title: Limitations of the mnemonic-keyword method.
abstract: The effectiveness of the mnemonic-keyword method was investigated in 4 experiments in which participants were required to learn the 1st-language (L1, Spanish) equivalents of a list of 30 2nd-language words (L2, Latin). Experiments 1 (adolescents) and 2 (adults) were designed to assess whether the keyword method was more effective than the rote method; the researcher supplied the keyword, and the participants were allowed to pace themselves through the list. Experiments 3 (adolescents) and 4 (adults) were similar to Experiments 1 and 2 except that the participants were also supplied with a drawing that illustrated the relationship between the keyword and the L1 target word. All the experiments were performed with groups of participants in their classrooms (i.e., not in a laboratory context). In all experiments, the rote method was significantly more effective than was the keyword method.
authors.affiliation: Department of Basic Psychology,University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. pscampos@usc.es
authors.forename: Alfredo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Campos
authors.forename: María Angeles
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: González
authors.forename: Angeles
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Amor
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D019303:Multilingualism; D010153:Paired-Associate Learning; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011214:Practice, Psychological; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D014706:Verbal Learning; D014825:Vocabulary