The impact of general and specific vocabulary knowledge on reading and listening comprehension: A case of Iranian EFL learners

The present study was carried out to determine the effect of general vocabulary knowledge and gaining familiarity with the specific vocabulary content of a reading or listening comprehension test on a group of Iranian EFL learners’ reading and listening comprehension ability. Two groups of male and female English majors (N = 58) participated in the study. In one group (the treatment group), the participants were given a reading comprehension test accompanied by a glossary which contained the meaning of the most difficult words appearing in the reading comprehension test. In the other group (the control group), the students received the same test without the glossary. The same procedure was followed for a listening comprehension test in the two groups in another session. The analysis of the data revealed that the students in the treatment group significantly outperformed those in the control group in both reading and listening comprehension tests. Further analysis of the data indicated that the learners’ knowledge of the general vocabulary content of the reading and listening comprehension texts only affected their performance on the reading comprehension test. The results of the present study shed more light on the influence of knowledge of vocabulary on reading and listening comprehension.