The Sociological Effects of Peer/ Teacher Technology-Enhanced Scaffolding through Process Approach on Young Male vs. Female EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Knowledge

Abstract

Gender is considered a sociological construct and investigating the role of gender in foreign language learning contexts is highly important due to the effects of sociological factors in learning. Therefore, the present study set out to explore the sociological effects of peer and teacher scaffolding through the process approach in a technology-enhanced environment on the vocabulary learning of male and female EFL learners. The participants of the study were 120 EFL learners at the intermediate level of language proficiency who were selected out of 170 learners based on their performance on the Oxford Placement Test (OPT). The selected 120 learners were divided into three groups consisting of both male and female learners. The three groups were then given a vocabulary pretest. Then, treatment was carried out via Telegram in line with the tenets of process approach as explicated by Nation (2001) including the three stages of noticing, retrieval and generation. It should be noted that the treatment in both peer and teacher scaffolding groups was done based on Nation's three stages. The difference was that scaffolding in peer scaffolding group was carried out by peers while scaffolding in teacher scaffolding group was conducted by teacher. Concerning the control group, the conventional instruction of vocabulary was followed via providing the learners with example sentences and also vocabulary exercises, and no specific steps were followed for providing the participants with peer or teacher scaffolding via a process approach. After finishing treatment, the three groups were given the vocabulary posttest. The results indicated that both teacher and peer scaffolding significantly affected learners' vocabulary improvement irrespective of gender.