Effectiveness of writing new words multiple times with their Turkish meanings technique for vocabulary retention in teaching English as a foreign language context with reference to teachers' reflections on this technique

Abstract

This study aims at investigating the relation between word retention and a teaching practice - writing target words multiple times with their Turkish meanings in 8th grade English teaching context with reference to perceptions of state schools teachers about this vocabulary teaching practice. A quasi experimental design was employed to find any relations, if any, between the treatment sessions and vocabulary retention. Students were divided into experimental and control groups according to their first term English grades. While experimental group was required to write target words multiple times with their meanings, control group was required to find the meanings themselves, do the vocabulary exercises in the book and read the reading passages which include target words in order to memorize them. After three different treatment sessions, a vocabulary quiz was applied to both classes as a post test. It was analyzed quantitatively. The data of the quiz was analyzed by independent t- test on SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) 16.0. The findings have revealed that the common vocabulary teaching practice used is not very effective for long time vocabulary retention. Instead, students did not focus their attention wholly on the meanings, rather they focused on the writing session as they stated to the researcher in the feedback sessions after the treatment. Also, a teacher questionnaire was applied to 400 English teachers to gain an insight about their perceptions about the technique.