The keyword method originally proposed by Atkinson and Raugh (1975) as a mnemonic aid for vocabulary learning was found not applicable to the first-year high school students (Experiment 1). Some variants of the keyword method intended for separating the information-processing stages inthe keyword method were also in effective (Experiments 2 and 3). The experimental results, however,indicate that this in effectiveness was primarily due to the intrinsic mediators aroused to new foreign words from the trained subjects. Theoretical implications of the present study for paired-associate learning in general was briefly discussed.