A Much-needed Boost to EFL Learners’ Vocabulary; The Role of Associative Learning

AbstractNobody can deny the crucial role of vocabulary in learning a language. It is through words that all four language learning skills can be presented. But if vocabulary is so important, how can it be learned? Which techniques can be employed to enlarge vocabulary? Are all of them advantageous to EFL classes? Different experts as well as textbook designers have suggested different techniques. One of them is the associative learning process. The present study is an attempt to discover the relationship between this kind of learning and enlarging Iranian EFL learners’ vocabulary. This study was conducted on both female and male fourth-graders at high schools in Mahmoud-abad, Mazandaran. The cluster sampling was applied to select the subjects and 100 students were chosen based on the average grade from the Diploma Final English Examination in Khordad 1389 (June-July 2010). They took part in a general English placement test and 60 students were chosen according to their performance. All the students in the experimental and control groups participated in a vocabulary pre-test as well. Both the subjects in the EG and CG received 12 sessions of vocabulary learning, while the experimental group went through associative learning with an emphasis on contiguity, similarity and contrast. Both groups took part in the post-test of the study. Then, the difference between the obtained means of the experimental and control groups was calculated through a t-test. Data analyses showed that the significant difference between the performances of the two groups was related to the impact of associative learning