Using English Reader's Digest to Enhance Vocabulary of Pakistani Students at Tertiary Level: An Experimental Study

The present research aimed at analyzing Reader’s digest to enhance vocabulary related to health, home, food, and travel of tertiary level Pakistani students. The study also designed to develop students’ knowledge in the vocabulary related aspects including meaning, spelling, word class, and word usage. According to Alqahtani (2015), vocabulary plays an important role in language learning and a learner may face problems in comprehension if s/he does not possess sufficient word knowledge. The present study has focused on the formal vocabulary teaching through Reader’s digest that has contributed a great deal in implementing new methods of language teaching. This mixed method research used qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze the effectiveness of Reader’s digest in developing vocabulary of BS economics’ students studying at a Pakistani university. The study used an experiment to analyze the effectiveness of Reader’s digest using a pretest-posttest design. A closed-ended questionnaire and an interview were also used to know the responses of the participants regarding the effectiveness of Reader’s digest for vocabulary enhancement. The study concludes that Reader’s digest is a useful authentic material to enhance vocabulary related tohealth, home, food, and travel of tertiary level Pakistani students. It is also concluded that Reader’s digest improves knowledge of vocabulary related aspects such as spelling, word class, and word usage, as the results of post-test demonstrate a significant improvement in students’ knowledge related to these areas