中文摘要
隨著英語教學法逐漸改變的趨勢，字彙在英語教學領域亦受到越多越多的重視。而字彙相關的研究也如雨後春筍般地掘起，其中不乏探討字彙學習策略(vocabulary learning strategies)，閱讀與字彙之間的關係(the relationship between reading and vocabulary)以及主動詞和被動詞彙(active and passive vocabulary) 。然而探討以語意群集(semantic clusters)與主題群集(thematic clusters)來教授字彙的研究卻非常有限，因此本研究旨在比較這兩種不同類型的字彙群集—語意群集及主題群集—的學習效果是否有顯著差異。本研究並同時探討三種詞性的學習成效是否如一般預期，即名詞的學習難度低於動詞及形容詞。

本研究中受試者乃以英語為外語的清華大學大一生科系四十六位修習大一英語的學生。由於本實驗設計旨在比較兩種字彙群集的學習效，因此所有的受試者接受相同的字彙群集教學達六個星期，在教學之後受試者隨即接受後測(immediate posttest)。而為了進一步了解長期的學習效果，實驗結束約一個後，所有的受試者再次接受包含所有字彙的後測(delayed posttest)以探討學習的效果是否能持續。

實驗結果顯示，整體而言，語意群集及主題群集兩者之間的學習在兩次的後測並無顯著差異。至於詞性學習效果的比較，名詞在語意群集的字彙學習中優於動詞及形容詞，而形容詞在主題群集的字彙學習中優於名詞及動詞。研究結果並顯示長期學習效果與短期學習效果並無顯著差異。

本研究結果意味著語意群集在融入教學情境後，學習難度減輕，使得學習效果與主題群集無顯著差異。而干擾現象(interference effects)並未如預期般地影響整體學習。研究結果顯示，干擾型錯誤(interference errors)佔所有錯誤的比例微乎其微，也因此並未造成兩種群集學習之差異。另外，在本研究中，詞性的難易度在兩種不同的群集學習中出現了兩種不同的結果，因此推測詞性的難易度會隨著學習者對於字彙的基模(schemata)、字形與發音而改變。本研究為此後之探討，奠定初步基礎，並提供寶貴建議。未來之的研究仍需進行以進一步探究語意群集及主題群集兩者間學習成效的差異以及不同詞性學習之難易度差異是否如同本實驗結果以期能提供字彙教學的寶貴方針。

ABSTRACT
With the changing trend of teaching methodology, vocabulary has received increasing attention in the field of language teaching. Along the research line, a considerable number of studies have examined vocabulary learning strategies, the relationship between vocabulary and reading, and active and passive vocabulary. Yet, the issue of presenting words in semantic clusters (a set of semantically and syntactically similar words) and thematic clusters (a set of words having different parts of speech that are closely associated with a thematic concept) has rarely been explored. This study, thus, aimed to compare 1) the effects of learning words in semantic and thematic clusters and 2) the learning of 3 grammatical categories.

In this study, an intact class of 46Life Science majors who were enrolled in a Freshman English Course at National Tsing Hua University in 2002 participated in a 6-week experiment. As a repeated-measures design was adopted, all the subjects received the same treatment, i.e., all of them received 6 consecutive weeks of instruction, including semantic and thematic clusters, followed by an immediate posttest. To further explore the long-term learning effects on the intended comparisons, a delayed posttest was administered after a lapse of one month.

The results revealed that overall semantic clusters had more occurrences of interference than thematic clusters in the immediate and delayed posttests, but no difference was found in the learning between semantic and thematic clusters. Interestingly, for semantic clusters, the subjects performed better in nouns than verbs or adjectives while for thematic clusters, adjectives were found to be learned better than nouns or verbs. As to the long-term retention, the delayed posttest showed similar results.

The findings drawn from this study suggest that the effects of learning semantic clusters seems to be the same as those of learning thematic clusters with the incorporation of instruction and semantic mapping. Interference effects, on the other hand, do not appear to influence learning vocabulary to a great extent as interference errors take up a relatively small percentage of overall errors learners committed. Two different rankings were found for the difficulty level of learning grammatical categories, which indicates that the difficulty level of grammatical categories is likely to vary, depending on factors such as the schemata, word form and pronunciation. The current investigation has provided some insights and established a preliminary foundation. Future research is, thus, needed to be conducted to reexamine the learning effects between semantic and thematic clusters as well as the grammatical categories.

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