The Effect of WHATSAPP as a Social Network on Improving Intermediate EFL Learners’ Collocation’s Common Verb

Abstract

The effectiveness of social networks on improving EFL learners’ language skills is demonstrated in many empirical studies. Unfortunately, a few studies have been conducted concerning sub-skills and components. According to the researches that the researcher has done, no empirical study has been done to empirically document the link between teaching collocation common verb through “WHATSAPP’ messenger and its role in reinforcing EFL learners’ common verb collocation. Thus, this study was conducted to fill this gap in the literature. At first, the researcher selected 90 intermediate students. Then, the researcher administered the Preliminary English Test (PET) for homogenizing the participants. Given the results of this test, 60 students were accepted as the research sample for this study through convenience sampling and randomly assigned to two groups consisting of the experimental (n=30) and control group (n=30). The learners were members of eight intact classes. The Teacher Made Collocation’ Common Verb Test (TMCVT) was administered as a pretest to evaluate the participants' possible tacit knowledge of knowing the meaning of the verbs before the actual intervention. Finally, 40 words were selected to teach to learners of both groups. Both groups received similar training; for example, the number of sessions, the number of verbs, and the objective of common verb training received equal attention. However, the main variable was kept away from the control group and no “WHATSAPP” application was used in this class in all accounts. Finally, at the end of the 12th session, when the intended numbers of verbs (n=40) were taught, the Teacher Made Collocation’s Common Verb Test was administered as a posttest. The comparison of the scores of the Test showed that the scores of the experimental group were higher than those of the control group. This provided a statistically significant relationship between the independent variable, teaching common verbs through the “WHATSAPP” application, and EFL learners’ collocation common verb which is the dependent variable. The results of this study point to a probability that using “WHATSAPP” for teaching verbs and the results of this study showed that using “WHATSAPP” for teaching can have a significant impact on EFL learners’ collocation’s common verb. The results of this study can help teachers, syllabus designers, and material developers.