal of Language and Applied Linguistics

2015; 1(1): 19-26

Published online March 15, 2015 (http://www.ijlal.ir)
ISSN: 2383-0514 (Online)
2015 Khate Sefid Press

A Comparison between the Effectiveness of

Mnemonic versus Non-mnemonic Strategies in
Foreign Language Learning Context
Fatemeh Ahmadniay Motlagh
Faculty of Foreign Languages and Linguistics, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
Email: English.f.ahmadnia@gmail.com

Naser Rashidi
Faculty of Foreign Languages and Linguistics, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
Email: nrashidi@rose.shirazu.ac.ir

Abstract This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness

on mnemonic strategies compared with non-mnemonic
strategies in foreign language learning. To end this aim, 40
Iranian female EFL learners took part in this study. They
were divided into two classes of experimental group, in
which mnemonic strategies were strongly used, and control
group, in which these strategies were not presented. With
regard to the statistical findings of paired sample t-test and
independent sample t-test as well as the reported scores of
pretest and posttest exams, it was concluded that
mnemonics strategies are helpful to facilitate learning
vocabularies compared with non-mnemonic strategies.
Mnemonic strategies are of great importance and can
effectively be used in the process of foreign language
learning, as well.

context.
With regard to the crucial importance of vocabulary,
this study will hopefully offer great insights in the field of
foreign language acquisition. It facilitates the learners'
ability to retain and acquire vocabulary longer;
furthermore, it eases teachers' responsibilities and causes
them to handle the class in a way to share more
responsibilities with the learners. It seems that the
findings of the present study will be effectively valuable
for the foreign language learners not only to learn and
ease the process of vocabulary acquisition, but also to
increase autonomous learning and peer working in the
EFL context.
How to retain vocabulary in long-term memory has
always been a matter of discussion in the field of foreign
language learning, since vocabulary is a fugacious part of
the language and will be forgotten soon. This study aimed
to make a comparison between executing mnemonic and
non-mnemonic strategies in the classroom context in
order to facilitate vocabulary learning process for the
EFL learners. So that, individuals can retain and acquire
new words more easily in the target language. In this
case, vocabulary as a fundamental communication
instrument needs to be taken into account more seriously
by EFL learners and teachers, respectively.
Accordingly, the present study addresses one major
research question:
Are mnemonic strategies more effective in comparison
with non-mnemonic strategies in vocabulary acquisition?
In this case, the following null hypothesis was
considered:
There is no relationship between teaching mnemonic
strategies and learning vocabularies in foreign language
learning.

Index Terms Mnemonic strategies, Vocabulary, Retention,

Vocabulary Learning

I. INTRODUCTION
Vocabulary is of paramount importance in the process
learning a foreign language. Vocabulary knowledge plays
an important role in the process of transferring the
meaning. Through vocabulary an individual is more or
less capable of making him/herself understood. That is
why vocabulary is regarded as a fundamental
communication instrument, as well. Mnemonic strategies
have been known an effective procedure to acquire and
retain vocabulary in foreign language learning. However,
few studies have been done to enhance the effectiveness
of mnemonic strategies compared with non-mnemonic
strategies in foreign language learning. It seems that more
research needs to be conducted in this field in Iran
Received March 6, 2015;

Accepted March 13, 2015

2015 Khate Sefid Press

19

International Journal of Language and Applied Linguistics

2015; 1(1): 19-26
Published online March 15, 2015 (http://www.ijlal.ir)
ISSN: 2383-0514 (Online)
2015 Khate Sefid Press

II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE

All learning strategies, containing vocabulary learning,

empower the learners to take more control of their
individual learning, in order to take more responsibilities
in their studies (Nation, 2001; Scharle & Szabo, 2000, as
cited in Celik & Toptas, 2010).
The word vocabulary has long alluded to word lists,
and vocabulary learning strategies have been the same as
techniques which help consign the lists to memory. As a
matter of fact, psychologists, linguistics, and language
teachers have examined vocabulary learning strategies,
during the past decades (Leveston, 1979, as cited in Celik
& Toptas, 2010). All in all, vocabulary learning strategies
are regarded as a sub group of common language learning
strategies, in the field of foreign language pedagogy
(Carter & McCarthy 1998; Oxford, 1990; Schmitt, 1997,
as cited in Celik & Toptas, 2010).
Prominent scholars have proposed several vocabulary
learning strategy taxonomies for language learning (Gu &
Johnson, 1996). Vocabulary learning strategies have also
been classified into three general groups of planning,
sources, and process (Nation, 2001, as cited in Celik &
Toptas, 2010).
Stoffer (1995) has considered nine categories by factor
analysis as follow:
1. Strategies involving authentic language use
2. Strategies used for self-motivation
3. Strategies used to organize words
4. Strategies used to create activities
5. Memory strategies
6. Strategies involving creative activities
7. Strategies involving physical action
8. Strategies used to overcome anxiety
9. Auditory strategies (As cited in Celik & Toptas,
2010, p. 63)

Vocabulary has always been of great importance in the

process of language acquisition. Vocabulary is known as
the area of the most fundamental constituents of language
learning. Foreign and second language learners are well
aware of the fact that limitations in their vocabulary
knowledge influence their communication skills since
lexical items convey the basic information; they wish to
conceive and manifest. (Nation, 2001, as cited in
Akbarian, 2010). In other words, vocabulary is
commonly regarded as the basic communication tool;
moreover, it is labeled as the most problematic area for
the EFL learners. The study of vocabulary has two
crucial stages. In the first stage, a subject is needed to
make an association between spoken foreign word and an
English word. The second stage gets benefit from a
mental image of interaction between the mental image of
the key word and the English translation (Atkinson &
Raugh, 1975).
Lots of factors including explicit and implicit
techniques individual and group based activities and
motivation and learning strategies, have made the area of
vocabulary learning process seriously problematic
(Coady, 1997b; Nation & Newton, 1997, as cited in Celik
& Toptas, 2010). It might be the reason that numerous
researchers, during the history of language learning have
been done to shed light on techniques that facilitate
second language (L2) vocabulary learning. These
researches have investigated various techniques such as:

The learning of word lists (e.g. Carter, 1987),

exposure to word glosses (e.g. Jacobs, Dufon, &
Cheng,1994; Yoshii, 2006; Webb, 2007); the key word
mnemonic technique (e.g. Pressley, Levin, & McDaniel,
1987; Wang, Thomas, & Ouellette, 1992; Sagarra &
Alba, 2006);

Learning words in a discourse context (e.g.

Nation & Coady, 1988; Nagy, 1997; Horst, Cobb, &
Meara, 1998; Laufer, 2003);

Reading followed by vocabulary exercises (e.g.

Paribakht & Wesche, 1997), as well as numerous others
(Hummel, 2010, p: 61-62).
Reading story books, involving in conversation being
exposed to rare words affect early vocabulary
development (Beals, 1997; Detemple & Snow, 2003;
Weizman & Snow 2001, as citied in Collins, 2010).
Novice readers such as young school-aged children have
some classroom-based contexts for vocabulary learning:
Explicit curricular instruction of targeted words (Beck,
McKeown, & Kucan, 2000; Beck , Perfetti, & McKeown,
1982); repetition of words in books used for reading
instruction (McKeown, Beck, Omanson, & Pople, 1985);
classroom discussions of words (Stahl & Fairbanks,
1986); and exposed towords from read aloud (Stahl et al.,
1991)and self-read texts (Jenkin, stein, & Wysocki, 1984;
Nagy, Anderson, & Herman, 1987) (Collins, 2010, p: 85).

A. Mnemonic Techniques in Education

General speaking, mnemonics are devices to abet
memory. The goal of using them is improving encoding
efficiently. They encode information by associating
between new and earlier learned information in long-term
memory (Johnson & Weber, 2006 as cited in Gibson,
2009).
This term is Greek. It is derived from a mythological
allegory.
Mnemosyne, the personification of memory, was
titaness, the mother with Zeus of the Muses. The ancient
Greeks believed they derived their power of public
speaking from Mnemosyne and her special relation with
the Muses (Hesiod, 1914; Yates, 1966). A mnemonic,
then, is any procedure or operation designed to improve
ones memory. (Scruggs, Mastorpieri, Berkeley, &
Marshak, 2010, p: 79).
Mnemonic techniques are applied expandedly in
education. There is conformation that use of mnemonics
for college students eases them to recall information.
20

International Journal of Language and Applied Linguistics

2015; 1(1): 19-26
Published online March 15, 2015 (http://www.ijlal.ir)
ISSN: 2383-0514 (Online)
2015 Khate Sefid Press

(Ross & Kerry, 1968; Brigges et al. 1970 as cited in

Keshavan, 2009).
Mnemonics also play an important role in errorless
learning, a technique by which learners are prevented
from making errors in the initial stages of learning
information, which was first applied to the fact of
rehabilitation of memory and its impairments by
Baddeley and Wilson (1994) (as cited in Anderson &
Craik, 2006).

mnemonics, in which each letter depicts a word such as

HOMES to represent the five great lakes (i.e., Huron,
Ontario, Michigan, Erica, and Superior). In the latter,
known as sentence mnemonics, the first letters of words
are used in the sentence to remember a list of
information. For example, my very educated mother just
served us nine pizza. To remember the order of planets
(e.g., Mercury, Venus, Earth, etc.) (Scruggs, et al. 2010).
C. Drawbacks of Mnemonics Techniques

B. Categorization of Mnemonics
Beyond any shadow of doubt, mnemonics have a vital
role in learning and vocabulary acquisition, yet
Yesavage, et al. (1989) hold the view that they suffer
from five limitations related to older adults:
Mnemonic techniques are too complicated for the
older adults to effectively utilize; (2) many studies rely
on visual images and visual image associations whereas
older people have difficulty producing and remembering
visual images; (3) high anxiety levels tend to depress test
performances and older adults are often resistant and/or
anxious about using new techniques and participation in
(new) text situation; (4) some findings suggest that
encoding processing may be more superficial in older
adults vis--vis their younger counterparts, which suggest
that any improvement in memory due to mnemonics may
be restricted to the short term; and (5) any treatment
effects may be negligible, which begs the question, Is
mnemonic training worth the time and resources
expended to realize minuscule improvements? (As cited
in Smith & Phillips Jr, 2001, p. 104).

Mnemonics are of different types. Some of which

benefit from visual cues and some use verbal cues.
Mnemonic strategies include the keyword method, the
peg word method and letter strategies.
The mnemonic keyword method is a conductive
technique to acquire vocabulary in foreign language
learning. (Wyra, Lawsen & Hungi, 2007). This method is
concrete, furthermore; it is acoustically similar proxy for
unacquainted data such as vocabulary words,
terminology, and etc. The data can be associated with the
to-be-remembered information later. The keyword
method is famous for its versatility, thats why it is used
in different areas of learning including English, foreignlanguage learning vocabulary, science and social studies.
(Scruggs & Mastropieri, 2000 as cited in Scruggs, et al.,
2010). There are some peculiar steps to implement the
keyword method as follows:
1. Write out the content to be remembered in a list
(e.g., Person Accomplishment, Vocabulary word
Definition).
2. Identify whether the terms, vocabulary words,
people, accomplishments, or other to-be-remembered
information is familiar or unfamiliar to the learner.
3. If unfamiliar, develop an acoustically similar, easily
pictured, concrete proxy or keyword for the term (e.g.,
rained=rain). If information is familiar, the familiar term
(e.g., trench) is the keyword.
4. Develop an interactive image or picture of the
keyword doing something with the to-be-remembered
information (e.g., frog sitting in the rain, sick soldiers in
the trenches).
5. Practice learning the keyword (for unfamiliar
information) and the interactive image or picture.
6. Practice learning the retrieval steps. When asked the
meaning of the word, think of the keyword, think of what
was happening in the picture with the keyword in it, and
retrieve the definition (Scruggs, et al., 2010, p: 80).
In order to remember numbers or not to forget ordered
information the peg word method is used. It has a
rhyming proxy for a number. For example, one is bun,
two is shoe, and three is tree. It can be accompanied by
keywords when new terms are connected to numbers
(Scruggs, et al., 2010).
The most common mnemonic is letter strategies. It
includes acronyms and acrostics. The former is first-letter

D.
Previous Investigations on Vocabulary and
Mnemonic Strategies
Over the years researchers have begun working on
vocabulary learning, and have done some investigations
in this area. Some of these investigations are presented in
the following.
Anderson and Craik (2006) studied healthy younger
and older adults engaged in errorless or errorful learning
by using a process dissociation procedure which provided
separate estimates of explicit recollection and implicit
familiarity within-subjects and within-task, as well. They
found an age-related decrement in recollection, but ageinvariance in familiarity. They came to the point that in
the young adults, errorless learning decreased the
misleading familiarity of prior errors, but the advantage
was offset by the non-elaborative nature of the errorless
learning situation that also decreased recollection. In the
older adults, who were less capable to oppose familiarity
based errors due to their lower recollection, errorless
learning only decreased the misleading influence of
previous errors.
Collins (2010) investigated the impact of rich
explanation, baseline vocabulary, and home reading
practices on English language learning preschoolers
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International Journal of Language and Applied Linguistics

2015; 1(1): 19-26
Published online March 15, 2015 (http://www.ijlal.ir)
ISSN: 2383-0514 (Online)
2015 Khate Sefid Press

complicated vocabulary learning from storybook reading.

In the research 80 typically developing preschoolers were
pretested in L1 and L2 receptive vocabulary were
assigned to experimental or control groups. 8 books were
chosen and paired. Experimental participants heard books
read three times over a 3-week period with enough
explanations of target vocabulary. Controls heard stories
read without explanations. Parents filled questionnaires
about the frequency and content of home reading
practices as well as their language. Findings of the study
had valuable implications for L2 vocabulary acquisition
in ELL preschoolers.
Ahmadi Safa and Hamzavi (2013) studied the effect of
using mnemonic key word method of vocabulary
instruction on the learning and retention of vocabulary
over long term in EFL context. To this aim 5th grade
primary school students were chosen randomly as
experimental group who received vocabulary instruction
using mnemonic key word method, and control groups
who received classic memorization based instruction of
the same vocabulary items. Both groups took three
posttests a day, two weeks, and a month after the last
treatment session. The findings of their study underscore
the influence of the establishment of mental links and
images for the vocabulary learning and retention of
beginner level EFL learners. They also concluded that
mnemonic devices like key word method should be given
enough attention by EFL material developers and
practitioners since they are effective strategy for
vocabulary teaching, learning and long term retention
peculiarly for the beginner EFL/ ESL learners.
Lots of studies have been conducted in the field of
vocabulary learning; however, it seems that more
research is needed to be conducted in order to evaluate
the effectiveness of mnemonic strategies compared with
non-mnemonic strategies.

pronunciation, conversation, word power, snap shot and

grammar focus. Four units of the book were taught. In
addition to the pretest and posttest, students had four
exams. After the first unit they had Quiz 1. Having taught
the second unit they had Midterm exam on units one and
two. When the third unit was over, they had Quiz 2 on
unit three. Eventually, they had their Final exam on unit
one to four at the end of the term. The pretest and posttest
activities were hold before Quiz one and the final exam,
respectively. It is worth to say that all the students in all
levels at the institute have to take part in Quiz 1,
Midterm, Quiz 2, and Final exam, since they are
inevitable parts of the educational program of the
institute.
C. Procedure
Participants were divided into two separated groups;
named Class A and Class B. The study intended to
compare the effect of instruction of mnemonic strategies
on EFL learners with non-mnemonic strategies and if
these strategies retain and facilitate new vocabularies in
long-term memory. Class A was regarded as an
experimental group, in which mnemonic strategies were
strongly used, whereas class B was the control one.
Mnemonic strategies were not taught in this class and the
students used previous vocabulary teaching methods such
as learning new words in the context, using synonyms
and antonyms, etc.
The teacher was well aware of mnemonic strategies
and was capable enough to make the point clear for the
learners. She explained the mnemonic strategies
inductively by preparing some general examples referring
to a list of new words, for example; UNESCO stands for
United Nations, Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization. As an example in order to teach the order
of adjectives before the noun to Iranian EFL learners
teachers can use the abbreviation form of shekare ma"
/ekre m/ in which each letter stands for: "shomare
/omreh/ keifiyat /keifijt/ andaze /ndzeh/ rang
/rn / melliyat /mellijt/ esme sefat saz /esme seft
sz /".So the students can see the order of Numbers,
Quality or material, Size, Color and Nation or origin
before the Noun. (e.g., a beautiful tall young American
girl). Having made the point clear for the learners and
letting them get familiar with the knowledge of
mnemonic strategies, the teacher had the duty of helping
them to create a kind of mnemonic word. If they shape it
themselves they are more capable of remembering sooner
and can retain it. Students interest and motivation is also
increased. The teacher wanted the students to work on
new vocabularies in advance and try to find and create a
kind of word as a mnemonic before entering the
classroom. They had done the task at home. Later the
students were divided into different groups in order to
discuss and facilitate group work activities. By
cooperation and discussing their mnemonics, they came

III. METHOD
A. Participants
To gather the required data, 40 Iranian EFL learners
participated in this study. The study was done in Setareh
English Language Institute in Shiraz, Fars province, Iran.
Participants were Persian native speakers, learning
English as a foreign language. They were female and
were selected randomly, based on convenience sampling.
Learners were at the intermediate level and most of them
were between 16-19.
B. Materials
The materials were Interchange books, third edition,
by Jack C. Richards, with Jonathan Hull and Susan
Proctor. Each unit is divided into 12 separated parts
including listening activities, speaking activities, reading
activities and writing activities. These parts are related to
22

International Journal of Language and Applied Linguistics

2015; 1(1): 19-26
Published online March 15, 2015 (http://www.ijlal.ir)
ISSN: 2383-0514 (Online)
2015 Khate Sefid Press

25, which illustrate an improvement in students

achievement, so teaching has been effective (Table 2).

up with a conclusion. Autonomous learning was

facilitated, as well. In every step, the teacher assisted
them. Whenever they could not afford designing
mnemonics, the teacher gave them a hint or provided
them with a suggestion for new mnemonics related to the
new vocabularies, as the last resort. The teacher utilized
some mnemonic strategies including mnemonic keyword
method and letter strategies. As mentioned earlier,
students were supposed to take part in four exams
including Quiz 1, Midterm, Quiz 2, and Final exam, in
addition to the pretest and posttest activity. At the end of
the term the effectiveness of using mnemonic strategies
was checked by investigating and making logical
comparisons between performances of the two groups in
pretest and posttest exams.
In order to analyze the data, the teacher provided the
learners of both classes with a pretest before teaching the
mnemonic strategies to understand their current level of
knowledge, later a posttest activity was provided to see if
using mnemonic strategies had been fruitful. The null
hypothesis was that there was no relationship between
teaching mnemonic strategies and learning vocabularies
in the foreign language learning. The information was
given to the computers to be calculated by SPSS
(Statistical Package for Social Sciences). Paired sample ttest and independent sample t-test were regarded as
means to do the statistical analysis to compare both
groups and their performances. Certain attention was paid
to the average of the groups, and the one whose average
is higher. The posttest was expected to have a higher
average.

TABLE 1. PRE-TEST AND POST-TEST SCORES OF EXPERIMENTAL GROUP

Participants' Number
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

Pre-test scores (30)

15
20
16
12
14
20
25
18
17
19
16
19
17
11
15
19
26
17
18
18

Post-test scores (30)

27
28
24
19
21
28
28
28
23
27
28
27
25
18
22
27
29
27
24
26

TABLE 2. PAIRED SAMPLES STATISTICS EXPERIMENTAL GROUP

Pair 1

SD

Pretest

17.6000

20

3.63318

SEM
.81240

Posttest

25.3000

20

3.21346

.71855

TABLE 3. PAIRED SAMPLES CORRELATIONS EXPERIMENTAL GROUP

Pair 1

Pretest & Posttest

Sig.

20

.782

.000

To make a comparison between students scores of

pre-test and post-test paired sample t-test was conducted.
Based on the statistical description seen in table 4 level of
significance was .000 which is smaller than .05, so we
can reject the null hypothesis.

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

With respect to the overall performance of the
participating students of Setareh English Language
institute, the descriptive statistics in the mentioned tables
provide a general profile of their achievements. Generally
students of both classes nearly had the same ability, were
of the same age and level, respectively. Each class
included 20 students. Each exam was out of 30. It took a
period of 15 sessions between the both tests to be given
in each class.
Table 1 illustrates pre-test and post-test scores of
experimental group. Mnemonic strategies were strongly
used in this class. As it is illustrated, students have
received better scores in the post test activity.
The means and standard deviations of both groups
were also reported for easy comparison (Tables 2 and 6).
Throughout this research report the means, standard error
of the means and standard deviation were abbreviated as
M, SD, and SEM. N illustrates the number of the students
in each class. Correlations and level of significance for
each group were abbreviated as C and sig., too (Tables 3
and 7).
All in all, the results provided for the experimental
group, class A, show an increase in the mean from 17 to

TABLE 4. PAIRED SAMPLE T-TEST EXPERIMENTAL GROUP

Pair 1

Pretest - Posttest

df

Sig. (2-tailed)

-14.995

19

.000

Table 5 illustrates pre-test and post-test scores of

control group. .Mnemonic strategies were not used in
class B. The results of pre-test and post-test were
provided in the table.
Here again we face an increase in the mean of the
group from 15 to 22. Although mnemonic strategies were
not used, increasing of the mean indicates the fact that
previous teaching methods have been effective, too.
As discussed above, there was improvement in both
groups indicating the positive effect of teaching. With
regard to the data presented in table 9, we have compared
the post-test scores of the two mentioned groups to make
the point clearer. In order to describe statistics and t-test
results of both classes we conducted an independent
sample t-test. As it is provided in table 9 the level of
significance is .010, and is smaller than .05, so finally we
23

International Journal of Language and Applied Linguistics

2015; 1(1): 19-26
Published online March 15, 2015 (http://www.ijlal.ir)
ISSN: 2383-0514 (Online)
2015 Khate Sefid Press

can reject our null hypothesis. With regard to the findings

of the study both groups have experiences improvement,
although the experimental group has had more
advancement in the individual scores and the mean. A
reason for the improvement of the students' scores in the
control group might be the fact that these students had to
study and take part in in Quiz 1, Midterm, Quiz 2, and
Final exam. The experimental groups has had these
exams as well; however, they took the advantage of using
mnemonic strategies during their class session and the
mean of these students' scores is higher which justify this
fact.

aforementioned strategies facilitate EFL learners'

knowledge of vocabulary and encourage them to produce
and create suitable mnemonic strategies to acquire
vocabulary and retain it longer. This is in line with the
findings of Ahmadi Safa and Hamzavi (2013).
V. CONCLUSION
The current investigation was an attempt to explore
vocabulary acquisition and the effectiveness of
mnemonic strategies compared with non-mnemonic
strategies. 40 Iranian female EFL learners participated in
the study. The participants were randomly divided into
two classes. Class A, in which mnemonic strategies were
executed, was considered as the experimental group, and
Class B, was the control one. According to students'
reported scores on pretest and posttest, and based on the
statistical results of paired sample t-test and independent,
it was indicated that the aforementioned strategies
facilitate the process of vocabulary learning. They
encouraged peer working and led the learners to increase
their creativity and autonomous learning, respectively.
Taking the null hypothesis into account, the research
question was answered in the light of the findings of data
analysis of the present study.
Are mnemonic strategies more effective in comparison
with non-mnemonic strategies in vocabulary acquisition?
The results of the SPSS description, presented in tables
3, 7, and 9, rejected the null hypothesis. According to the
findings of the study, mnemonic strategies are more
effective, compared with non-mnemonic strategies in the
process of learning foreign language vocabulary.
Findings of the study are of great importance to EFL
learners in order to show the importance of mnemonic
strategies to acquire vocabulary faster and easier, and
longer, as well. They are of paramount importance for
teachers too, since they help them to find out the best
possible way of teaching vocabulary effectively. This
way, teachers can share more responsibilities with the
individuals and consequently autonomous learning and
peer working will be encouraged. As a result, individuals
will be less dependent on teachers, and can be more
creative, in the field of vocabulary acquisition in foreign
language learning.

TABLE 5. PRE-TEST AND POST-TEST SCORES OF CONTROL GROUP

Participants' Number
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

Pre-test scores (30)

11
13
13
20
20
13
14
18
17
11
10
14
12
21
19
14
13
19
16
12

Post-test scores (30)

22
23
15
27
25
26
19
23
21
22
21
24
14
28
24
27
18
24
20
23

TABLE 6. PAIRED SAMPLES STATISTICS CONTROL GROUP

Pair 1

SD

Pretest

15.0000

20

3.44887

SEM
.77119

Posttest

22.3000

20

3.75710

.84011

TABLE 7. PAIRED SAMPLES CORRELATIONS CONTROL GROUP

Pair 1

Pretest & Posttest

Sig.

20

.508

.022

TABLE 8. PAIRED SAMPLE T-TEST CONTROL GROUP

T
Pair 1

Pretest - Posttest

-9.106

df

Sig. (2-tailed)

19

.000

TABLE 9. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS AND T-TEST RESULTS COMBINED

Groups
Experimental

Control

N
20
20

M
25.3000
22.3000

SD
3.21346
3.75710

T
2.714

df
38

A. Limitations of the Study

S
.010

The insights of the present study seem to be beneficial

in the field of foreign language teaching/learning, and
they pave the way not only for learners, but also for the
teachers to facilitate autonomous learning. However, it
suffers from one major limitation which is related to the
sampling and participants. 40 participants took part in
this study. They were randomly chosen based on
convenience sampling; moreover, they were just female
learners. Actually, it was not possible to have male

The null hypothesis expressed the fact that there is no

relationship between teaching mnemonic strategies and
learning vocabulary in foreign language learning. We
reject it with regard to the findings based on SPSS, which
revealed the fact that mnemonic strategies can play an
important role in the realm of vocabulary learning. So it
is concluded that mnemonic strategies have been fruitful
and can be used greatly in foreign language learning. The
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International Journal of Language and Applied Linguistics

2015; 1(1): 19-26
Published online March 15, 2015 (http://www.ijlal.ir)
ISSN: 2383-0514 (Online)
2015 Khate Sefid Press

participants in the study, since the institute is not a

coeducational one.

REFERENCES
Ahmadi Safa, M., & Hamzavi, R. (2013). The Effect
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Anderson, N. D., & Craik, F.T.M. (2006). The
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mechanisms
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errorless
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Neuropsychologia, 44, 2806-2813.
Atkinson, R. C., & Raugh, M. R. (1975). An
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Celik, S., & Toptas, V. (2010). Vocabulary learning
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Gibson, H. D. (2009). Using mnemonics to increase
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Scruggs, T. E., Mastropieri, M. A. Berkeley, S. L., &
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Smith, M. C., & Phillips Jr, M. R. (2001). Age
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360-371.

B. Suggestions for Further Research

As mentioned earlier, this study provided some
interesting insights with regard to the process of
vocabulary acquisition; however, areas of investigation
for further studies include:
1. Conducting the research in a broader scope.
2. Conducting the research to make a comparison
between the genders and evaluating their interest and
creativity towards using mnemonic strategies.
3. Investigating the effectiveness of mnemonic strategies
in other language skills, specifically reading
comprehension.
4. Investigating the influence of EFL learners' age on
mnemonic strategies

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International Journal of Language and Applied Linguistics

2015; 1(1): 19-26
Published online March 15, 2015 (http://www.ijlal.ir)
ISSN: 2383-0514 (Online)
2015 Khate Sefid Press

AUTHORS
Fatemeh Ahmadniay Motlagh is an
M. A. Holder of TEFL from
Department of Foreign Languages and
Linguistics of Shiraz University,
Shiraz, Iran. She is currently teaching
English courses at Hafez Higher
Educational Institute, Shiraz Art
Institute of Higher Education, and Setareh English
Language institute in Shiraz, Iran. Her areas of interest
are
second/foreign
language
acquisition,
psycholinguistics, research methods and material
development.

Nasser Rashidi, Ph.D., is presently

the academic member of the
Department of Foreign Languages and
Linguistics of Shiraz University,
Shiraz, Iran. His area of research is
TEFL including language teaching
and testing, discourse analysis. His
recent publications include Practical
Contrastive Analysis of English and Persian with Special
Emphasis on Discourse with L. Yarmohammadi (2014).

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