Teaching Lexical Collocations to Enhance Listening Comprehension of English Majors in a Technological University of Taiwan

Abstract

This study attempts to investigate the effect of direct teaching of lexical collocations on technological university learners' listening comprehension in Taiwan. There were thirty-four English majors in a university of science and technology participating in the present study. They were divided into two groups according to their academic levels. In a three-week period, each group received three different types of instruction: single-item vocabulary instruction, lexical collocation instruction, and no instruction in each class, and was requested to complete a listening comprehension test, consisting of two monologues adopted from the pencil-based TOEFL tests, right after the instruction. The quantitative data showed that a significant difference was found in listening comprehension among these participants based on the type of instruction they received. The results indicated that the participants received the highest mean score in the comprehension test after lexical collocation instruction. Statistical analysis, however, revealed that there was no significant difference between the two academic levels in the listening comprehension in consequence of receiving these three types of instruction. Furthermore, the post-test questionnaire revealed that these participants selected the instruction on lexical collocations as the most favorite instruction type, and they believed receiving lexical collocation instruction enabled them to strengthen their listening comprehension.