The Effect of Recognition Tasks vs. Production Tasks on the Retention of Confusing Words among Iranian Elementary EFL Learners

Similarity of lexical forms may cause lexical confusions in learners of English. Confusing words such as homophones are the words that are easily confused because they look and/or sound alike with different meanings. Due to the scarcity of experimental research on homophones, the present study aimed to compare the effects of recognition and production tasks on the retention of homophones among Iranian EFL learners. Accordingly, 30 elementary students at Safir English Language Academy in Gorgan, Iran were selected from two intact classes, 15 students in each class. Each class was randomly designated to be as recognition or production task group. Oxford Quick Placement Test was administered to check the homogeneity. After a diagnostic test of 101 pairs of homophones, 72 pairs were identified to be unknown. After the pretest, participants received 10/11 pairs of homophones in each session of a 7-day course. The teaching method was the same for both. Every session, recognition task group did recognition tasks, while production task group wrote sentences with homophones. Feedbacks were given to both groups. Finally, both groups took the posttest. After a two-week interval, a delayed posttest was administered to both groups to compare their retention of homophones. The results of t-test indicated that recognition task group outperformed the production task group in the retention of homophones. The findings may benefit teachers, learners, and material developers in choosing and designing more effective tasks to achieve better result in teaching confusing words

کلیدواژه ها:

Homophone ، recognition tasks ، production tasks