Using authentic newspaper texts in teaching intermediate vocabulary

Abstract

This study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of using authentic newspaper texts in teaching vocabulary to Turkish intermediate level EFL students. Furthermore, the present study was an attempt to have a closer look at foreign language learners' attitudes towards authentic newspaper texts and to examine their changes in attitude and proficiency after vocabulary instruction using such texts in the foreign language classroom. This quasi-experimental study took place in Usak Orhan Dengiz Anatolian High School and it comprised two different groups: one experimental and one control group. 54 students from this high school participated in the study. This sample was composed of 10th grade students and their English language level was intermediate. The experimental group learned the words through authentic newspaper texts, whereas, the control group was exposed to traditional vocabulary teaching techniques such as matching, giving definitions, and fill in the blanks. Three different data collection instruments were employed in this study: a questionnaire on students' language study habits, vocabulary pretest and posttest, and an evaluation questionnaire. The results of data analysis revealed a significant difference between vocabulary pretest and vocabulary posttest scores of the experimental group students receiving vocabulary instruction through authentic newspaper texts when we compared them to vocabulary pretest and vocabulary posttest scores of the control group students receiving vocabulary instruction through traditional ways. Based on these findings, the current study suggested that authentic newspaper texts can be more effective teaching aids in teaching vocabulary than traditional vocabulary teaching tools in English Language Teaching (ELT) classrooms. © 2011 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.