Incidental Learning of English Orthography through Flashcards by Young Iranian EFL Learners

The present study was an attempt to investigate the effect of flashcards on incidental learning of English letters by child EFL learners. The kids were taught a number of English words using three kinds of flashcards: 1) flashcards with the picture of an object and the written word on its frontside 2) flashcards with the picture of the target word on the front side and its written word on the backside and 3) flashcards with the picture of the target with no written word. The participants of the study were 38 kindergarten EFL learners aging between 5 and 6 with no knowledge of English, divided into two experimental and one control group depending on the type of the exposed flashcards. The results of a word cued recognition task and a picture cued letter recognition task revealed gain effects for both experimental groups with a better performance for picture and word on frontside group. These findings suggest that incidental learning of orthography might happen in the earliest stages of exposure to an L2. We argue that if applied correctly, incidental procedures of learning might eliminate the unwanted burden of teaching/ intentional learning of L2 spelling at later stages, giving space to more real life and enjoyable classroom activities.