The Impact of Illustrations on Recall of Short Stories

Drawing on the tenets of generative learning theory, proposed by Wittrock (1992), the present study examined to what extent providing EFL students with short stories accompanied with illustrations, drawn by an artist, portraying some scenes relevant to the content of the stories, might influence the recall of major features of the fictional texts. A sample of Michigan proficiency test was initially administered to 75 intermediate female students at Parax Language Institute (PLI), in Mashhad, Iran, and those who scored within the range of one standard deviation above and below the mean were selected as the participants of the study (N=54). Then, they were randomly assigned to two equal groups (a control and an experimental group), each consisting of 27 homogenous students. The participants were given three short stories. The experimental group received the illustrated version of the stories. However, the control group was merely given the text of the same stories. Four weeks after presenting the texts, both groups were given a recall test of multiple-choice format. The findings revealed that students who were given the texts accompanied with illustrations outscored the control group, suggesting that illustrated short stories are likely to enhance the recall of such texts by EFL learners.