The Comparative Effect of Teaching Spelling through Mnemonics and Phonics on EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Achievement and Retention

The purpose of present study was to examine the comparative effect of teaching spelling through mnemonics and phonics on EFL learners' vocabulary achievement and retention. Sixty female students of a junior high school were chosen among one hundred elementary students. To ensure the homogeneity of the students, a Key English Test was administered to all one hundred students, and a teacher-made vocabulary test was piloted with 30 students with similar characteristics to the target participants .The sixty students were divided randomly into two experimental groups, each group contains thirty students, the students in experimental group one were instructed mnemonics and the other experimental group were instructed phonics. Before treatment the teacher-made vocabulary test was administered as a pre--test and after the treatment post--test was run two times, first for vocabulary achievement, and after two weeks for retention. The design was quasi experimental. The results of the RM ANOVA indicated that there was no significant difference between the effect of phonics and mnemonics on EFL learners' vocabulary achievement, nor was there any significant difference between the effect of the two treatments on their vocabulary retention. Index Terms--spelling, mnemonics, phonics, vocabulary achievement, vocabulary retention