A peg system in vocabulary learning for ESP students

Abstract

Статья посвящена проблеме обучения лексике студентов неязыковых вузов. Предлагается новая методика усвоения лексики. The author conducted an experiment among students taking English for Science and Technology to find out whether a Peg system could or not increase students' resources of professional words, and impact on their learning achievements. In the frame of this research question the presenter raised hypotheses: H0 — Applying the Peg system as a mnemonics for presenting English new words will have a negative impact on the quality of educational processes. H1- Applying the Peg system as a mnemonics for presenting English new words will have a positive impact on the quality of educational processes. In this experiment 100 new words were learned by 10 words in 10 lessons respectively. Firstly, English level knowledge of the test and control groups had been compared before the Peg system was applied in the lessons. Students'English knowledge level was almost the same. Then short and long-term memory quizzes were taken by students to compare how many words were stored out of 100 in a long run. The results revealed that first two hypotheses were accepted showing that the Peg system was effective. The presenter checked how the Peg system influenced the students' learning achievements analyzing outcomes of a pretest and a posttest. She applied some forms of descriptive analyses of data (SPSS). Findings stated that the Peg system was productive for vocabulary and influential for learners' study. In conclusion, the Peg system is suitable for teaching new words related to the fields of Science, Technology and Engineering as it leads students to memorize new words in unusual fun images that last in their memory and help to recall words.