Investigating the effectiveness of vocabulary learning tasks from the perspective of the technique feature analysis: The effects of pictorial annotations

This study investigates the effectiveness of three kinds of word learning exercises in terms of Nation and Webb's (2011) technique feature analysis. Three commonly used vocabulary learning tasks: Reading comprehension, sentence writing, and cloze-exercise were combined with two types of annotations: Pictorial annotations and textual annotations in four tasks. Tasks 1 and 3 were provided with pictorial annotation, while tasks 2 and 4 were textual annotations. 130 college students were recruited and allocated randomly to the four tasks groups to test their learning effectiveness respectively. The results demonstrated that cloze-exercises with textual glosses were as effective as reading comprehension with pictorial glosses, and cloze-exercises with pictorial glosses were as effective as sentence-writing with textual glosses, which is in accord with the checklist of technique feature analysis and confirms the effectiveness of pictorial annotations to word learning.