ENHANCING SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ MEMORY OF ENGLISH PHONETIC SYMBOLS THROUGH THE CREATING MENTAL LINKAGES STRATEGY

Abstract

This research aims 1. to compare the second-year English major students’ achievement of memorizing English phonetic symbols before and after learning through the creating mental linkages strategy and 2. to study the students’ opinions toward using the creating mental linkages strategy. The participants were selected by a purposive random sampling method which included 29 second-year English major students in the Faculty of Education, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University. The research instruments comprised English phonetic tests and questionnaires. The data were analyzed by the application of t-test, mean, and standard deviation. The findings revealed as follows: 1. After learning through the creating mental linkages strategy, the average scores of memorizing English phonetic symbols were higher (x̅x̅ = 27.57) than before learning this strategy (x̅x̅ = 25.39). 2. The opinions toward using this strategy were at the highest level (x̅x̅ = 4.63, S.D. = 0.48).