The title of the paper is "Vocabulary Learning through Audios, Images, and Videos: Linking Technologies with Memory," and it primarily focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of different multimedia methods—audios, images, and videos without sound—on Saudi EFL students' acquisition and retention of English vocabulary.
The purpose of the study is to determine which of the three multimedia methods is most effective in helping Saudi EFL students memorize English vocabulary by associating the words' meanings with these multimedia elements. Additionally, the study seeks to understand the students' attitudes toward these methods to provide insights into their preferences.
The methodology employed involves 99 undergraduate Saudi EFL students who participated in the study. These students were divided into three groups, each exposed to the three methods—associating vocabulary with audios, images, and videos—in different orders. The effectiveness of these methods was tested through a lesson treatment, and students' attitudes were gauged using a questionnaire.
The key findings reveal that associating vocabulary with images was significantly more effective than using audios or videos without sound. The image-based method led to better retention of vocabulary in the students' L1, and it was also the most preferred method among the students. The results suggest that the strong associative links between images and vocabulary meanings in memory, as well as the students' increased attention when learning with images, contribute to this effectiveness.
The conclusions of the study emphasize the importance of using images in vocabulary teaching, especially in contexts where memorization is key. The findings imply that incorporating images in EFL classrooms can significantly enhance students' ability to retain and recall vocabulary, which may be due to stronger mnemonic connections formed in the memory when images are used. The study recommends that EFL teachers consider integrating more visual elements in their teaching strategies to support vocabulary learning effectively.