The Impact of Text-Messaging on EFL Freshmen's Vocabulary Learning

Abstract

The present research investigates the effectiveness of text-message vocabulary learning on EFL freshmen. The results of the pretreatment interview with EFL learners showed that many of them have difficulty learning vocabulary through the traditional paperand-pencil way; therefore, text-message vocabulary learning was hypothesized to be a potential way to help EFL learners consolidate their vocabulary knowledge. To this end, 43 participants from among 85 freshmen studying in Torbat-e-Heydarieh Azad University participated in the study. The participants were divided into two groups of 21 and 22 on the basis of their proficiency. The book Check Your Vocabulary for Academic English by David Porter (2001) was taught to both groups, and they were told to make some sentences in the class to become familiar with these words; they were requested to work cooperatively in small groups of 3 or 4 in order to have the opportunity to talk more about these words. Fifteen to 20 words were introduced and taught to these students on each session. Then, the participants in the experimental group sent the researcher one text-message containing an original sentence for each word covered in the class. They were also asked to send a text-message containing a sentence to their three predetermined partners. The participants in the control group wrote one sentence using each covered word, and they were also asked to write one sentence to exchange with their three partners and bring their assignments to the class next session. The results of independent samples t-test for the post-test and the delayed post-test showed that there was no statistically significant difference between the initial vocabulary learning and the retention of the vocabulary between the two groups.