The Effect of Incidental and Intentional Instruction of English Collocations on Iranian Advanced EFL Learners

Learning collocations has been regarded as one of the most challenging aspects of language learning which has grabbed much attention in the teaching and learning processes. Therefore, the main purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of intentional and incidental instruction of English collocations on Iranian advanced EFL learners’ noticing. To this purpose, of 65 participants, 40 (13 male and 27 female) of them who aged between 18 and 32 were chosen based on Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT) from Golestan University engineering students. Being homogenized based on OQPT, the participants firstly took a pre-test to check their prior knowledge. They were then divided into three groups, namely intentional (N:13), incidental (N:14), and control (N:13). Then, the participants in the intentional group received explicit instruction on English collocations, while the participants in the incidental group received implicit instruction. The participants took a post-test immediately after five treatment sessions. Stimulated recall sessions were also held to check their noticing of the collocations. After a two-week interval, the participants took a delayed post-test and stimulated recall sessions again to check their noticing. The results of One-way ANOVA and a post hoc test of Tukey (HSD) indicated that there was a significant difference between the intentional group and incidental group in the post-test and delayed posttest. Moreover, the intentional group outperformed both the incidental and control groups. Besides, there was a significant difference between the incidental group and the control group in the post-test and delayed post-test. It is hoped that the findings can be fruitful for language learners, teachers, and syllabus designers.