Effects Of Semantic Elaboration And Rote Rehearsal On Task-based Vocabulary Acquisition With Corpora

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of semantic elaboration and rote rehearsal on vocabulary acquisition with authentic corpora and to develop a task-based vocabulary-learning model by Educational Action Research.Based on the Atkinson-Shiffrin model (1968) - the most widely accepted cognitive psychology theory, and the transfer appropriate processing (TAP) theory (Morris et al,. 1977) of human memory, which maintains that recollection depends upon the nature of tasks to be performed at study and on tests, and with the "type of processing-resource allocation" (TOPRA) model for the relationship between semantic vs. structural processing and lexical learning (Barcroft, 2002), the research questions of this study were specified as the following: Under which condition (elaborative rehearsal vs. maintenance rehearsal)are EFL learners at the initial stage better able to learn new words? What are the differential effects of semantic elaboration and rote rehearsal in the task-based vocabulary learning model?Three experiments were designed to explore the above research questions. A total of 96 students of No.5 Middle School in Huian, Fujian, China, were assigned to one of the two learning conditions: rote rehearsal and semantic elaboration with comprehensive output.In Exp.â… , effects of semantic elaboration and rote rehearsal were investigated and the results were analyzed by One-way ANOVA. The result revealed that simple rehearsal (also as rote rehearsal) helped students learn orthography (word form) of new words in an immediate test, especially those students with learning disabilities, and participants under semantic elaboration with comprehensive output learning condition performed significantly better than those in rote rehearsal group in a delayed semantic recognition test. However, a negative effect was found in the immediate test of word form recall in a semantic elaboration condition. In Exp.â…¡, the effect of elaborative rehearsal was compared with rote rehearsal. The result indicated that participants who learned English words with authentic corpora adaptation under elaborative rehearsal condition performed significantly better than those who learned new words under merely rehearsal condition in a delayed test.The classroom research (Exp. â…¢) also indicated participants in a task-based vocabulary-learning model (involving semantic elaboration with comprehensive output and elaborative rehearsal) performed significantly better than those who memorized words under shallow maintenance rehearsal learning condition. The experimental results suggest that an approach combining both semantic elaboration and rehearsal is most advisable.