Abstract:
This paper aimed at studying and investigates the effects of semantic mapping as an instructional
strategy for teaching vocabulary items to EFL learners, at Omdurman Islamic University and to explore
the effect of this strategy on EFL student's achievement of lexical items. The sample of the study
comprised of 50 male students enrolled in two sections, which were randomly selected from four sections
and were randomly assigned to both experimental and control groups. Therefore, a quai-experimental
mode of inquiry was adopted in this study since the sample was chosen intentionally, but its assignment
on the groups was carried out randomly. The experimental group studied the lexical items via semantic
mapping strategy, and the control group studied them in the traditional method. A vocabulary pre-test
was given to both groups at the beginning of the study to make sure that they were equivalent and
homogenous. At the end of the experiment, the same test was given to the experimental and control
groups to investigate the effect of semantic mapping strategy on EFL students' achievement of lexical
items. The results revealed significant differences between the experimental and control groups in favor
of the experimental group. The experimental groups received semantic mapping, but the control group
did not receive this treatment. The results of the study, based on statistical analysis, indicated that the
experimental group outperformed the control group in vocabulary learning. It can be suggested that
semantic mapping can be used as an efficient methodology for teaching vocabulary, a technique which is
effective for EFL learners. The researcher reached some conclusions and suggested some
recommendations.
