THE IMPACT OF LEXICAL COLLOCATION INSTRUCTION ON DEVELOPING WRITING SKILL AMONG IRANIAN EFL LEARNERS

The purpose of this study was to measure up the impact of lexical collocation instruction on pre-intermediate Iranian language learnersʹ writing proficiency. For the purpose of this study, 50 male and female Iranian learners studying English at Ahvaz Islamic Azad University in Iran majoring in teaching English as a foreign language were selected through non-random convenient sampling procedure. The results of the proficiency test underlined the homogeneity of the groups. Then they were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. The control group was taught based on conventional methods of writing instruction and the experimental group received treatment based on lexical collocation instruction in writing one paragraph essays. The design of the research was based on pre and post-test method. Pre-test was a lexical collocation test included 35 items focusing on collocations proposed in McCarthy and OʹDell (2005). Pre-test was administered before the treatment period to make the researchers sure that the groupsʹ homogeneity on lexical knowledge in writing paragraphs. During the treatment period five topics were administered to the participants to write one paragraph essay for each topic. Having done the treatment, the researchers administered a post-test on lexical collocation consisting of 35 items of multiple-choice, matching, and cloze task dealing with lexical collocations acquired through the treatment. Then, the results of the tests were analyzed through statistical analysis of Independent Samples t-test. The results showed that there was a significant difference between the scores of the participants in the control and experimental groups. In addition, all the one paragraph essays of the study were analyzed through analyzing the components of writing including grammar, vocabulary, fluency, relevance and mechanics based on the checklist extracted from Heaton (1990). The results also showed that there was a significant difference between the mean scores of control and experimental groups in writing these components (p < 0.05). Lexical collocation instruction developed the writing components of vocabulary and mechanics rather than grammar, relevance, and fluency in writing one paragraph essays.