This study aims at examining the effects of visual and verbal intelligences-based teaching of vocabularies on Iranian EFL students vocabulary retention and production. Therefore, 71 male and female intermediate students, who were selected from two different language institutes in Mashhad (Iran), served as the participants of this study. They were divided into visual experimental, verbal experimental, and control groups. During the five sessions of the treatment, 35 vocabularies were instructed to the three groups, while the visual experimental group received the words visually, the verbal experimental group received the words verbally, and control group instructed traditionally. Data analysis demonstrated that the students retention of words in visual experimental group was enhanced by visual intelligence-based teaching of vocabularies, while verbal experimental group and control group did not. Moreover, the results of the writing test exhibited that visual intelligence-based teaching of vocabularies could change the passive vocabulary knowledge of the visual experimental group into an active one.

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