زهرا فاخر عجب شیر

In recent decades, the use of glosses has increasingly drawn the attention of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers and practitioners and the application of glosses has become a common approach in enriching L2 reading materials. While there is a substantial body of research on the role of glosses in fostering reading comprehension and vocabulary acquisition, the findings on relative efficacy of first language (L1) and second language (L2) glosses are conflicting. Moreover, previous gloss studies with mixed findings on relative effectiveness of gloss location have presented a muddled picture of more or less efficacy of either presentation format. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the impact of Farsi (L1) and English (L2) paper-based glosses with different presentation formats (in the margin and at the bottom of page) on 176 intermediate-level EFL learners' vocabulary retention and recall. The participants were non-English-majored freshman and sophomore students studying at the University of Bonab (located in East Azarbaijan province, Iran), who were enrolled in general English course. Adopting a quasi-experimental design, this study employed five intact classes which were randomly assigned to four treatment and one control groups. During a two-month treatment, the participants read the passages under one of the four conditions (groups): L1 gloss in the margin (L1-margin), L1 gloss at the bottom of the page (L1-bottom), L2 gloss in the margin (L2-margin), and L2 gloss at the bottom of the page (L2-bottom). Following the treatment, a vocabulary post-test and a month later, a delayed post-test were administered. Results of repeated measures ANOVAs showed the superiority of L1 over L2 glosses (L1-margin > L1-bottom > L2-margin > L2-bottom) in the post-test. The delayed post-test scores revealed the outperformance of marginal glosses, regardless of the gloss language (L1-margin = L2-margin > L1-bottom > L2-bottom), suggesting that how learners process and