Effect of phonetic association on lexis learning in natural language context : A comparative study of English , French and Turkish words

Mother tongue acquisition starts with words and grammar acquired spontaneously by means of communication, while at school foreign language learning takes place based on grammar. Vocabulary learning is very often neglected or rather it turns into an individual activity. The present study, which is considered to be unique on its own, is to reveal the effect of phonetic association method within the context of natural languages on efficiency and retention of vocabulary teaching. To be more concise, this is to assess the rate of learning homonymous English and French words with Turkish as well as success rate of retention of the words learned. The sample of the study consists of 6th grade students learning English at 3 junior high schools and 9th grade students learning French at 3 high schools, which are socio-economically in good-state. These grades are the first years when students start to learn foreign languages systematically. A total of 70 respondents, 21 female and 14 male 6th graders and 19 female and 16 male 9th graders, participated in the study. Structured interview method was used in this research. A phonetic association test of 25 English and 25 French words homonymous with Turkish words was developed, and it was conducted on the groups in di fferent time zones: the rate of learning words was measured in the first week for four hours while in the second week the success rate of recalling the words was evaluated. Descriptive and content analysis were used to interpret and analyze the data. The results have suggested that those learning English were better than those learning French in learning vocabulary by means of phonetic association method and their rate of acquisition was higher while the rate of success of both groups increased in the second week compared to the first week. However, the rate of success of those learning English was found higher. Learners of English in the second week remembered more words than those learning French. These results could be related to the difficulty level of the words or the attitude of learners toward languages they were studying.

years.In fact, in education, vocabulary level of learners has been questioned.However, their manner of learning vocabulary has been of less interest to researchers.This is due to the fact that the researches generally concentrate on the grammatical knowledge of learners as a result of generative transformational linguistics.Today, linguists focus more on the most effective way of learning vocabulary (Van Der Linden, 2006).
Teaching lexis in a foreign language has taken place depending on methods applied in different time zones.The grammar-translation method puts an emphasis on learning words by texts while in the 1970s when the communicative method emerged authentic sources were used to teach lexis (Tagliante, 2006).Teaching lexis is conducted mostly by teaching grammar or throught textual activities."Vocabulary teaching has not received much emphasis as grammar, listening, reading and writing skills in foreign language learning.Instead, it has been taught as part of reading syllabus (İstifçi, 2010).
Traditionally, the teaching of vocabulary was mostly incidental limited to presenting new items as they appeared in reading or sometimes listening texts.Nowadays, it is widely accepted that vocabulary teaching should be part of the syllabus and taught in a wellplanned and regular basis" (Moras, 2011).Lewis (1993) states that vocabulary should be at the center of language teaching because language it consists of "grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized grammar.
Individual extracurricular activities are mostly determinant in learning words in Turkey.Memorizing words by flashcards which is one of traditional methods or learning words by reading and interpreting texts which is a more contemporary method are some of the preliminary individual activities (Bozavlı, 2014).From time to time, idealist teachers are reported to use contemporary lexis learning methods in classroom though not stated in the curriculum.
"Dictionary work, word unit analysis, oral production, semantic elaboration, collocations and lexical phrases and mnemonic devices" are some of them (Sökmen, 1997).In particular, "mnemonic devices" is a technique that keeps active our mind in learning and supports our memory.It takes as a basis the interaction of stimulus with information.In other words, this technique is used to remember what is learned by means of association.
"Originally the term "association" was used in psycholinguistics to refer to the connection or relation between ideas, concepts, or words, which exists in the human mind and manifests in a following way: an appearance of one entity entails the appearance of the other in the mind; thus "word association" being an association between words" (Sinopalnikova, 2003).Having a psychological feature, association refers generally to a situation, phenomenon or an idea that reminds of something else.Association is the interaction or evocation of ideas due to their similarity, unity or contrast in terms of space, time, cause, effect or result.It could also be defined as functional relations of ideas between psychological activities and situations (Oğuzkan, 1974).
The association method could also be employed in different contexts in teaching lexis in a foreign language.It could be morphological, semantical and phonetic.An English learning French can find structural relations between some words in the two languages.Referring to the words "possibility, opportunity, intelligence" in his own language, he can easily learn the words "possibilité, opportunité and intelligence" in French.Linguistically similar words in these two European languages could also be seen in languages of other countries structurally and logically different from each other.For example, similarities by means of phonetic association could be found between the words in Turkish, French and English.In other words, "taş (pierre/(stone) in Turkish and "tâche (task)" in French and "sel/flood" in Turkish and "cell" in English, which are phonetically similar but have different meanings are dissimilar concepts.Linguistically speaking, the signifiers are similar but the signified are different.
Therefore, the study has two objectives: to determine the rate of learning and success of recalling the words in different foreign languages that students learn in Turkey and to reveal the efficiency of the phonetic association method in natural languages context, which is closely related with the first objective.Is this method more effective in learners of English or French?

METHODOL OGY
The sample of the study consists of 6th grade students at 3 junior high schools and 9th grade students at 3 high schools, w hich are socio-economically in good-state in the province.These students have been selected because they have just started to learn foreign languages.Since French is an elective course in Turkey and there are not enough students learning this language at secondary school, students at high school have been included in the research.
In developing tests, it is less probable that the students know these highly frequent English and French w ords at this level.It w as determined to w hat extent the respondents knew the meaning of the w ords prior to the study and it w as found that the number of w ords know n w ould not affect the dimension of the research.Tw o learners of English w ere reported to know one w ord each and one learner of French knew only one w ord.A total of 70 respondents, 21 female and 14 male 6th graders and 19 female and 16 male 9th graders, voluntarily participated in the study.15 of the respondents learning English w ere from the first, 12 from the second and 8 from the third high school w hile 18 learners of French w ere from the first, 11 from the second and 6 from the third high school.
As a research tool, structured interview model has been used, w hich is to find out about similarities and differences and to compare information given by the individuals interview ed (Giroux and Tremblay, 2002)."Phonetic association method vocabulary test" prepared in each language prior to the research w as distributed to 35 learners of English and 35 learners of French at the end of the research.A tw o-w eek study w as conducted on learners of English and French in different time zones in order to assess the rate of learning w ords in the first w eek and the rate of recalling w ords memorized in the second w eek.
The survey took 4 h in the first w eek and 1 hv in the second.It took longer in the first w eek due to intensive vocabulary learning through phonetic association.In the second w eek, the duration w as shorter because only the rate of retention of the w ords learned w as measured.The participants repeated the matchings of the w ords learned both in base and target language four times from the first to second w eek.
The groups w ere informed of teaching vocabulary through phonetic association method in the first w eek w hen they w ere interview ed separately and the "Vocabulary Test through Phonetic Association Method" w as distributed in its original form.The English w ords homonymous w ith Turkish w ords w ere noticed to those learning English and French w ords w ith Turkish homonyms to those learning French.The homonymous w ords w ere w ritten on the board at the same time and first pronunciation then meanings of the w ords w ere repeated by the groups.The visual material of the lexis prepared beforehand (photos or videos) w ere projected on the screen w hen the w ords w ere pronounced so that the signified w as seized.For example, w hen "car" in English "kar /snow " in Turkish, "coeur (heart)" in French and "kör/aveugle (blind) in Turkish w ere pronounced, w e projected on the screen for ten to tw elve seconds a short video of snow and cars (a car going on snow ) and a video of a "heart" and a "blind man".Similarly, on pronounciation of "sel /flood" in Turkish and "cell" in English, a short video of "sel and hücre" w as show n to the participants.For the few abstract w ords included in this study (gam in Turkish/w orry in English), sad man photos and glued photos w ere show n to the participants.
This w as repeated a few times so that it could help the w ords be kept in mind.Videos and photos w ere created by means of computer technology.The tests w ere collected in the first w eek and only the test that had English and French w ords w as distributed to the respondents to w rite their meanings in Turkish.In the second w eek w hen it w as to determine the rate of retention of the w ords, the respondents w ere not given any instruction related to the meanings of Turkish w ords but rather the same test w as distributed to the participants to fill out follow ing a short interview .The order of the respondents is the same in Table 3 as in Table 4.
Document analysis w as used to evaluate the data of the research (Yıldırım and Ali, 2000).Words homonymous w ith Turkish ones w ere found by examining the texts in English and French sources (time magazine, daily new s, le monde, le Figaro, observateur etc.).In selecting the w ords, highly frequent ones in daily life w ere chosen and the number of w ords w as limited to 25 in accordance w ith the content of the study."Vocabulary test through phonetic association" for each language w as developed, w hich contained mostly English and French verbs and nouns w hose pronounciations w ere given and their Turkish matches.Descriptive and content analysis w ere used to analyze and interpret the data.

RESULTS
"Phonetic association test" in Table 1 was conducted on learners of English, while "phonetic association test" in Table 2 was conducted on the learners of French.
In Table 3, which measures the rate of learning vocabulary of the respondents, the success of learners of English is found to be higher than that of learners of French according to the results of the first week.The number of correct words known by learners of English was between 5 and 11, and the rate was between 20 and 44% while in participants of French, the number of Ebubekir 47 correct words was between 2 and 8 and the rate of success was between 8 and 32%.Table 4 suggests distinguishing results obtained in the second week, which was to reveal the rate of retention of the words learned by phonetic association method.Both groups manifested an increase in success compared to the first week research.The number of correct words known by the participants of English was minimum 9 and maximum 22, the lowest rate of success was 36% and maximum 88%.These percentages were obtained by the ratio of correct words known to total number of words.31 respondents increased their level of success and one decreased it while the success of 3 participants remained stable as in the first week.The number of correct words known by the participants of French was minimum 5 and maximum 13, the lowest rate of success was 20% and maximum 52%.28 respondents increased their level of success and two decreased it while the success level of 5 participants remained unchanged.
The results were found higher in the second week compared to the first week.The rate of learning vocabulary in both groups was lower but their level of retention in memory was higher, which suggests that phonetic association method proved successful in retaining in memory the words longer by learners of English and French.What is important in settings where foreign language is taught is retention in memory what is learned.In a country like Turkey where socio-cultural dimension of English and French is weak, the learners have almost no opportunity to use what they learn outside classroom.Speaking is possible only through socio-cultural interactions.Language is not only a tool to implement daily activities but also a way of obligatory transition that sheds light on life (Gerbeau, 1996).

DISCUSSION
Words are fundamental components of a natural language, so that even grammatical structures are regarded as vocabulary in language teaching.Although words are most often ignored in teaching a foreign language, they are the first elements of language to be consulted when learners need to use that language in social life.In that case, if the words are lacking when talking to a native speaker, dictionaries are the saviors.
In other words, in theory grammatical rules are prioritized in a foreign language while in practice vocabulary is priveleged.A study conducted to reveal "the needs for teaching speaking skills in English" in Turkey, (Deveci et al., 2016) shows that foreign language learners generally experience difficulty in vocabulary rather than grammatical rules.The proportion of those who say they can not speak due to lack of grammatical rules is 8.5% while those who state that they are unable to speak because they do not have enough vocabulary is 50%.In addition, most learners complain of not remembering the meanings of English words in speaking.Therefore, for an effective communication, sufficient knowledge of vocabulary is an obligation.Today, this must be conducted through contemporary methods.This study considered as contemporary for us, which is to determine efficiency and effectiveness of vocabulary teaching within the context of natural languages through "phonetic association method" reveal by its results that the method is more effective in learners of English.The success of learners of English prevails that of French learners in terms of rate of learning and retention in memory the words.This might be due to the level of difficulty of the words in the tests or attitudes of learners toward languages they learn and their learning motivation.
Certainly, either concrete or abstract words, whether they are parts of individuals may facilitate or impede learning vocabulary.It might be difficult to give meaning to words unless their signified is not kept in mind.Since learning is emotional, learners have an attitude toward what they learn.For instance, Stern (1983) points out that affect is more important than cognition and those affectively satisfied can easily learn.Arnold (2011) states that these two concepts do not differ from each other.
Though affective learning is sometimes contrasted with cognitive learning as if the two were totally separate, research shows this is not true.Reviewing studies on the relationship between affect and cognition, Arnold (2011) emphasizes the key role played by affect in how we create mental representations about the world and retain them in memory, and how we process information.According to Bless and Fiedler (2009), empirical evidence shows that affect has a direct influence on cognition, on how people think (cited in Arnold, 2011).Attitudes can become more obvious in foreign language learning as languages contain cultural properties themselves.Learners of a language other than their mother tongue are frequently under the pressure of attitudes that may be in diverse forms deriving from the influence of the society.These forms are "family and home background, cultural background, classroom/social peers interpretations of prior repetitive experiences, individual differences such as gender and personality" (Bernat and Gvozdenko, Such behavior can sometimes turn into prejudices and learners may encounter obstacles hard to overcome.For example, it is highly common to hear in Turkey that French is a more difficult language than English, it is no more popular all over the world compared to the past and a limited number of jobs are available for the graduates of French.English has become a language of preference not only because it is the common language of culture, commerce and technology or modern business world but also it has a richness and flexibility which makes it is easy to be learned (Ergül, 2014).Attitudes mostly lead motivations of learners.Motivation of Turkish learners in foreign language comes out as utility and need.Today, while it is necessary to know English as it opens the door to success in many areas, the question of why Turkish learners of this language are not motivated remains unanswered.
The English and French words homonymous with Turkish ones are not limited to the words in Table 1 and  Table 2.There are so many others with different grammatical functions that have such a quality.In English, "still.eng/stil.tr(style-trend), funny.eng /fani.tr(mortal), each.eng /iç.tr (imperative of the verb iç), beach.eng /biç.tr(imperative of the verb biç), luck.eng /lak lak.tr (chat) and in French "guerre.fr(war.eng) ger.tr (imperative form of the verb extend), quand.fr(when.eng) kan.tr (blood), haut.fr(high.eng) o.tr (him/her), haute.frfeminineform of adjective haut -(high.eng) ot.tr (plant), telle/tel.fr(such.eng) tel.tr (fibre) linguistic units are some of the examples to be consulted in teaching.
The examples due to the content of the research are limited to the aforementioned mentioned words.It is also possible to see foreign words in Turkish effectively used today borrowed from French and English apart from these phonetic similarities: Asansör (ascenseur/elevator), diyet (diète/diet), kuaför (coiffeur/hairdresser), ambulans (ambulance), küvet (cuvette/washbasin), helikopter (hélicoptère/helicopter), afiş (affiche/poster), akrobat (acrobate/acrobat), aksesuar (accessoire/accessory), aktör (acteur/actor), alerji (allergie/allergy), alyans (alliance/pact), balkon (balcon/balcony), bariyer (barrière/barrier), dedektif (détective/detective), depresyon (dèpression/depressiveness), eşarp (écharpe/scarf), French words have almost become phonetically Turkish.The effect of French on Turkish is a historical.Turkish-French relations during Soliman the Magnificient continued with Tanzimat (Reform Period) as an official endorsement of westernization while foreign language medium schools especially French medium ones have opened and the interest in French language and literature has increased day by day.Together with westernization, people have become interested specifically in French (Çiçek, 2004).It is estimated that there is around 5000 French words in spoken language.In globalizing world, becoming small as a result of developing technology and commerce, English words borrowed for a few decades in Turkish are as follows: "air bag, large, small, medium, bestseller, bodyguard, center, check-up, driver, exit, hard disc, show, showman, finish, show room, level, security, printer, smart, meeting, data, online, part time, full time, full, dowloand, save" etc are only some of the English words used in Turkish.
Though so many English and French words borrowed in Turkish, phonetic association method leads to fruitful results in teaching and it is hard to forget words by this method, learners of foreign language in oral comprehension are not able to express themselves even at beginner level.In addition, the number of words in daily language is not a lot.For example, the users in a foreign language knowing 2000 highly frequent words can understand in average 80% of a text, with 5000 words 88.7%.In spoken language highly frequent 1800 words are enough to get by and help users understand 80% of communication and express themselves (McCarten, 2007).Turkish students" failure in using spoken language is mostly related to their anxiety or fear of success.Their success appears very often in exams.Turkish students experience EFL speaking anxiety in their classrooms and speaking skill is perceveid as an anxiety-provoking factor by most of the students (Öztürk and Gürbüz, 2014).
High school students between 15 and 18 show higher anxiety level.The critical age period might be the reason of high anxiety level (Er, 2015).Turkish female students are more anxious than male students while speaking English and students feel more anxious when speaking with a native speaker rather than their peers (Çağatay, 2015).Similar results have also been reported in other studies (Aydın, 2001;Bozavlı and Gülmez, 2012;Ay, 2010).
Fear of making mistakes, pronunciation, negative evaluations of teacher, feeling of being ridiculed in front of friends, questions suddenly asked are the facts that trigger anxiety.

Conclusion
Literary men and artists right from the very foundation of Turkey have stated that grammar is useless in language, in particular teaching grammar has no meaning in primary and secondary schools and it becomes boring to teach grammar at every level of education for years and years and made an emphasis that the primary concern should be vocabulary teaching (Türk, 2016).Although almost a century has passed and a grammar -based foreign language teaching continues in schools, vocabulary teaching is still neglected.While traditional methods are still encouraged to teach vocabulary, teaching lexis by phonetic association, contemporary method, has proved effective results on natural languages.
The present study reveals that those learning English are better than those learning French in learning vocabulary by means of phonetic association and the rate of learning is higher in learners of English.The results obtained in the second week, which aims to assess rate of retention in memory, suggest that both groups are generally more successful compared to the first week.Learners of English have forgotten less words than their peers in French.These results could be related with the level of difficulty of words, that is, French words may be more difficult to remember, or with the attitudes of learners toward these languages.
Homonymous similarity of Turkish with English and French is not limited to certain words but rather a number enough to constitute their fundamental level of vocabulary.Detailed studies are required to reveal the exact number.In addition, the similar words are highly common.This study can be considered a pioneer in researching whether phonetic similarities could be of question for other languages.It might be difficult to generalize the results over 35 learners of English and 35 learners of French.However, this study could help learners and teachers have a general opinion on phonetic association method.The results obtained may create awareness in educational actors to use such a method in teaching.

Table 1 .
English phonetic association test.

Table 2 .
French phonetic association test.

Table 3 .
First w eek test results.

Table 4 .
Second w eek test results.