A Morphological Approach via Commonly-used Roots to French Vocabulary Teaching: How to Help Taiwanese Students Memorize French Vocabulary

• Main Authors: Chiang, Wei-Chen, 蔣維珍
• Other Authors: Mo,Chien-Ching
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/40059575322218839236

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 語言研究所 === 96 === The purpose of the study is to investigate the different effects of the traditional definition-based teaching method and the morphological approach via commonly-used roots on Taiwanese French learners’ vocabulary acquisition and memorization. It is hoped that the results of the study can provide an alternative to traditional vocabulary teaching in French. First of all, an on-line questionnaire which investigated the teaching situation of French vocabulary in Northern Taiwan was administered. Then, the subjects in this study involve 115 nonnative French majors at National Central University and Fu Jen University, including 57 seniors and 58 sophomores. The seniors were divided into experimental and the control groups, while the sophomores were also divided into experimental and the control groups. The experimental groups received the morphological approach via commonly-used roots, and the control groups received the traditional definition-based teaching method. In the beginning, the experimental and control groups took the same French vocabulary pre-test to examine their vocabulary size. Then, after receiving different instruction, the subjects were immediately asked to take post-test 1, which investigated their short-term memory for words. Two weeks later, post-test 2 was conducted to check the subjects’ long-term memory for words. The results of the study reveal that the experimental groups have better short-term memory for words and long-term memory for words than the control groups, regardless of the subjects’ language proficiency. With regard to the effect of learning new words, both the experimental groups and the control groups made progress after receiving the instruction. After two weeks, the experimental groups showed no regression on the vocabulary post-test. Furthermore, the experimental groups performed better than the control groups on both word spelling and word meaning, and in general, the subjects’ short-term memory for words was correlated with their long-term memory for words.