The keyword method of foreign vocabulary learning: An investigation of its generalizability

Abstract

The keyword method is a 2-stage mnemonic technique for learning the meanings of vocabulary words. To apply the method, the learner forms an interactive image between the definition referent and the referent of a word that sounds like part of the vocabulary word to be learned. In 5 experiments, 395 college-age Ss were required to learn Latin vocabulary words under either keyword method instructions or no-strategy control instructions. The studies were conducted to test several proposals presented by R. C. Atkinson (see record 1975-30979-001 ) in a seminal article on the keyword method. It was found that (a) the method was equally effective for good and poor foreign vocabulary learners; (b) the method was effective for foreign vocabulary items associated with more than one English meaning; (c) for vocabulary items with easy-to-generate keywords, it made little difference whether the keywords were actually provided by the experimenter; and (d) providing keywords resulted in increased incidental spelling errors in words that keywords and corresponding foreign word syllables did not match exactly. (16 ref) (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)