خلاصة:
The ability to speak a foreign language requires more than a mere knowledge of its grammatical and semantic rules. Learners must acquire the knowledge of how native speakers use the language naturally by capitalizing on a wealth of prefabricated forms such as collocations and idioms. Owing to dearth of collocational knowledge, most EFL learners’ oral or written productions are recognized “unnatural” or “strange” by a native speaker. The present study was an attempt to uncover relationship between collocational knowledge and speaking proficiency, collocational knowledge and use of collocations, and also relationship between speaking proficiency and use of collocations. The data for this study came from 30 intermediate Iranian EFL learners who sat a collocation test and were interviewed on a range of topics. The results indicated that there is a significant relationship between collocational knowledge and speaking proficiency and also between speaking proficiency and oral use of collocations. However, no significant relationship was found between collocational knowledge and use of collocations. Further findings of the study as well implications for the teaching and learning of collocations are discussed in the paper.
ملخص الجهاز:
The relationship between collocational knowledge, speaking proficiency, and the use of collocation in Iranian EFL learners' oral performance Karim Sadeghi1 Associate Professor, Urmia University, Iran Fatemeh Panahifar Instructor, Bonab University, Iran Received on August 5, 2012 Accepted on November 2, 2012 Abstract The ability to speak a foreign language requires more than a mere knowledge of its grammatical and semantic rules.
Among the most comprehensive studies conducted thus far is Ha (1988, cited in Bonk, 2000) who measured ESL learners’ collocational knowledge using cloze-type tests in order to investigate the correlation between general English proficiency and collocational knowledge.
In yet another study, Sung (2003, cited in Hsu & Chiu, 2008) investigated the knowledge and use of English lexical collocations in relation to speaking proficiency of non-native English speakers.
(2006) conducted a study with the purpose of testing two hypotheses: 1) the use of formulaic sequences, including collocations, can help learners come across as proficient L2 speakers; and 2) an instructional method that emphasizes ‘noticing’ of L2 formulaic sequences can help language learners’ add such phrases to their linguistic repertoire.
More precisely, this study sought to find answers to the following questions: (1) Is there any relationship between collocational knowledge and speaking proficiency of Iranian intermediate EFL learners?
In other words, a statistically significant correlation exists between collocational knowledge and speaking proficiency of the EFL learners, participating in this study.
As William's (2000) study indicated, collocational knowledge was found to correlate strongly with general proficiency of the EFL learners.