The Effects of Teaching Lexical Collocations on Speaking Ability of Iranian EFL Learners

Abstract

The present study aimed at a) investigating the effect of teaching collocations on the speaking ability of EFL Iranian Learners, b) examining the relationship between the participants’ knowledge of collocations and the participants’ use of collocation taking into consideration, and c) finding out participants’ attitude towards teaching collocations. To this end, after administrating the Quick Placement Test (QPT), 40 intermediate L2 learners were selected out of 80, and assigned to two experimental and control groups. For pretests, collocation test and collocation interview were run. Then, Collocation in Use was taught to the experimental group as a treatment. After collocation instruction, another collocation test and interview were conducted on both experimental and control group. The result of paired sample t- test showed that the participants’ speaking ability in the experimental group significantly improved in posttest. The analyzed data also revealed that after the collocation instruction in experimental group the participants’ performance in interview increased too. Moreover, the result of ANCOVA displayed that the participants had positive attitudes towards explicit instruction of collocations. This study has theoretical and pedagogical implications in the field of foreign/second language teaching and learning. It can be considered as a solution for language teachers, constantly searching for the better ways to train native-like speakers.