On the Incidental Learning of Abstract and Concrete Vocabulary Items in L1 Gloss and L2 Gloss

This paper strives to examine the short term/long term retention of abstract versus concrete vocabulary; and intends to investigate the effectiveness of teaching abstract and concrete vocabulary incidentally through marginal glosses presented in L1 and L2. 72 EFL learners at Imam Khomeini International University participated in this study. Their proficiency level was determined by a Proficiency Test. 10 participants were excluded from the study, and the remaining 62 were mostly at upper-intermediate level. The participants read two reading comprehension passages of approximately the same length and difficulty and answered six comprehension questions following each passage. In each passage, the difficult vocabulary items were glossed marginally so that the participants would incidentally notice them to gain a better understanding of the passage. In one passage, marginal glosses were provided in L1 while in the other the glosses were in L2. Then, the participants were tested for their recall of 15 abstract and concrete words in each passage. After a two week interval, they were requested to demonstrate their understanding of the glossed words in the passages. The paper presents a detailed analysis of the results and concludes with findings and implications.