By Johanna van Laar-Veth

1. - Does using an imagery-based mnemonic technique, help students with long-term retention of Chinese characters?- And are subject-generated mnemonics more effective than supplied mnemonics? By Johanna van Laar-Veth

2. Rationale As mnemonic techniques are creative, and can employ a variety of tasks, they should promote better retention of vocabulary. Therefore students should show a better recall of Chinese Characters using imagery mnemonic technique against rote-learning, especially if they were allowed to write down the character as it was explained to them, or as they invented a way of remembering it from what it looked like.

3. Rote-Learning Group

4. Supplied-Imagery Group 山

5. 雨

7. Subject-Imagery Group

10. Individual Results

11. Average results

12. Analysis • The results of my study showed that both the subject-generated and experimenter-supplied imagery techniques produced a higher immediate recall than did rote-learning, and also a higher delayed recall • Although supplied –imagery had a slight advantage over subject imagery on immediate recall, after a delay of 4 days, the subject-imagery group was now indicating slightly better recall. • The rote-learning group displayed the greatest forgetting after a four day delay.

13. Next Steps • Incorporate the use of imagery-based mnemonic techniques into my teaching of characters. • As Chinese characters contain radicals, that convey meaning, such as the water radical indicating that the word has something to do with water, I would supply this type of imagery to my students, but allow them to build their own images and stories using the radicals as a base. • Use a variety of mnemonic techniques for other areas of language teaching especially incorporating them into task-based activities.