Synthesis of five articles

My research question is what the most effective way of learning English vocabulary in the junior high school. I found three common issues by reading five articles. All articles mention or imply that the vocabulary is important in language learning because people learn language based on their vocabulary and it is necessary as premises.  

              The first common issue is that association concerning English words is helpful to learn English vocabulary. Ebubekur B. (2017) investigated the effect of phonetic association and said “ the learners find associations in their mother tongues that would remind them of the meanings and forms of the words in foreign languages.” Not only phonetic association, he considers that it is necessary to learn word pairs, the underlying meaning of a word, and word families instead of words. Then, students will associate their mother tongues or each English words. Xingxing Ma and Butsakorn Yodkamlue（2019）who study the effects of a self-developed mobile app on the vocabulary learning and retention designed mobile-apps followed by phonetic symbol, word class, and a simple Chinese definition which were presented with pictures and audio files at the same time based on the studies of Ellis(1995), Nation, (1982), and Groot(2000). In addition, in Haifa H. Alghamdi（2018）’s article, EFL students use dictionaries on their mother tongue to know the definition of English words. From these mentions, it is important to associate English words with learner’s mother tongue, each English words, or images of them.

              Second, words are not stored in mental lexicon permanently from Ebubekur B. (2017) and Hiroya Tanaka, Suzanne M. Yonesaka, Yukie Ueno, Akio Ohnishi(2015). Therefore, Ebubekur suggests that learners associate not only main meanings but another meanings of words and Hiroya Tanaka, Suzanne M. Yonesaka, Yukie Ueno, and Akio Ohnishi studied about e-portfolio which an e-portfolio system that allows learners to record and save the target words they encounter online and suggested that learners recognize their metacognitive.           

Third, the vocabulary depth relates the ability of using language. Sarut Supasiraprapa(2019) says “the most common conceptualization is vocabulary depth as the degree to which L2 words are linked to related words in the mental lexicon, or L2 speakers’ ability to link an L2 word to and distinguish it from related words.” This article focused on the differences of the vocabulary depth between learners in the ESL environment and in the EFL environment. It is clear that learners who was in the ESL environment have deeper vocabulary depth, thus they perform well in language learning. Also, Tanaka, Suzanne M. Yonesaka, Yukie Ueno, and Akio Ohnishi say “learners need to know various aspects of words, or depth of vocabulary, in order to be able to use the language effectively.” Therefore, the vocabulary depth affects when English learners take tests or other performances.