investigating the effect of adding pictures to glosses on iranian efl learners’ vocabulary learning and reading comprehension

investigating the effect of adding pictures to glosses on iranian efl learners’ vocabulary learning and reading comprehension

this study aimed to examine the effect of adding pictures to glosses on vocabulary learning and reading comprehension of iranian high school efl learners. to this end, 90 high school students studying at a high school were selected. they were assigned to two experimental groups (textual gloss and pictorial-textual gloss) and a control group. the participants in each group read a passage in 15 minutes. then, a reading comprehension test was given to them for 10 minutes. after taking the reading comprehension test, the participants were given recall and recognition vocabulary tests.

the results of one-way anovas showed that both experimental groups outperformed the control group in vocabulary learning and reading comprehension tests. however, there were no significant differences between the pictorial-textual and textual gloss groups in reading comprehension test. furthermore, the results indicated that the performance of pictorial-textual gloss group was better in vocabulary tests. the findings of the study have pedagogical and theoretical implications for efl learners and teachers.