The Impact of Telegram as a Social Network on Teaching English Vocabulary among Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners

To help students find language classes, especially vocabulary lessons more interesting in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context, a study was conducted to investigate the effects of short massages services (SMS) via social networks on EFL learners' vocabulary learning process. To this end, an experimental approach was applied to assess the efficacy of SMS-based teaching on students' vocabulary learning. A PET proficiency test, two time-series vocabulary progress tests, and a post-test were applied to explore the effects of SMS on students' vocabulary learning process. Then the difference in mean scores was compared to answer the research question. The study has revealed that: (1) the use of SMS via social networks as a teaching tool had a positive effect on students' vocabulary learning; (2) the experimental group obtained somewhat higher scores in the post-test than in two time-series progress tests, making the difference between the progress tests and post-test significantly different; (3) the difference between the two progress tests and post-test for control group was not statistically significant; and (4) the experimental students were more differentiated than the control students, as shown by a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of both groups in post-test in favor of the experimental students.