Productive and Receptive Collocational Knowledge of Iranian EFL Learners at Different Proficiency Levels

Abstract

In the present study, an attempt was made to probe into the probable difference between Iranian intermediate and advanced EFL learners' receptive and productive collocational knowledge. To this end, 60 EFL learners studying at Islamic Azad University, Isfahan Branch, including 30 advanced and 30 intermediate learners, were chosen through the Oxford Placement Test (OPT). The participants at each level of proficiency received two tests of collocations, namely receptive collocation test and productive test of collocations. Paired-samples t test showed no statistically significant difference between productive and receptive knowledge of collocations of the advanced EFL learners. However, the mean comparison between the receptive and productive collocation test scores of intermediate EFL learners revealed a significant difference. Pedagogical implications emanating from the obtained results are elaborated in the study.

Language Proficiency and Knowledge in Adjective-Noun Collocations: A Case Study of Vietnamese Learners of English

“…Based on the findings from Nguyen and Webb (2016) and Men (2018), it can be concluded that EFL students tend to have a limited receptive knowledge of adjective-noun collocations, but surprisingly they did not encounter many problems in using this type of collocations. These findings appear to be in contradiction with Bueraheng and Laohawiriyanon (2014), Talakoob and Koosha (2017) and Kamarudin (2020) which highlighted that EFL students' receptive knowledge of adjective-noun collocations was generally greater than their productive knowledge.…”

An Investigation into the Developmental Patterns of Lexical Collocation among Iranian EFL Learners

“…Findings also indicated that there were significant large positive correlations between knowledge of collocations and single-word units, and that node word frequency parameter was the strongest one in predicting the receptive knowledge of collocation. Talakoob and Koosha(2017) According to Nesselhauf (2003),"owing to the nature of collocations (i.e. the fact that they are fairly transparent),comprehension is normally unproblematic for learners, so that identifying the problems of learners must mean analyzing their production" (p.223).However, several studies (Bahns&Eldaw,1993;Howarth,1998;Hsu & Chiu, 2008;Li,2005;Nesselhauf,2003;Zinkgraf, 2008) have shown that learners may have problems in dealing with both comprehension and production of collocations.…”

Factors Impacting Collocation Recognition and Controlled Production by ESL Speakers

“…There are, however, a few researchers (Laufer & Waldman, 2011;Nizonkiza, 2012Nizonkiza, , 2015Talakoob & Koosha, 2017) who compared production and recognition and state that receptive knowledge usually outpaces production, particularly at the beginner and intermediate proficiency levels. Nizonkiza (2015) adds that receptive knowledge develops faster at the lower proficiency levels and then, as per Talakoob and Koosha's (2017) study findings, at a more advanced stage it slows down to a certain extent, at which time productive knowledge gains momentum.…”

“…Recognition and recall are easier to control for when developing testing experiments and tasks. As a result, testing free productive collocational knowledge is problematic because it involves a lot of variation and possible data outliers -that is why even those studies by Revier (2009) and Talakoob and Koosha (2017) that pose themselves as targeted at collocation production are in fact measuring controlled production/recall. Although the list of the studies presented in this survey is selective rather than exhaustive, it highlights the major research on testing collocations during the past decade (2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017).…”

“…Several researchers have explored extralinguistic factors such as the age of onset of learning English (Granena & Long, 2013;Wray, 2002), the absence of native speaker intuition (Gitsaki, 1996;Siyanova, 2010;Siyanova-Chanturia & Martinez, 2014;Siyanova & Schmitt, 2008), the length of residence in an English-speaking country (Foster, 2009;Groom, 2009;Schmitt, 2000), personality and learning habits de Wit, 2007;Wray, 2008), the frequency and quality of language input and output (Cieślicka, 2015;Szudarski & Carter, 2016), vocabulary learning strategies (Lewis, 2000;Mian, 1988;Wray, 2002), and reading strategies (Sonbul, 2015). Other researchers have focused on interlinguistic factors, such as the predominant language for thinking and communication (Wang & Shih, 2011;Xu, 2015), L1-L2 congruency (Bylund, Abrahamsson, & Hyltenstam, 2012;Liao, 2010;Millar, 2011), and level of language proficiency (Groom, 2009;Li & Schmitt, 2010;Nizonkiza, 2012Nizonkiza, , 2015Talakoob & Koosha, 2017). However, only a few studies by Bardovi-Harlig and Bastos (2011) This study focused on participants' ability to recognize collocations since recognition as a process of selecting an appropriate and correct word combination from the set of possible options was identified as the basis for collocational competence and, therefore, subsequent collocation production (Gyllstad, 2009;Henriksen, 2013).…”