Effect of Using Cooperative and Non-Cooperative Receptive and Productive pedagogical tasks on Iranian EFL Learners’ Idiom Learning

Idioms are an intrinsic characteristic of every natural language and they are frequently used in spoken and written language; however, there has been insufficient research exploring the best strategies for teaching idioms to EFL learners. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of cooperative and non-cooperative receptive and productive based activities on Iranian EFL learners’ idiom learning. To this purpose, 166 Iranian intermediate EFL learners were randomly assigned to the five groups: cooperative receptive group (CR), non-cooperative receptive group (NCR), cooperative productive group (CP), non-cooperative productive group (NCP), and a control group. Results from the receptive and productive vocabulary tests showed that all four experimental groups outperformed the control group in both immediate and delayed posttest. However, the CP and NCP instructions were more effective than the CR and NCR ones in in bringing about enhanced idiom learning. Furthermore, CR under the cooperative condition led to better learning compared to its non-cooperative type; however, the CP proved effective irrespective of the cooperative condition. Given the challenging nature of L2 idiom learning and its significance in developing language learners’ knowledge of English, the implications of this study were presented and discussed for teachers, students and syllabus designers.