The Effect of Cognates on vocabulary retention of Iranian bilingual EFL Students

Vocabulary is one of the most important tools in second language learning process. It is important to know a good range of vocabulary in order to have good reading comprehension in a foreign language. In Addition, it is important to know strategies such as cognates, to have a better vocabulary retention. For that reason, when people do not know a high range of vocabulary in the second language, or when people do not know the strategies (cognates), they face a problem to vocabulary retention. This fact encouraged the researcher to give implicit instruction on such strategies and on the words that are similar between languages and have the same meaning. The experimental group (n= 35) received cognate method as the treatment, whereas the control group (n= 35) received non-cognate method as the treatment. This study used three instruments, one works as a cognate test, a vocabulary pretest,and a vocabulary posttest. The data from this study indicated that students in experimental group (bilingual) significantly outperformed the students in control group in vocabulary learning.

Keywords:

Cognate , Strategy , Bilingual