Male learners vocabulary achievement through concept mapping and mind mapping: differences and similarities

Abstract

While learning English plays an essential role in today's life, vocabulary achievement is helpful to overcome the difficulties of commanding the language. Drawing on data from three months experimental work, this article explores how two mapping strategies affect the learning vocabularies in EFL male learners. While females were studied before, this article focuses on how Iranian male students at Intermediate -level can improve their vocabulary achievement by using Mapping strategies of concept maps and mind maps. It was attempted to know whether gender plays a role or not. Therefore 62 male intermediate EFL learners were selected among a total number of 100. Based on the results, the students were randomly assigned to two experimental groups with 31 participants in each. Both groups underwent the same amount of teaching time by the researcher/teacher during 16 sessions of treatment which included concept mapping for the first group and mind mapping for the second. A posttest was administered at the end of the treatment to both groups and their mean scores on the test were compared through an independent samples t-test. The result showed that male learners same as females in the mind mapping group benefited significantly more than those in the concept mapping group in terms of improving their vocabulary achievement.