Vocabulary Learning Strategies: A Short Way to Long Term Retention

According to Oxford (1990), strategies are steps taken by students to enhance their own learning. This research attempted to investigate the impact of teaching vocabulary learning strategies on short-term and long-term retention of vocabulary items. The sample participants included 303 females randomly selected from one all-female governmental Pre-university school (PUC) in Iran. They were then divided into control and experimental groups and different proficiency levels. Researchers have generally equated the effect of instruction with its duration rather than its quality or intensity. The results obtained, through repeated measure ANOVA, revealed that strategy training could enhance long-term retention of vocabulary items significantly – the experimental group students outperformed the control group within the same period of instruction. Comparing different experimental proficiency groups, high proficiency level participants excelled their low and intermediate counterparts. Finally, from among different strategies “grouping” was proved to be an effective strategy for all proficiency level participants.