Comparing the Effect of One-way versus Two-way Tasks on Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners’ Phrasal Verb Learning

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of one-way and two-way tasks, as two various techniques for teaching vocabulary, on Iranian intermediate EFL learners' phrasal verb learning. The participants in this study were sixty EFL learners majoring in TEFL, all of whom were in the second semester of academic year 2015. In order to establish a homogenized group, a test of proficiency titled CELT was administered to ninety sophomore students, and sixty were selected to serve the purpose of the study.  They were intermediate students with the age range within 18 to 29. After the administration of the proficiency test as the homogeneity, they were then divided into two equal comparison groups, either of whom comprised thirty participants: one-way task (OWT) and two-way task (TWT) groups. A pretest, comprising forty multiple-choice phrasal verbs, was administered to the both groups. Then both groups underwent twelve sessions of treatment (treatment for the TWT group, and placebo for the OWT group). The OWT group was taught phrasal verbs by means of one-way task, and the TWT group was taught vocabulary via two-way tasks as input. After the treatment period, the same version of phrasal verb test was administered to both groups as posttest to examine the effectiveness of the treatment. Both groups in this study were taught by the same researcher and through the same methodology. The data were analyzed through running paired-samples and independent samples t-tests, the outcome of which revealed that both the OWT group and the TWT group had vocabulary gains but the effect of two-way tasks on phrasal verbs learning was more salient than that of the one-way task group. The implications and recommendations were also presented.