A Comparative Study of Textual and Visual Contextualization on Iranian EFL Learners' Vocabulary Learning

Language teaching practitioners are currently putting increasing emphasis on L2 vocabulary learning in the language teaching curriculum. Additionally, with the emergence and prevalence of growing technologies, language teachers are assumed to take advantage of these technologies in prompting L2 learning vocabulary. The present comparative study investigates the effect of using two types of vocabulary contextualization; textual and visual, in teaching vocabulary. The participants were seventy learners in pre intermediate level of L2 proficiency ranging in age from 14 to 30. On the basis of a Cambridge Placement Test of Vocabulary, they were selected and divided into two groups of 35, namely group 1 and group 2. The lexical items were taught to group 1 and group 2 through showing videos and written texts respectively. Results of t-test showed that the learners who learned the vocabulary items through visual contextualization manifested more vocabulary acquisition than those who received vocabulary instruction through reading written texts. It can be concluded that visual contextualization can aid language learners more in vocabulary acquisition than textual contextualization.