The Effect of Computer Assisted L1 and L2 Glosses on L2 Vocabulary Learning

Research has shown that providing glosses facilitates L2 reading comprehension and vocabulary learning. This study, however, examines the effect of L1 and L2 glosses on L2 vocabulary learning in the context of computer-assisted language learning in an EFL setting. Forty-four Iranian pre-university students were assigned to three groups and the homogeneity of participating groups was checked by administering a pretest. The first group used L1 glosses, the second group consulted L2 glosses, and the third group acted as a control group and received no glosses. Using scaffoglossing software, participants of the experimental groups read the reading sections of 3 units of their textbook for 6 sessions. At the end of the 7th session, all participating individuals took the immediate posttest including a Persian equivalent test, a multiple-choice test, and a sentence completion test. Twenty-five days later, participants took the same package of tests as the delayed posttest. Repeated measures ANOVAs run on the obtained data revealed that the glosses groups (L1 and L2) outperformed the control group. Further analyses run indicated that the L1 glosses outscored the L2 glosses in the immediate and delayed posttests, though the difference was not statistically significant. The findings of this study suggest that the participants' L1 can be as effective as L2 glosses for vocabulary learning.