Farnaz Sahebkheir - PhD, Assistant Professor of TEFL, Department of English Language Teaching, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran

The aim of this study was twofold: The goal of this study was to assess the effect of glossing in L1 and glossing in L2 on vocabulary improvement of learners with different language proficiency. Furthermore, it aims to assess the effect of using glossing on lexical density of retelling texts by learners. For conducting this study, two groups of low-intermediate and upper-intermediate learners were chosen. Every group divided into two groups that got different methods for teaching vocabulary (one group that got glossing in L1 and the other group got glossing in L2). The whole number of students was 80 (20 students in every group). A vocabulary test as a pre-test was used to be sure of the homogeneity in the beginning of the study. The same vocabulary test in the pre-test was use as the post-test. The questions were from the book learners studied during the treatment. The results showed that in the post-test, the group in low-intermediate level which got glossing in L1 improved vocabulary better than the other group. However, in the upper intermediate level, the group which received glossing in L2 had better results in vocabulary test in the post-test. In addition, the results for retelling text in the end of the term showed that in both low intermediate and upper intermediate level, those groups which got glossing in l2 had better results in retelling text. However, the group in upper-intermediate level who got glossing in L2 improved lexical density better than other groups.

EFL context, glossing, language proficiency, Vocabulary learning