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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 46 (2012) 431 – 434

WCES-2012

Cognate based language teaching and material development

*
Hilal Gulseker Solak , Abdulkadir Cakir
Mevlana University, Department of English Language Teaching, Konya 42003,Turkey

Abstract

In order to investigate the role of cognates in language teaching and material writing for Turkish learners of L2 English, in the
present study, we developed a cognate based unit consisting of English-Turkish cognates and a parallel non-cognate unit. The
cognate unit was used for the experimental group (N=48), while the non-cognate unit was employed in the control group (N=48).
Finally, we assessed the performances of both groups in terms of listening and reading comprehension, and language use. The
results indicated that there was a significant difference between the two groups in terms of reading, listening and language use
performances. The findings suggested that cognates could be helpful in developing materials for Turkish learners of L2 English.

2012
© 2012 Published
Published by Elsevier
by Elsevier Ltd. and/or peer review under responsibility of Prof. Dr. Hüseyin Uzunboylu
Ltd. Selection
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Keywords: cognates; Turkish; material development, reading, listening, language use

1. Introduction

day by day leading to an increase in the number of cognates in all languages. D

two different languages that are similar both orthograph 1995), cognates
constitute an important part of the vocabulary even in languages differing dramatically from each other such as
Japanese and English. It is crucial to make a distinction between true cognates and false cognates. Although both
types of cognates have the same or very similar form in two languages, only true cognates have the same meaning.
(Reid, 1968) deserve a different focus, this paper is limited to the
investigation of true cognates.
Research on cognates focuses mainly on two main topics: the facilitating role of cognates in L2 vocabulary
activation, and the use of cognates as a learning strategy in second/foreign language learning. The investigation of
cognates as a learning strategy in EFL/ESL settings aims to foster listening and reading comprehension. Comesana
Soares and Lima (2010) focused on the role of cognate and non-cognate words on second language learning
methods. The results of their study suggest that cognate words are easier to learn than non-cognate words because of
in novice learners is
203). -Bhatt
(1993) found out that Spanish learners of L2 English resorted to making a connection between their native language
and target language when they were exposed to a new word in English and used positive transfer of cognates as a
reading strategy in English. Jimenez, Garcia and Pearson (1996) and Garcia (1998) pointed out that use of cross

*
Hilal Gulseker Solak. Tel.: +90-332-444-4213(1213); fax: +903322411111.
E-mail address: hgsolak@mevlana.edu.tr

1877-0428 © 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer review under responsibility of Prof. Dr. Hüseyin Uzunboylu
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.05.136
432 Hilal Gulseker Solak and Abdulkadir Cakir / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 46 (2012) 431 – 434

linguistic strategies played a crucial role in reading comprehension. Jimenez et al (1996) encouraged low-literacy
Latina students to search for cognates and resolve unknown vocabulary making inferences based on cognates. The
authors concluded that using cognates strategy resulted in the students producing extended discourse about the text
and it augmented their reading engagement (Jimenez et al, 1996). Hammer and Madeleine (1978) highlighted the
role of cognates in L2 learning, and suggested that cognates are easy to pick up not only in reading and but also in
listening. Hammer and Madeleine (1993) also compared the identification of cognates in reading and listening, and
found out that English speakers of French performed better on visual identification than aural identification. There
were
example, concluded that upon receiving an individualized scaffolded instruction on cognate recognition and use in
reading, majority of Mexican-American students could access cognates to infer unknown vocabulary.
The facilitating role of cognates in L2 learning has been examined at a psycholinguistic level (Dijkstra,
Grainger and Van Heuven, 1999; Lemhofer & Dijkstra, 2004; Schwartz, Kroll and Diaz, 2007). Caramozza and
Brones tried to find out the effect of cognates on the speed of word recognitions using a lexical decision task. The
authors found out that Spanish-English bilinguals responded to L2 cognates faster than they responded to L2 control
words. The authors concluded that cognate words activated L1 in addition to the L2 lexical representation, speeding
activation and word recognition. Kohnert (2004) extended the cognate facilitation effect to the naming performance
of an aphasic bilingual, study, DJ named pictures with cognate names more accurately than
pictures with non-cognate names (40% and 20%). Cognate facilitation effect has been investigated not only in
normal speakers (Costa, Caramazza and Sebastian-Galles, 2000) but also in aphasic speakers (Roberts &
Deslauriers, 1999). Costa et al (2000)
non- ilures both
p.101). Hoshimo and Kroll (2008) pointed out the
effect of cognates in picture naming of bilinguals and they found out that cognate facilitation effect was available
even in languages differing in script such as Japanese and English. The authors concluded that even when the
two languages did not share the same script, there was cross-language activation of phonology.
Much cognate research strives to explain how cognates facilitate L2 vocabulary activation, reading and listening
comprehension in L2 among same-family languages such as English and Spanish. However, in the last few years the
number of cognates among languages such as English and Japanese or English and Turkish started to attract
attention.
were 2411 English- Turkish cognates in the analysed corpus. Inspired by the growing number of English-Turkish
cognates, and in the light of the previous findings about cognates, we undertook the present study to investigate the
role of cognate-based materials in L2 learning following a theory to practice model. Designing a material requires
synthesizing various elements such as psycholinguistic principles and learning strategies for the theory to be
embodied in the materials (Dubin, Olshtain, 1986). In the present study, the aim was to establish the link between
the theories about the role of cognates in L2 learning and the material developing practices for L2 learners.

2. Method

Our research questions were formulated as follows:

Do

96 Turkish speakers of English, aged 18-20 took part in this study. There were 48 students in the experimental
group, and 41 students in the control group. Both groups were taking English as a required course at the university.
A language proficiency exam given at the beginning of the research indicated that both groups had the same English
proficiency level. A database of English-Turkish cognates, which consisted of 2400 words was formed to be used as
a source for the cognate based materials initially. Later, a non-cognate unit and a parallel cognate unit based on the
database were developed. It was hypothesized that due to cognate facilitation effect, cognate-based materials would
yield to better performances in reading, listening and language use compared to non-cognate materials. Both units
consisted of listening and reading activities with a focus on the use of present perfect tense, in particular. Present
 Hilal Gulseker Solak and Abdulkadir Cakir / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 46 (2012) 431 – 434 433

perfect tense was introduced to the students through reading and listening activities. After the listening and reading
sections, both groups were asked to answer 18 listening and 16 reading comprehension questions. In the cognate
based material, the listening section involved 62 cognates (%26). The students were asked to listen to the recordings
and answer 18 listening comprehension questions. In the reading part, the participants were given a reading passage
and they were asked to answer 16 reading comprehension questions. In the cognate based material, the reading part
consisted of 60 cognates (%24). Following the reading and listening activities that focused on the use of present
perfect tense, the participants were given another test to assess their performance in the use of present perfect tense.
The test consisted of 34 questions focusing on the use of present perfect tense.
Listening, reading and language use scores were calculated for both groups separately. Mann-Whitney test was
conducted on the results using SPSS 16. There were 37 entries for reading and listening tests, and 48 entries for
language use in the experiment group. There were 41 entries for all sections of the test in the control group. In the
listening test, the mean score for the experimental group was 14, 4 while it was 9, 6 for the control group. There was
an important statistical difference between the listening performances of the two groups (p<0.001). In the reading
test, the mean score for the experimental group was 12, 2 while it was 7 for the control group. The reading scores of
the two groups were different from each other significantly (p<0.001). In the language use test, the mean score of
the experimental group was 19.1, while it was 16.5 for the control group. There was an important statistical
difference between the language use scores of the two groups (p<0.020).

Table 1. Comparison of reading, listening and language use scores of the experimental group and the control group

Type of Assessment Experimental Control p Value

Group Group
Reading 12.2 0.001
Listening 0.001
Language Use 0.020

3. Discussion and Conclusion

As different from other studies investigating the facilitating effect of cognates in reading or in language
acquisition, the present study attempted to investigate the effect of cognates on listening and reading comprehension
and on language use, and trying to put the research into practice it also questioned the effectiveness of cognate based
material. The results of the present study indicate that students using the cognate based material had better results in
reading and listening comprehension and language use compared to students using non-cognate based material. It
can be concluded that cognate based material mediate listening and reading comprehension and language use in
English for Turkish learners. The results for the reading section of the present study are in parallel with the findings
of -Bhatt, 1993; Jimenez et al, 1996 and Hammer (1978), who concluded that
cognates contributed to listening and reading comprehension for language learners. The facilitating role of cognates
in listening and reading comprehension and language use can be explained in the light of activated L1 and L2 lexical
representations, speeded activation and word recognition due to cognates (Comesana et al, 2010; Caramazzo and
Brones, 1979; Costa et al, 2000). When exposed to new vocabulary in English in the cognate based material,
Turkish learners may have resorted to making a connection between their native language and the target language.
However, the degree of cognate transfer depends on several factors. Transfer between cognates occurs mostly with
closely related languages and in learners with a good level of reading proficiency, cognitive flexibility and
metalinguistic awareness. Garcia (1998) investigated the use of cognates strategy in reading by Spanish-English
bilinguals and found out that none of the students accessed cognates. She concluded that the ability to use cognates
could be subject to developmental constraints. Nagy et al (1993) also stressed the relationship between cognate
awareness and reading comprehension and reported that reading comprehension of bilinguals were mediated by their
Spanish vocabulary knowledge, their recognition of cognates, and the degree of orthographic overlap between
cognate pairs.
Cognates seem to be an asset for language teachers and language teaching material developers. Haynes (1993)
explains how useful cognates can be in language teaching stating
speakers to ignore the similarities between their native language and English and that cognate recognition is too
434 Hilal Gulseker Solak and Abdulkadir Cakir / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 46 (2012) 431 – 434

(p. 56). Although most of the cognate studies in the literature focus on common ancestor
languages such as English, Spanish or French, English and Turkish also share quite a lot cognate words, which have
been reported around 2400 (Uzun and Salih . Especially for beginner learners, the number of English-
Turkish cognates is too large to be ignored. Given the large number of English-Turkish cognates, it will be wise for
language teachers and material developers to make use of cognates. Although the focus of the present study was
English- Turkish cognates, cognate based materials are not limited to these two languages only. It is hypothesized
that cognate based materials will mediate language learning even more in languages coming from the same language
family and sharing more cognates than English and Turkish do.
The results of the present study suggest that language teaching materials and even textbooks can be designed on
the basis of cognates. Giving priority to true cognates in teaching a foreign language will also be compatible with
some general principles of teaching and learning such as going from known to unknown, from concrete to abstract,
from easy to difficult. It can be concluded that the use of cognates in teaching a language will facilitate learning as a
practical technique functioning like a jumping board to teach a new language to the students, especially to the
beginners.

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