Massomeh Hasani - M. A. Student, TEFL Department, Islamic Azad University, Tehran North Branch
M Nowruzi - The Project Advisor Professor, TEFL Department, Islamic Azad University, Tehran North Branch
M Rashtchi - The Project Reader Professor, TEFL Department, Islamic Azad University, Tehran North Branch

In this article the impact of two different task types, namely, reading task and writing task in helping learners to acquire the new lexical items is compared with more traditional approach of exercise doing. Throughout the 12 weeks, in a carefully controlled pretest-posttest quasi-experimental study, 60 Iranian female high school students in three intact classes of English, learned some new English vocabulary words via each of the three activities. One group was instructed to write at least one complete sentence with the new words and the second group had to read the readings which contained the new vocabularies and answer the comprehension questions. Both groups were free to use dictionaries and negotiate with each other during the class time. The third group was instructed to do the vocabulary exercises which related to the new words, they were also free to use their dictionaries but couldn’t consult with each other. By means of statistical analysis, the result of the posttest showed clear differences between the effects of the three activities. It signified the priority of the writing task, then the exercise doing and the reading task had the least impact on increasing the vocabulary knowledge of the participants

Task, Vocabulary exercise, Vocabulary acquisition, EFL learners