THE EFFECT OF USING OXFORD DICTIONARY CONTEXTUAL CLUES ON IRANIAN EFL LEARNERS’ KNOWLEDGE OF LEXIS

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of contextual clues mainly provided through the use of Oxford dictionary examples and definitions on the knowledge of lexis in pre-intermediate Iranian EFL learners. An OPT (Oxford placement test, 2001) was administered among 100 subjects 60 of whom were selected for the aim of this study. The subjects were randomly divided into two groups; experimental and control group. For 12 sessions the experimental group received treatment in the form of working on contextual clues using Oxford dictionary examples and definitions and the control group received a placebo in the form of first language equivalents of the words in the text. A pretest was administered prior to the application of treatment and placebo and a subsequent Posttest was administered at the end of duration of the teaching. Then the scores were analyzed through SPSS using ANCOVA and descriptive analysis. The results indicated that there was no significant difference between the performance of the experimental and that of the control group. Although the study failed to prove the intended hypothesis, certain implications can be derived from the conclusions that are quite useful in the field of English teaching/ learning pedagogy. There were a number of serious limitations to the current study the most prominent of which were the duration and frequency of the treatment. It can be recommended that the current study should be duplicated with new different variables.