The Effect of Implicit and Explicit Instruction of Vocabulary on Iranian Intermediate Efl Learners' Listening Comprehension

The present study examined the possible effects of using implicit vs. explicit vocabulary instruction on iranian intermediate efl learners’ listening comprehension. seventy-five efl learners out of one-hundred were selected through an oxford placement test (2001) from a governmental school and they were divided into 3 groups of 25 intermediate learners. the first group used implicit instruction, the second group used explicit instruction and the third group used a conventional method. the listening pre-test was administered to all groups before giving the treatment. the treatment was given to the experimental groups (implicit and explicit instructions). the control group received a traditional method (listen and transcribe). the descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and the inferential statistics (paired samples t-tests and a one-way anova) were utilized to analyze the collected data. the results showed that both implicit and explicit instructions had a significant effect on efl learners’ listening comprehension. in addition, there was a significant difference among implicit, explicit and the control groups in listening post-test after giving the instruction. moreover, there was a significant difference between implicit and explicit groups in listening ability after receiving instruction. based on the results of the mean scores, the implicit group had a better performance than the explicit group. this study supported a number of implications for language teachers and syllabus designers to perform different strategies and techniques in the classroom contexts.