The relationship between collocation knowledge and listening, speaking, reading and writing proficiency of Iranian EFL learners (original) (raw)
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The current research was to explore the relationship among knowledge of collocation and reading, writing, speaking and listening proficiency of Iranian EFL students. To this end, 50 students involved in the study took a test of both lexical and grammatical collocations to measure their collocational knowledge, first. Then, an IELTS sample test (IELTS Practice Plus Pearson Education Longman University, Version two) was administered in order to find the students' reading, writing, speaking and listening proficiency. Pearson correlation coefficient and regression model were used to analyze the data. Pearson correlation coefficient illustrated a significant correlation between knowledge of collocation and reading (P=0.724), writing (P=0.724), listening (P=0.706) and speaking (P=0.885) proficiency. Regression model was conducted to find the exact contribution between variables. It indicated that knowledge of collocation can be a predicator for all four language skills. In addition, knowledge of collocation has the greatest impact (R 2 =78.3%) on participants' speaking proficiency. Based on the above mentioned results, knowledge of collocation proved to be a prerequisite for successful language learning. This research confirmed the influential role of collocation knowledge in essential language learning.
2013
The main purpose of this study was to investigate the knowledge and use of English lexical collocations and their relation to the speaking proficiency among upperintermediate to advanced Iranian EFL learner students at Sadr Institute of higher Education. It is worth mentioning that all of the students had already passed placement test and were preparing themselves for IELTS exam. Data for the study were collected from 20 students. The participants were asked to take 2 tests .The first one was a lexical collocational test for estimating the knowledge of lexical collocation. Another one was an IELTS speaking test, to collect the participants ‘use of lexical collocation and understanding their speaking fluency. Data analysis for correlations between the subjects’ knowledge of lexical collocations and their speaking proficiency showed that there was a significantly positive correlation between students ‘knowledge of lexical collocation and their speaking proficiency in IELTS success. Cu...
The Effects of Teaching Lexical Collocations on Speaking Ability of Iranian EFL Learners
Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2013
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.
2013
The ability to speak a foreign language requires more than a mere knowledge of its grammatical and semantic rules. Learners must acquire the knowledge of how native speakers use the language naturally by capitalizing on a wealth of prefabricated forms such as collocations and idioms. Owing to dearth of collocational knowledge, most EFL learners’ oral or written productions are recognized “unnatural” or “strange” by a native speaker. The present study was an attempt to uncover relationship between collocational knowledge and speaking proficiency, collocational knowledge and use of collocations, and also relationship between speaking proficiency and use of collocations. The data for this study came from 30 intermediate Iranian EFL learners who sat a collocation test and were interviewed on a range of topics. The results indicated that there is a significant relationship between collocational knowledge and speaking proficiency and also between speaking proficiency and oral use of collo...
Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 2016
The main goal of this study is to investigate the possible effects of explicit instruction of lexical collocations on Iranian upper intermediate EFL learners’ comprehension of collocation and the appropriate use of them in their writing. A total number of 66 university level EFL learners were selected and then were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. Pretests of collocation and writing task were initially administered to both groups. Then, the specific treatment including explicit instruction of collocation was given to the experimental group while the control group received placebo. Afterwards, both groups took the post-test which was statistically analyzed through Independent sample t-test. The results showed that the performance of both groups improved in the post-tests of collocation comprehension and writing post-test. Based on the analysis of t-tests, this progression was statistically significant simply for the experimental groups. The experimental group...
Collocational Use: A Contrastive Analysis of Strategies Used by Iranian EFL Learners
Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2015
Despite the role of collocations in many aspects of second language learning, its significance has been neglected by the contrastive analysts in ELT. The current study aimed at investigating learners' use of collocations by analyzing their written performance. It was conducted using 102 male and female EFL learners majoring in English Translation and English Language and Literature at Hakim Sabzevari University in Iran. The researchers analyzed the data to determine the sources of collocational errors, and the strategy types utilized by learners in order to overcome their collocational deficiencies. The percentage of errors resulting from lack or inadequate familiarity of the students with collocations was 75%. The results of the study showed that most of the students' errors in writing did not originate from their insufficient knowledge of the grammar but from their inability with regard to the combination of language units. Moreover, the findings revealed that learners made use of four strategy types including transfer, synonym, repetition and paraphrase to overcome their collocational problems, with transfer strategy ranking as the most frequently used strategy followed by the use of synonym. The implications and applications of the study are discussed.
Language proficiency and collocational competence
Most EFL teachers emphasize vocabulary size at the expense of vocabulary depth, thus neglecting lexical relations such as collocation, etc. Therefore, the current research intends to study the relationship between collocational competence and general language proficiency along with testing the go-togetherness of quantitative and qualitative aspects of lexical knowledge. To that end, 30 senior EFL students were selected from two Iranian universities through a tailored TOEFL test. They received an MC test of lexical (n + v) collocations. The results showed a relationship between the scores on TOEFL and the collocation test, and between the scores on the collocation test and the vocabulary section of the TOEFL. Therefore, collocational competence is much related to general proficiency and that the learners' qualitative knowledge accompanies their quantitative knowledge, implying that collocation must be attended to properly at the right time through direct teaching or consciousness-raising techniques.
Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 2013
Words do not co-occur haphazardly and in fact lexical patterns are different. This difference in the lexical patterning causes potential problems in speaking. The present study intends to see if receiving treatment on the use of lexical collocations affects the pre-intermediate EFL students speaking proficiency. To achieve this aim, 50 pre-intermediate students of Iran Language Institute, Ahvaz branch were chosen and divided into two groups. In the instruction period of ten sessions, the experimental group received instructions on five common lexical collocation patterns such as Verb+ Adverb, Noun+ Verb, Verb+ Noun, Adverb+ Adjective, and Adjective+ Noun. Both groups took the same test before and after the treatment to measure their knowledge of collocation patterning. They also participated in a speaking task to assess their use of lexical collocation and overall oral proficiency. Results showed that the instruction of lexical collocation had a positive effect on the learners speaking proficiency and a moderate effect on their use of lexical collocations. This suggests that receiving instruction on the use of lexical collocation patterning can be effective in the enhancement of EFL students' language skills, specifically, their oral proficiency.
On the Effect of Gender and Years of Instruction on Iranian EFL Learners' Collocational Competence
This study investigates the Iranian EFL learners' Knowledge of Lexical Collocation at three academic levels: freshmen, sophomores, and juniors. The participants were forty three English majors doing their B.A. in English Translation studies in Chabahar Maritime University. They took a 50-item fill-in-the-blank test of lexical collocations. The test included five types of collocations: verb-noun, adjective-noun, noun-verb, adverb-adjective, and verb-adverb. Descriptive statistics, t-test, and One-way ANOVA were employed in the data analysis. According to the results, Iranian English majors are weak in lexical collocations, answering just more than 50% of the questions. A significant difference was found among the performance of the students at three academic levels, but there was no significant difference between boys and girls in their knowledge of lexical collocations. While noun-verb collocation was revealed to be the easiest type of collocation, adverb-adjective collocation proved to be the most difficult type. These findings have immediate implications for language learners, EFL teachers, and material designers.
The present study investigates the correlation between language proficiency, collocations and the role of L1 transfer with collocations. This is a quantitative research. The research places more emphases on collecting data in the form of numbers. It is also experimental research in the sense that it tests participants to measure their variables. The participants of the study were 57 Persian B.A students, both male and female from Islamic Azad University of Bandar Abbas, Iran. The results showed that there is a significant relationship between Iranian subjects' language proficiency, as measured by the Michigan proficiency test and their knowledge of collocations, as measured by their performance on a collocation test designed for the current study. The results obtained from the research indicate that Iranian EFL learners are more likely to use the right collocation in cases of L1 transfer. This suggests that positive transfer plays a major role when it comes to EFL learners' ability to produce the right collocations in their L2. The findings of this study have some implications for language teaching. Teachers can put emphasis on the inclusion of selected grammatical and lexical collocations in reading comprehension passages.