Abstract
Teaching English to students in Kazakhstan during the pandemic situation has become more challenging in the current era of technology.Teachers' challenges range from having to deal with technology-driven learners who have little competence in using the English language (L2) to learners who lack both critical and creative analytical skills.However, in broad, these can be overcome by conducting language activities that focus on developing learners' multiple literacy skills.The paper addresses how EFL beginners develop English vocabulary teaching and learning using the Instagram app as an available social network to enhance intercultural communicative competence (ICC).To achieve this goal, a quasi-experimental research design was implemented.51 students of different aged, were selected through convenience sampling.The teacher taught English vocabulary on cultural issues to the participants in two ways: for 4 weeks by using Instagram and for another four weeks through traditional face-to-face classroom instruction.A comparison of the scores obtained from words taught through Instagram and the scores of the traditionally-taught lexical items gave rise to the conclusion that learning vocabulary on intercultural communication topics through the social network was more effective than the traditional approach.In short, the Instagram app is enabled learners to explore and utilize vocabulary units in multiple and varied forms and multimodal contents such as graphical images, audio, video, narratives, digital storytelling, writing, synonyms-antonyms matching, cards, etc. Apart from that, students also exhibited proactive leadership acts while carrying out the conducted activities.The study could be useful for teachers and material developers to consider the incorporation of technology and blended learning in language classrooms for the purpose of L2 vocabulary acquisition and developing ICC.