the effect of semantic clustering on the acquisition of english vocabulary by efl learners

vocabulary is a key element in the second language class while grammar is important for meaning, without vocabulary no message is conveyed. language learners are faced on a daily basis with the task of acquiring and retaining new vocabulary. one of the main tasks of a language teacher, then, is to help students develop sufficient large vocabulary. nevertheless, some language teachers ignore this fundamental fact, assuming that the vocabulary will take care of itself through repeated exposure and classroom activities. not surprisingly, vocabulary development is especially important for english-language learners. poor vocabulary is a serious issue for the students (calderon et al., 2005). within the last few years, vocabulary has become viewed as an important aspect in second language learning, in fact, many believe just as important as the main skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking. in this paper, the aim is to answer to the question that if "semantic clustering has any effect (positive or negative) on the acquisition of words?" in order to answer to this question two groups of english learners were chosen at the elementary level. the instrument is to teach different semantic classified words in the first group and semantic sporadic vocabulary for the control group. the results revealed that learners, who have been taught classified semantic words, did better than the second group that have been taught unclassified semantic word.