The Effectiveness of Lexical Collocation Instruction on Students' Collocation Knowledge and Writing Ability

Abstract

The current study aimed to examine the effectiveness of lexical collocation instruction in enhancing EFL students' collocation knowledge and writing ability. The participants in this quasi-experimental study were 30 Mathayom 6 EFL students who were studying in the Science-Mathematic Program at a public high school. There were three sets of instruments: 1) 15 lessons of collocation instruction for 30 hours of teaching, (2) a collocation test, and (3) a writing test. The results of the study showed that the participants' scores in the post collocation test increased significantly (t=10.29, p < .01). The participants performed best on verb + noun collocations (t = 8.60, p < .01) and worst on verb + adverb collocations (t = 1.44, p < .01). However, verb + adverb and adverb + adjective were found to be problematic for participants to acquire in spite of instruction. Also, the participants' post writing scores increased significantly (t = 3.41, p < .01) with the use of more collocations, showing that participants benefited from collocation instruction. Participants appeared to have acquired and were able to use them in writing. As a result, the study seemed to suggest that collocation teaching was effective to help learners acquire collocation knowledge and this in turn helped improve their writing ability.