Abdullah M.A. Alhomaidan^1,, Awad K. Ashamry², Sami I. Almuzany¹, Tareq M. Almutawa³

This study investigates the effect of interactive-image elaboration on the acquisition of English vocabulary by Arabic speakers. Three ESL classes at a technical college were divided into three groups and for each one a different procedure was used. The first procedure provides ready-made interactive pictures while the procedure in the second group was to ask participants to generate their own imagery pictures or to use the repetition strategy while the third treatment required students to use the strategy of repetition to learn the meaning of the new words, both in immediate and delayed tests (two weeks later). Tests of immediate and delayed results suggest that the use of the ready-made interactive pictures’ strategy increased retention above the other strategies. Furthermore, the tests results also suggest that using elaborative devices either spontaneously or by design is more effective than the repetition strategy and it is possible for such a strategy to be adopted in natural classroom settings.

acquisition, vocabulary, mnemonic devices, interactive-image elaboration