Improving Vocabulary Learning through Wordles

Introduction:Wordles are one of the most popular forms of data visualization; highlight the main ideas by presenting words used in a text in the shape of a cloud, with the biggest words being those that were most frequently employed in the text.Teaching vocabulary especially in ESP courses is becoming a challenge for English language teachers. Vocabulary is an inseparable part of any teaching syllabus and vocabulary should be taught in a well-planned and regular basis. It is essential to carefully decide what vocabulary will be selected for teaching, and what approach or activities will be used to teach it to the students. This study tries to investigate the improving vocabulary through wordles, concentrating on Nursing students at Semnan University of Medical Sciences. Methods: Two homogeneous groups of students who were taking their ESP courses participated in the study in two groups of thirty, a control group and an experimental group. They were both male and female, and their age range was 19-26. A standardized English proficiency test (Nelson test) was administered at the beginning of the study which aimed at homogenizing the participants. Two groups were taught 80 medical terminologies in 10 contextualized texts. Two parallel ESP vocabulary tests, one of them as the pre-test and the other as the post-test were given to the students to determine the effect of treatment on the experimental group. Data was statistically analyzed by SPSS software version 18. Results: The results of T-test and ANOVA analyses indicated that word clouds have positive significant effect on ESP students vocabulary learning.

کلیدواژه ها:

wordles ، word clouds ، EPS (English for Specific Purposes) ، vocabulary ، data visualization ، nursing students ، teaching ، learning