The Effect of Pictorial Annotations on Saudi EFL Student’s Incidental Vocabulary Learning

(Received 2/5/1429H.; accepted for publication 11/3/1430H.) Abstract. This study investigates the effect of textual and pictorial annotations on incidental vocabulary learning. Eighty eight male first-year undergraduate Saudi students read a 367-word text which included 16 glossed words. The reading text was adapted into four forms: a text with L1 (Arabic) text-only glosses, a text with L2 (English) text-only glosses, a text with text (Arabic)-picture glosses, and a text with text (English)-picture glosses. Subjects were randomly selected and randomly assigned to one of the four groups; Arabic text-only, English text-only, Arabic text- picture, and English text-picture. Without any advanced notice, subjects were tested immediately after reading the text and one week after. Tests were definition-supply and word recognition. Results revealed a superiority of the Arabic text-picture gloss group over all the other three groups in the immediate and delayed definition-supply tests. In the immediate and the delayed word recognition tests, both English text-picture and Arabic text-picture gloss groups recognized more words than other groups did but the differences were insignificant. Sameer Saleh Aljabri4