THE EFFECTS OF IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT INSTRUCTION OF VOCABULARY ON IRANIAN INTERMEDIATE EFL LEARNERS' LISTENING COMPREHENSION

The present study has examined the possible effects of using implicit and explicit vocabulary instruction on intermediate Iranian EFL learners’ listening comprehension skill. For the purpose of this study, seventy-five EFL learners out of one-hundred were selected through an Oxford Placement Test (۲۰۰۱) from a governmental school, and they were divided into ۳ groups of ۲۵ intermediate learners. The first group used implicit instruction, the second group used explicit instruction and the third group used a conventional method. A listening pre-test was administered to all of the groups before giving them the treatment. Besides, the treatment was given to the experimental groups, which used implicit and explicit instructions, while the control group received a traditional method of listening and transcribing. Descriptive statistics as well as inferential statistics, in the form of paired samples of t-tests and a One-way ANOVA, were utilized to analyze the collected data. The results show that both implicit and explicit instructions have significant effects on EFL learners’ listening comprehension skill. In addition, a significant difference has been found among the implicit, explicit and control groups in the listening posttest after instruction. Moreover, there has been a meaningful difference between the implicit and explicit groups regarding their listening abilities after receiving instruction. Based on the results of the mean scores, the implicit group has had a better performance than the explicit group. This study provides a number of implications for language teachers and syllabus designers in order to implement various strategies and techniques in classroom contexts.