The Role of Verbal and Visual Input in Teaching L2 Words to Iranian Senior High school Students

The vital role of vocabulary learning in second language (L2) has made it inevitable for researchers to search for effective teaching vocabulary techniques. The present study was an attempt to investigatethe role of verbal and visual input in teaching L2 words to Iranian senior high school students. For thispurpose, 50 female students from Alavi high school in Shiraz were randomly selected. They were selected from three classes and divided into two groups of 25 each. A vocabulary test was designed for participants as a pretest to see if the participants were homogenous enough to start the study. Thenthe lexical items were taught to group one by verbal techniques (definition, synonym, antonym, giving examples) and by verbal-visual techniques (definition, synonym, antonym, giving examples, pictures, blackboard drawings, flashcards, slides, wall charts, mime, gesture, action) to group two. A posttestwas administered at the end to measure the difference between achievements of two groups with respect to the type of vocabulary teaching techniques employed for each group. The results revealed that using verbal-visual techniques was more effective than using verbal technique alone. For better acquisition and retention of vocabulary, teachers should benefit from the visual-verbal technique