Learning Vocabulary in Lexical Sets: Dangers and Guidelines

This article examines research on learning related vocabulary, such as lexical sets, opposites, and synonyms, together. It shows that learning related words at the same time makes learning them more difficult. This learning difficulty can be avoided if related words are learned separately, as they are when learning from normal language use. Teachers can decrease the possibility of interference by making the contexts, collocates, and visual representations of related words as different as possible.