A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE TRANSLATION METHOD AND THE PICTORIAL METHOD IN LEARNING AND RETENTION OF VOCABULARY BY IRANIAN EFL LEARNERS

Many researchers have shown the significance of the role of vocabulary in language learning. However, there have been a lot of questions about which method of teaching vocabulary will be more effective, especially for elementary students. To further research on this issue, the present study aimed at comparing two supposedly efficient methods of vocabulary teaching: pictorial method and translation. The participants were 120 beginner Iranian students. They were divided randomly into two groups. Each group consisted of 60 learners who were both male and female. For the first group, vocabulary was taught by giving the words’ translation, and for the second group vocabulary teaching entailed providing the words’ pictures. Because of the students’ level (i.e. zero beginner), this study did not contain a pretest. During a three-week period, the students learned a total number of 50 basic English words. At the end of the course, an immediate posttest was administrated. After a week, the students were given a delayed posttest to gain information about the long-term effects of those vocabulary teaching methods. Then, descriptive statistics were calculated on the collected data to compare the performance of two groups, and a couple of independent-samples t-tests were conducted to analyze the performances of the two groups on the posttest and the delayed posttest. The results showed that the students in the pictorial group outperformed their counterparts in the translation group in both the posttest and the delayed posttest. Although the effect size in the posttest was small, its magnitude was large in the delayed posttest. This would imply that by the passage of time, the words learned through the pictorial method tend to be remembered more easily than those learned via the translation method. In order for the newly taught words to retain in the long-term memory, then, English teachers are advised to present the new words with accompanying pictures to their students.