Teaching, learning and acquisition of vocabulary: a case study on false friends

Abstract

Vocabulary issues have never played an essential role within teaching until the arrival of the 1980s, becoming a matter of discussion in the educational field due to the different methods employed for its development. In addition, nowadays, some aspects such as the phenomenon of false friends do not receive as much attention as they should when learning English as a foreign language. Therefore, the purpose of this study is twofold: first, it aims at exhibiting the effectiveness of two techniques used for teaching false friend and second, it also focuses on highlighting those exercises and false friends which caused extra difficulty and determining the reasons why it happens. 23 highschool students in their last year of secondary education were exposed to two different teaching techniques in order to determine their effectiveness. Group A was exposed to a much more traditional technique by means of explicit input (using L1 equivalences) whilst Group B was exposed to a more modern teaching technique by means of games and quizzes (using synonyms and definitions instead of L1 equivalences). Materials included a PowerPoint presentation, several exercises to practise and a final test. Analysis of percentages revealed a) the modern technique was more effective than the traditional one and b) productive exercises (working with synonyms) caused more difficulty than receptive exercises. These results are discussed and suggestions for further research are given.