Acquisition of French Polysemous Vocabularies: Schema-based Instruction versus Translation-based Instruction

Abstract

This study attempted the effectiveness of two types of vocabulary instruction (i.e. schema-based instruction (SBI) and translation-based instruction (TBI) on the acquisition of second language words. Inspired by intact group design, fourty- nine intermediate Iranian learners of French were divided into three groups; two experimental groups (SBI and TBI) and a control group. The experimental groups were given 30 minutes of instruction on the target words, namely the verb arriver and the preposition sur. In order to examine the effectiveness of the focused instructions, an acceptability judgment test and a production test were administered prior to instruction as the pre-tests, two days after the instruction the first post-test and two weeks after the instruction the second post-test were given. The results showed that SBI tended to be as effective as TBI for acceptability judgment test and drastically more influential for production test. This study suggests that schema-based techniques derived from cognitive semantics can serve as an extremely promising pedagogical devise in teaching L2 vocabularies.