TEACHING SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL PREPOSITIONS THROUGH AUDIO, PICTORIAL-SPEECH, AND VIDEO MODALITIES TO PRE-INTERMEDIATE EFL LEARNERS

In the process of teaching and learning English, one of the most problematic parts for teachers and learners is applying spatial (place) and temporal (time) prepositions. This issue is one of the common topics among most languages. Prepositions are troublesome because there are vary characteristics and usage for prepositions in English language. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the role of audio-visual (A/V) modalities affecting learning place and time prepositions among pre-intermediate English as foreign language (EFL) learners in Iranian context. These three prepositions were at, in, and on instructed through three types of audio, pictorial-speech, and visual modalities. 100 participants were randomly divided into three experimental groups who received audio, pictorial-speech, visual modalities in learning spatial and temporal prepositions, and one control group who received the usual and conventional training on learning prepositions without the specific focus on the proposed modalities. The experimental groups received instructions based on the related modalities while the control group received some placeboes on place and time prepositions throughout 10 sessions. To get the impact of using these modalities, the post-test on spatial and temporal prepositions was run among all groups. Data were analyzed through One-way ANOVA to determine the significant effect of using audio, pictorial-speech, and visual modalities on learning prepositions among pre-intermediate EFL learners (p < 0.05). The results showed that visual modalities were the most effective modality in teaching spatial and temporal prepositions and the pictorial-speech modality was more effective than the audio one.