An investigation into the role of interactive vocabulary instruction on learners' vocabulary knowledge

ABSTRACTAN INVESTIGATION INTO THE ROLE OF INTERACTIVE VOCABULARYINSTRUCTION ON LEARNERS? VOCABULARY KNOWLEDGEEv en ÜNALMA Thesis, English Language Teaching DepartmentAdvisor: Assist. Prof. Dr. Rana YILDIRIMSeptember 2006, 80 pagesThis specific study concerns itself with the teaching and learning of non-technical vocabulary items in English to Turkish intermediate level EFL studentsthrough interactive vocabulary instruction. In this respect, our study tries to find out theanswers to the following questions:- Will there be a progress in the experimental group?s vocabulary knowledgewho learn vocabulary through interactive vocabulary instruction?- Will there be a progress in the control group?s vocabulary knowledge wholearn vocabulary through traditional definition-based vocabulary instruction?- Will there be a change in the experimental group?s attitudes to vocabularylearning and vocabulary learning activities after they are exposed to interactivevocabulary instruction?The purpose of the thesis is to give some answers to these questions within anexperimental type of study. This study comprised two different groups: One was theexperimental and the other was the control group chosen from Ça College. Theexperimental group was exposed to interactive vocabulary instruction. On the otherhand, the control group focused traditional definition-based vocabulary teaching. After atreatment period, the control and experimental groups? performance was analyzedaccording to pretest and posttest data. Our posttest analysis indicated that there was astatistically difference between our control and the experimental groups. Basically, theexperimental group?s scores were statistically more significant than the control group.In other words, the findings indicated that the interactive vocabulary instruction can beutilized as an effective vocabulary teaching method in language learning classrooms.Key words: Interactive vocabulary instruction, Keyword method, Treshold level.