Teaching New Vocabulary to Iranian Young FL Learners: Using Two Methods Total Physical Response and Keyword Method
Author:
Abstract
Keywords
Abstract
Early language learning for children is increasingly common, and the majority of parents and the public do not see it as superfluous or overburdening children. Moreover, teaching a foreign language to very young children has been an increasingly dominant trend in most globalized societies. While there is abundant literature that supports teaching a foreign language at an early age through language immersion programs, little is known about the efficiency of strategies used to explicitly teach new vocabulary words in a foreign language to young learners. This empirical investigation aimed to assess and compare the efficiency of two mnemonics that have been traditionally used to explicitly teach new foreign language words: the Keyword Method (KWM) and the Total Physical Response (TPR). Results indicate that the KWM is more effective than TPR in teaching new vocabulary words in a foreign language to early elementary school children.