Abstract:

Teaching vocabulary is one of the main components of any language teaching methods concerned with English as a second or foreign language (ESL / EFL). Therefore, this study investigated the role of topic familiarity as a reading strategy through which bilingual (i. e., Arabic /Farsi) and monolingual (i. e., Farsi) students use their background knowledge on the familiar topics to develop their reading comprehension. In doing so, 60 homogeneous students (i. e., 30 bilinguals and 30 monolinguals) were randomly selected and divided into two groups. They participated in six weeks of incidental teaching of vocabulary and received the same instruction and materials. With two types of topics (i. e., familiar vs. unfamiliar) then they took a post–test based on the materials taught during the research period. Data analysis was administered and results showed the difference between the two groups was significant (p<.05). In other words, the group who dealt with familiar topics outperformed the group worked on unfamiliar topics concerned with vocabulary achievement test. The results indicated that bilinguals outperformed monolinguals in vocabulary learning regarding the familiar topics. Findings also revealed that topic familiarity can enhance vocabulary acquisition in reading comprehension courses, especially among bilinguals rather than monolinguals.

Keywords:

topic familiarity, vocabulary, bilingual, monolingual.