A comparative study on the effectiveness of still pictures and moving pictures as aids in vocabulary instruction to Turkish EFL students

Abstract

Vocabulary instruction is an important aspect of language teaching, whose difficulty is acknowledged by researchers as well as teachers and students. Still pictures and moving pictures (video) are often used as aids in EFL vocabulary instruction. However, few studies have been conducted to examine the role of these aids in helping recognition and retention of vocabulary. The purpose of this experimental study was to compare the effectiveness of still pictures and moving pictures on students' recognition and retention EFL content words at two different proficiency levels (PreIntermediate and Intermediate). The study considered two conditions: 'movement' and 'students' proficiency level', therefore a 2 X 2 factorial design was used. To observe these conditions four groups were formed: 'Pre-Intermediate Still Picture Group', 'PreIntermediate Moving Picture Group', 'Intermediate Still Picture Group' and 'Intermediate Moving Picture Group'. A pretest was given to all groups to test their existing recognition of the forty target vocabulary items. After each treatment session, the subjects took a post-test; and at the end of the experiment, they were given a long-term retention test. The test scores were used to analyse the effect of 'movement', the effect of proficiency level, and the interaction between these two conditions. Three ANOVA tables were constructed and relevant hypotheses were tested using the F-statistics computed by SPSS. In addition, a two-tailed ttest was employed to see which visual aid was more effective on students' long-term retention of the target vocabulary. The results of the data analysis procedure showed no significant difference between groups' immediate recognition of the target vocabulary with regards to the type of treatment they received and their proficiency level. Besides, there was no significant interaction between the proficiency level of the students and the type of treatment in terms of the students' immediate recognition and long-term retention of vocabulary. However, the analysis of the long-term retention test scores yielded one significant result: there was a significant difference between groups in terms of the visual aid used in the treatment sessions, which proved that still pictures were a more effective visual aid in enhancing students' long-term retention of vocabulary.