Social Network-based Instruction and Vocabulary Learning: A Case of Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners

Social network-based education is among the language learning procedures that have won a great deal of support by students looking for new ways to learn words more easily. This study investigated Iranian intermediate EFL learners vocabulary learning through Telegram social network. To begin with, 60 male intermediate (confirmed through PET test) Iranian EFL learners whose ages ranged from 28 to 35 were chosen and divided into two groups of social network-based (experimental) and paper-based (control), each group with 30 members. Then, during the treatment sessions, the experimental group was engaged in a social network-based mode of vocabulary learning and the control group enjoyed paper-based mode of vocabulary learning to learn vocabulary items. After each five instructional sessions, both groups took the related 20-item immediate posttest, and two weeks after the end of the term, the students of both groups took the 100-item delayed posttest. The collected data were analyzed through the SPSS software and it was found that social network-based instruction had a significant effect on promoting both short-term and long-term vocabulary knowledge of Iranianintermediate EFL learners.

Keywords:

Computer Assisted Language Learning , Vocabulary learning , Social network , Telegram