The Effect of Teaching Vocabulary Learning Strategieson Collocation Recall in an EFL Context

Abstract

This study was an attempt to measure the effects of vocabulary learning strategy instruction (VLSI) on the acquisition of the English collocations by Iranian EFL learners. Based on their scores on the Nelsonlanguage proficiency test, a total of 55 freshmen sharing a similar social and educational background participated in the experiment. First, they were randomly assigned to either the control or experimental group.For a period of 4 weeks, the researchers taught the control group with the traditional vocabulary teaching method, while the experimental group was instructed through the VLSI. The two groups were administered a pretest, a posttest, and a delayed posttest containing English collocations. T-tests of dependent and independent samples and one way repeated measure ANOVA were carried out to test for significance within groups and across group differences. The obtained results drawn from both groups showed a significant increase in their learning outcomes from pretest to posttest in which the experimental group’s scores were significantly higher than those of the control group. The results also indicated that the VLSI facilitated the participants' collocation acquisition.