The Effect of Concordancing based Teaching on the Students' Vocabulary Retention

Vocabulary learning is at the heart of language learning and language teaching. Having it in mind, most of the students always complain about lexical problems, and unfortunately, the students and sometimes the teachers are unaware of the different tools, which can help the students to learn vocabulary and improve vocabulary retention. A useful tool for learning and teaching vocabularies is a tool that produces several authentic examples and sentences to enhance learners' comprehension and reveal different uses and collocates. Concordancing software is one of these (digital) tools that enable learners to explore billions of real-world materials. In this regard, the present study was conducted to investigate whether the use of concordancing software has a significant effect on vocabulary retention or not. A sample of ۵۴ students took part in this study and they were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. In order to screen the participants and assess their homogeneity, a general proficiency test was given. The standard vocabulary test was administered to check the extent of the participants' knowledge of intended vocabularies in experimental and control groups. After the pretest, the treatment sessions started for each group, which lasted ۱۲ sessions (۴weeks) and during this time the vocabulary of each lesson was taught by using concordancing software to the experimental group (their retention was checked) and by using a list of vocabulary to the control group. After the treatment sessions, the post-test was administered to both groups. The data were gathered from the post-test and analyzed. The results of this comparison proved that the use of concordance software improved learners' vocabulary retention. The outcomes have the potential to affect language learners' performance and teachers' beliefs about the effectiveness of using CALL programs especially concordancing programs.

کلیدواژه ها:

CALL ، Concordancing Software ، Vocabulary Retention