An investigation into learning and consolidating mother tongue words in grade 6 in primary education

This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of two approaches to teaching unknown vocabulary. The study focused on presenting new vocabulary items and consolidating those by practising them at regular intervals. The first, as perceived to be traditional, was teaching vocabulary by means of giving definition of words and getting students to use those words in sentences while the other method involved exercises and repetition. Three groups of students were formed to constitute Control Group, Experiment Group I and Experiment Group n. The Control Group was given word definitions only while Experiment Group I was given word definitions and instructed to use these words in two sentences. Experiment Group II, on the other hand, was given word definitions and instructed to do some vocabulary exercises. Results from first pre-test, given to determine students' knowledge of new words, did not reveal any significant differences between groups. However, results from the last post-test indicated significant statistical difference between the Experiment Group II and the other two groups. The Experiment Group II were more successful, in terms of number of definitions they have learned, than the Control Group (p<.005) and the Experiment Group I (p<.010). The difference between the Control Group and the Experiment Group I was negligible (p<.975). This study concludes that vocabulary instruction through exercises can be more effective than the so-called traditional vocabulary instruction.