The Effects of Instruction Type on Vocabulary Learning: A Psycholinguistics Study

The present study aims at investigating the effects of depth of processing in three approaches on teaching vocabulary. Taking into account Craik and Lockhart (1972) model of memory, it intends to find out if any of the current approaches to vocabulary teaching: a) Incidental Learning or b) Task-based approach, or c) the old method of using dictionaries and repetition is more helpful. The results of the study revealed that implementation of tasks and use of output as a means of drawing learners’ attention to the form is much more beneficial than the other two approaches. The outcome is in line with the hypothesis in the Craikand Lockhart model of memory.