Abstract

The concept of text-oriented vocabulary exercises is based on Kühn’s (2000) three-step model of vocabulary teaching—receptive, reflective and productive vocabulary exercises—which focuses on working with texts. Since the production is in principle more exhausting than the reception—as can be seen from the Levels of Processing Effect—one can assume that it comes to a deeper processing in the text production and consequently exerts a positive influence on the retention performance of the learners. The main purpose of this paper is to conduct an empirical study on Iranian GFL-learners (Note 1) to demonstrate whether text production has a positive impact on the short-term, medium-term and long-term retention of the GFL-learners who have learned the new words in foreign language based on the concept of text-oriented vocabulary exercises or not. In addition, this study also has the secondary object of demonstrating the possibility of GFL-Learner’s sex as well as the age having any effect on the retention performance. The results have shown that the text production has a positive effect on the short-term and medium-term retention. It could also be shown that gender exerts an influence on the medium-term retention performance of female GFL-learners. In terms of age, the result was that text production has a positive impact on the retention performance of the 30 to 40-year-old GFL-learners, enabling them to better remember the textually learned words in the short, medium and long term.

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