The impact of visualization and verbalization techniques on vocabulary learning of Iranian high school EFL learners: A gender perspective

•The effects of visualization and verbalization on learners' L2 vocabulary improvement were checked.•Deductions could be made that both methods led to the development of L2 vocabulary knowledge.•Results indicated that learners' L2 vocabulary scores were significantly larger when the visualization technique was used.•Gender of participants made no significant difference in vocabulary improvement through visualization and verbalization.

The present study intended to examine the impact of two techniques of vocabulary teachings on Iranian high school EFL learners in relation to their gender in Yasuj, Iran. The selected 120 participants were at lower-intermediate level of English proficiency based on their performance on Quick Oxford Placement Test (QOPT). The participants included 60 male and 60 female students who were between 15 and 18 years old. The study included four sub-groups that made up two main experimental groups. That is to say, subgroup number 1 (subg1) included 30 male students; subgroup number 2 (subg2) was comprised of 30 male students. Accordingly, the male participants of the study made up a sixty-participant experimental group (consisting of two thirty-participant subgroups) which received two treatments, namely visualization and verbalization. As for the female participants, they were divided into two thirty-participant subgroups, namely subgroup 3 (subg3) and subgroup 4 (subg4). The first sub-group (subg1) and the third sub-group (subg3) received visualization techniques for vocabulary instruction, and the second sub-group (subg2) and the fourth sub-group (subg4) were instructed through verbalization. With regard to the effects of visualization and verbalization on learners' L2 vocabulary improvement, it could be concluded that both methods led to the development of L2 vocabulary knowledge. In addition, considering the difference between the effects of the two approaches on learners' L2 vocabulary knowledge development, deductions could be made that visualization would result in better vocabulary learning than the verbalization technique. Moreover, results manifested that there was not any significant difference between male and female Iranian high school EFL learners' vocabulary learning through visualization and verbalization.