The Effect of Explicit vs. Implicit Instruction on Iranian EFL Learners' Use of Collocations in L2 Writing

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to measure up the effects of two methods of teaching collocations (i.e., explicit and implicit) on Iranian EFL learners' use of collocations in writing. The participants in this study were selected from three intact classes consisting of forty five adult Iranian advanced EFL learners. Two intact classes were selected as the experimental groups (EG/IG) and one other class as the control group (CG). A pretest was administered to determine learners' use of collocations in writing. It consisted of 20 selected words from "Anecdotes in American English" (Hill, 1980). At the end of the study the participants were given 20 selected words to make a complete sentence. The groups were found to perform with considerable differences on the posttest. The results revealed that the group receiving explicit method of teaching collocations outperformed the other two groups in using collocations in sentence writing.