The Effect of Teaching Vocabulary through PowerPoint Designed Vocabulary Organizers on Different Learning Styles of Pre-intermediate Iranian EFL Learners

Throughout the last decade, vocabulary teaching seems to be one of the trending areas of research. In this case, teaching vocabulary through multimedia or Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) has received special attention. Different students with various learning styles may benefit from CALL differently. The study focuses on the effect of teaching vocabulary through PowerPoint Designed Vocabulary Organizers (PDVOs) on learners with different learning styles. Based on their responses to a learning style determiner questionnaire, 267 pre-intermediate (determined by Nelson English language test) male students were assigned into five groups; a control group and four experimental groups of Visual, Auditory, Read/Write, and Kinesthetic (VARK). 100 pre-selected words were taught to the experimental groups through the PDVOs. On the other hand, the control group learned those words through a traditional method. The research hypotheses were tested by Analyze of Covariance, Paired Sample T-test, and Wilcoxon Test. The results revealed that the students significantly gained better results being taught through the PDVOs compared to the traditional one. It was also found that all students with one of the four VARK learning styles significantly improved in scores after the intervention. Taking a deeper look, Visual and Kinesthetic learners’ improvements were notably higher than the Auditory and Read/Write learners. Finally, using Gardner’s Attitude/Motivational test battery, it was revealed that the students have significant positive attitudes toward being taught by the PDVOs. The findings of the present study indicated that using multimedia that provides vocabulary items through different channels can be beneficial in vocabulary teaching; especially for teaching vocabulary items to Visual and Kinesthetic learners.