The Effect of Vocabulary Knowledge and Background Knowledge on Reading Comprehension among Non Iranian Persian learners

Comprehension is the process of getting information from reading and listening. It plays a fundamental role in language learning. Several factors are involved in comprehension such as: vocabulary knowledge and prior/ background knowledge.
The present article aims through a case study to investigate the effect of teaching vocabulary and activating prior knowledge on reading comprehension among Non Iranian Persian learners in the center of teaching Persian language at IKIU. Of all advanced learners in the center, 65 learners were selected randomly (21 male and 25 female). After making participants homogenous via a vocabulary level exam, they were decreased in 46. Then, they were divided into two groups (vocabulary knowledge and prior knowledge). A common pretest contains two texts of reading comprehension was held focusing on cultural background of Iran. The test reliability was. /71. And after teaching unfamiliar vocabularies for vocabulary group and activating the prior knowledge for prior knowledge group separately, a post test (the same texts) was administrated. The data of pretest and posttest was analyzed through statistical tests. The results show that the reading comprehension is affected by vocabulary knowledge significantly, but as for background knowledge, no positive significant effect was observed.