differential effects of reading literary texts and memorization of paired-associates on vocabulary acquisition among iranian intermediate efl students

Learning a second language (l2) involves the learning of a largenumber of words. therefore, teachers as well as learners have always shown a keen interest in finding out how words can best be developed. this study was an attempt to find out whether reading literary texts and memorization of paired associates have any effect on vocabulary development of learners or not. the study was conducted on intermediate female students at gooyesh institute in shahroud. to accomplish the purpose of the study, the researcher chose a sample of 80 subjects, which were reduced to 47 homogenous students through the administration of a standardized comprehensive english language test (celt). then, the subjects were divided into 24 and 23 students for comparison and experimental groups, respectively. then subjects in both experimental and comparison groups were tested a pre validated 50 multiple choices and fill in the blank items of vocabulary as a pretest in the first session. in the following 10 sessions, the subjects in experimental group received a novel called a time to kill to read it and concentrate on literary meanings. in comparison group students received a list of paired associates of vocabulary accompanied by their meaning in persian. at the end of the term, the same vocabulary test was administered to the subjects of both groups as the post-test to check the effectiveness of the treatment. then the resultant means of both groups were compared through a t-test. the result indicated that there was a statistically significant difference between the performances of both groups. it was concluded that the subjects in experimental group who received the novel, outperformed those who received a list of words.