Collocation teaching effect on reading comprehension in advanced EFL setting

The current study tried to address whether explicit collocation teaching has a positive effect on reading comprehension compared to explicit single-item vocabulary instruction. Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKL) and vocabulary pretest were used to determine prior knowledge of 3rd year ELT department students in Pamukkale University. Of the two treatment groups one received explicit collocation teaching and the other received single-item vocabulary instruction followed by a reading passage (Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score: 28). Five of the six reading comprehension questions aimed to elicit the target collocations in the answers. The two-tailed t-test significance values were higher than 0.05 for all the questions (q1: 1,000; q2: 0,64; q3: 0,39; q4: 0,106; q5: 0,768), and yet indicated differences between participant means were likely due to chance and not likely due to the difference in treatment types (single-item vocabulary instruction and collocation instruction). The inconclusive findings could be due to only one treatment session