the influence of explicit vocabulary teaching on iranian female high school students

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of explicit vocabulary strategies on the development of iranian female high school students’ english vocabulary and improving their reading comprehension skills. using a non-random sampling technique, 50 iranian female high school students in eleventh grade were chosen to participate in this study. based on their band score on the oxford quick placement test (oqpt), their english level was determined as intermediate. the selected participants were randomly divided into two groups; one group received the treatment explicitly and the other group received the treatment implicitly. after the treatments, the two groups took the researcher-made vocabulary and reading post-tests to measure the effects of the treatment on their reading and vocabulary learning development. the results showed that though the two groups performed almost the same both on reading and vocabulary pre-tests, on the post-tests, the explicit group outdid the implicit group. the result of this study indicated that explicit instruction can be more effective in developing the students’ vocabulary learning and reading comprehension. however, it is suggested that instead of sticking resolutely to either explicit or implicit instructional techniques, teachers can use a combination of explicit and implicit techniques together as an efficient blending of these two instructions may lead to better.