THE EFFECTS OF TEACHING WORD ROOTS ON THE LONG TERM RETENTION OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY

Vocabulary learning experience seems to be
the most time consuming aspect of language
learning. Learners exert considerable energy
on words trying to memorize isolate words and
sets of exam words which are, in most cases,
bound to be forgotten. There are various
learning strategies adopted by learners of
English to memorize and retain words.
Dissecting words into word parts is among
these although there are few studies dwelling
on the benefits of teaching word roots. Those
few studies highlight the effectiveness of
teaching and learning vocabulary through
Latin and Greek roots. However, they lack any
answers as to how much this strategy works in
terms of retention in the long run. The aim of
this study is to show the impact of teaching
word roots both on learners’ attitudes and the
long term retention of newly learnt lexical
items. A quantitatively supported descriptive
study was administered throughout the study.