The Teaching of Homophone and Homograph Words to Non-Persian Learners through Short Story

      The Teaching of Homophone and Homograph Words to Non-Persian Learners through   Short Story     Mohammad Reza Pahlavannezhad [1]   Zahra Sadate Hosseini [2]       Received: 2011 /07/19   Accepted: 2012/09/08       Abstract   Language learning is generally associated with four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Each of these skills has a special role in learning a language but the improvement of these skills requires some factors such as proper materials,appropriate methods and teaching strategies. Materials should be prepared with special orientation and specific features. Teachers should be familiar with language teaching principles and s/he should use these new and useful methods and language teaching principles.The aim of this research was to investigate the application of short story as a teaching style in second language teaching. To achieve this purpose, some Homophone­-homograph were taught to foreign learners who are learning Persian language. Fourteen learners were divided up into two groups; a control group and an experimental one in which learners were taught by applying short stories or without them. In order to investigate the results and analyze the data, a t-test was conducted. Since the mean of t-test was lower than 0.05 (sig=0.00), it could be said that the experimental group gained a higher score than the control one. The results of the present study indicated a significant difference between the control group and the experimental one. Furthermore, applying short stories is an appropriate teaching style which made learning easy and engaging .     Keywords : homophone-homograph words, teaching methods, short story.     [1] Associate Professor, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. pahlavan@um.ac.ir   [2] PhD Candidate, General Lingustics, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (International Division). ho706@stu.um.ac.ir