The comparative effects of presenting new words in semantically related sets vs. semantically unrelated sets on the receptive acquisition of L2 vocabulary items

This study investigates the comparative effects of presenting the new vocabulary items to students in
semantically related groups vs. semantically unrelated groups on vocabulary receptive acquisition in. Two
groups of participants studying at the Iran Language Institute (ILI), a well-known second language school, in
Isfahan, Iran, were presented twenty new vocabulary items thorough short reading texts, one group in
semantically related sets and the other group in semantically unrelated sets. The results of the study indicate
that the group which was taught the semantically unrelated sets of words outperformed the group which
received semantically related sets of words in the post-test. The findings of this study provide evidence that
presenting new words to students in semantically related sets may hinder receptive vocabulary acquisition due
to interference of similar words with each other. Learners have to discriminate between the properties of the
similar words and this can impede their learning and retention.