The effect of using visual materials in teaching vocabulary on EFL learners

Teaching vocabulary is an important issue for second or foreign language learning. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of using visual materials such as pictures, real objects, and flash cards on EFL learners’ vocabulary learning. To achieve this purpose, 60 students were selected randomly among 200 students in a private institute in Ilam city. First, the participants were randomly assigned to either the control or experimental group. Then, the two groups were administered the pretest. During the fifteen sessions of the treatment, 90 vocabulary items wereinstructed to the participants in both groups. The experimental group wasinstructed the words visually, while the control group was taught the words traditionally. After the treatment, the two groups were administered the posttest. The findings showed a noticeable progress of the experimentalgroup in learning words. It was found that the learning of words in the experimental group significantly increased more than that in the control group. Further, the participants in the experimental group perceived visual instruction as an effective way for learning vocabulary.

کلیدواژه ها:

vocabulary ، teaching ، visual material ، learning ، EFL learner