‘There several pieces of research showing the negative effect of teaching several unknown words at the same time that are members of a lexical set. Learning several unknown words in such sets made learning 50–100 per cent more difficult.’
Paul Nation and Peter Yongqi in “Focus on Vocabulary”, quoted in a review of the book in the November edition of EL Gazette (also home to two of my articles, should anyone be interested…).
Bit of a counterintuitive shocker, that one, if true. Also in the review by Melanie Butler:
“Should translation be used in teaching vocabulary? The research says yes. Should dictionaries be used in reading? The research says yes. ”
Hmmmmm, might break the habit of a lifetime and ponder this one a while before making a comment, but a 5 minute google search (the font of all wisdom, if only Buddha had had google he could’ve found enlightenment in seconds) tells me that Ms Butler is quite fond of breaking TEFL taboos– not that in any way means that she and Mr Nation are wrong…
Apart from me banging on again about paying an interview fee for the pleasure of being considered as someone a CELTA course provider will take 1000 quid off, that’s about it for interest in last month’s EL Gazette- please write to them as advertised and suggest something better you could write about.
TEFLtastic 
Well I’m glad I caught this before posting about what I do when I find the book instructing me to teach a little box full of random words!
But:
“Learning several unknown words in such sets made learning 50–100 per cent more difficult.” … than what? Learning them without sets? Learning one a day?
Probably a bit unfair of me to come along with a CELTA and be critical of real research but that’s how I am, I guess. I will go ahead and post anyway, I think (that’s also just how I am) but if you have access to that article, I’d be curious as to what he is comparing it to.
I was just thinking the same thing- I can’t possibly judge the value of his research without having seen how the experiment was set up, but I will almost certainly not find the time and patience to read such an academic article even if it was right in front of me…
I’m guessing that the idea was that if you learn 5 new personality words at the same time you will only remember that they are personality words and get them mixed up, whereas if you learn words that are connected by being in the same graded reader story but are otherwise dissimilar you are more likely to retain them- which is an interesting idea, even if not his idea!
Will ponder over my turkey and sushi during the Xmas break.
And apologies if the link to EL Gazette doesn’t work for anyone- although I have worked for them it isn’t a plot to get money out of you, honest!
Hm. That is interesting.
I was too impatient to read all those words on the first page (it’s like a whole paragraph!) – I just saw something stopping me the first time and gave up. In fact it looks like a trial membership is free!
Alex, you’re making me look stupid … or I may be doing that myself!
Okay, so now I’ve read the review at least, which I suppose I should have done before commenting the first time. The review doesn’t really touch on my question of course but it could very logically fit your suggestion.
I’m going to get over my empirical concerns and get on with my post :)
Didn’t they pay you for your last article? :)