The Role of Podcasting in teaching English Vocabulary to Iranian EFL Pupils

This study aimed at investigating whether giving EFLlearners podcast materials in teaching English vocabulary in addition to the traditional materials helps them to enhance their vocabulary learning, and to explore the attitude of learners towards using podcast in teaching contexts. A quasi experimental method was applied to determine whether the students who were exposed to podcasting were better in recalling the learning materials or not. For this purpose, 50 EFL learners, selected from two English Institutes in Iran, participated in this study. They were randomly assigned into the experimental and control groups. The control group received traditional classroom instruction while the experimental group was exposed to the same materials through audio and visual recordings on podcasts. After 32 hours instruction, both groups took a posttest. The results of an independent t-test confirmed that the students in the experimental group scored significantly higher than the control group. In addition, a survey questionnaire was administered to the podcasting group to explore their attitudes towards using podcast instruction to improve their English ability. The results reported that EFL learners in the experimental group mostly showed positive attitudes. The results suggest the importance of using electronic devices in better learning, especially in the era of electronic learning where teachers and instructors need to use them more than before.