The facilitative effect of the keyword mnemonic on L2 vocabulary retrieval practice

Keyword mnemonics and retrieval practice are two learning strategies that facilitate foreign language vocabulary learning. This study examined the combination of these strategies for learning English L2 vocabulary with a limited retrieval time. We recruited 110 Chinese college students studying English as a foreign language to investigate the effects of four learning strategies on the retention of English-Chinese word pairs: restudy, retrieval practice, imposed keyword mnemonic combined with retrieval practice, and induced keyword mnemonic combined with retrieval practice. The results revealed that when retrieval practice was constrained to two times, the final performance of the retrieval practice group did not exceed that of the restudy group; however, the combined keyword-retrieval group outperformed the restudy group, regardless of whether the keyword was imposed or induced. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in memory retention performance between the induced and imposed keyword-retrieval combinations. The findings suggest that when retrieval practice is constrained to two times, the keyword-retrieval strategy combination significantly enhances English L2 vocabulary learning compared to restudy or retrieval practice alone, and both the imposed and induced keyword mnemonics can strengthen its efficiency.