THE IMPACT OF EXPLICIT TEACHING OF VERB COLLOCATIONS ON IMPROVING UPPER-INTERMEDIATE EFL LEARNERS’ WRITING SKILL

Sajjad Poori Moghadam, Majid Pourmohammadi

Abstract


Although impeccable development of collocation is of critical concern to second language acquisition, EFL learners may find it excessively demanding to deal. Therefore, the present study investigated the impact of teaching verb collocation as an assimilated element of collocations on improving Iranian upper-intermediate EFL learners’ writing ability via explicit teaching as the leading method. Results of numerous studies have shown learners’ understanding of collocations may highly depend on their levels of English language. In this study, first, 100 upper-intermediate candidates have been invited to meet the required standards accordingly. Then 40 participants were selected by conducting an Oxford Placement Test. A quasi-experimental design was applied with the steps of inquiring about the outcome, a pretest and subsequently a posttest administered based on MELAB paper-based writing test to assess their competence by the standards of the MELAB writing rating scale. The findings acknowledged the problematic elements and suggested rational solutions which may have further implications for syllabus designers, learners, and teachers principally.

 

Article visualizations:

Hit counter


Keywords


explicit teaching, verb-collocation, writing skill

Full Text:

PDF

References


Ariffin, A., & Abdi, B. (2020). The relationship between collocation competence and writing skills of EFL learners. The Asian Journal of English Language & Pedagogy, 8(1),41-52.

Clark, T., & Yu, G. (2020). Beyond the IELTS test: Chinese and Japanese postgraduate UK experiences. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2020.1829538.

Duong, D., & Nguyen, N. (2021). Using collocations to enhance academic writing: A survey study at Van Lang University. https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210226.035

Handayani, M., & Angelina, Y. (2020). Accuracy of using English collocation in writing descriptive texts at SMK Cahaya Harapan students. Journal of Education, Teaching and Learning, 5(1), 99-105. https://doi.org/10.26737/jetl.v5i1.1184

Jiang, F., & Hyland, K. (2020). Prescription and reality in advanced academic writing. Ibérica, (39), 14-42. http://www.revistaiberica.org/index.php/iberica/article/view/74

Keshavarz, M. H., & Taherian, P. (2018). The effect of explicit instruction of collocations on EFL learners’ language proficiency. Hacettepe University Journal of Education, 33(4), 987-1001. https://doi.org/10.16986/HUJE.2018038632

Khantiwong, W., & Thienthong, A. (2022). Thai EFL learners’ knowledge of congruent and incongruent academic L2 collocations. LEARN Journal: Language Education and Acquisition Research Network, 15(1), 809-835.

Mahvelati, E. H. (2019). Explicit and implicit collocation teaching methods: Empirical Research and Issues. Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 3(10).

Mousavi, S. M., & Heidari Darani, L. (2018). Effect of collocations on Iranian EFL learners’ writing: Attitude in focus. Global Journal of Foreign Language Teaching. 8(4), 131-145. https://doi.org/10.18844/gjflt.v8i4.3568

Naserpour, A., Zarei, A., & Esfandiari, R. (2020). The effects of task orientation and involvement load on learning collocations. Journal of Teaching Language Skills, 39(1), 71-114.

Pham, T. B. N. (2022). Language proficiency and knowledge in adjective-noun collocations: A case study of Vietnamese learners of English. Journal of Language Teaching and Research. 13(1). https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1301.20

Rashid, M. H., Ye, T., Hui, W., Li, W., & Shunting, W. (2022). Analyse and challenges of teaching writing among the English teachers. Linguistics and Culture Review, 6(2), 199-209. https://doi.org/10.21744/lingcure.v6nS2.2004

Saito, K. (2020). Multi- or single-word units? The role of collocation use in comprehensible and contextually appropriate second language speech. Language Learning. 70(2), 548-588. https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12387

Saliminejad, P., & Karimkhanlooei, G. (2018). A study on the type and frequency of unacceptable collocations in the English-Persian translations of Hemingway’s masterpiece: For whom the bell tolls. Journal of Language and Cultural Education, 6(3), 85-100. https://doi.org/10.2478/jolace-2018-0026

Sararit, J., Chumpavan, S. & Al-Bataineh, A. (2020). Collocation instruction in English writing classrooms at the university level in Thailand. Rajapark Journal, 14(35).

Snoder, P. (2018). Improving English learners’ productive collocation knowledge: The effects of involvement load, spacing, and intentionality. TESL Canada Journal, 34(3), 140–164. https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v34i3.1277

Tungyai, S., & Rakpa, S. (2021). Collocation competence: A case study of undergraduate students. Journal of MCU Humanities Review, 7(1), 331–346. https://so03.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/human/article/view/252738

Zarei, A. A., & Khojasteh, A. (2021). Models of dynamic assessment affecting the learning of English lexical collocations. Journal of Language Horizons, 4(2), 239-259. https://doi:10.22051/lghor.2020.29463.1229

Zou, Q. (2019). A corpus-based study of verb-noun collocation errors in Chinese non-English majors’ writings. In 4th international conference on contemporary education, social sciences and humanities (ICCESSH 2019). Paris: Atlantis Press. https://doi.org/10.2991/iccessh-19.2019.188




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejae.v8i2.4875

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright © 2015 - 2023. European Journal of Alternative Education Studies (ISSN 2501-5915) is a registered trademark of Open Access Publishing GroupAll rights reserved.

This journal is a serial publication uniquely identified by an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) serial number certificate issued by Romanian National Library (Biblioteca Nationala a Romaniei). All the research works are uniquely identified by a CrossRef DOI digital object identifier supplied by indexing and repository platforms.

All the research works published on this journal are meeting the Open Access Publishing requirements and can be freely accessed, shared, modified, distributed and used in educational, commercial and non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).