Speaker
Description
Vocabulary plays an important role in writing skill. Without essential language, students would not be able to express their meaning accurately and naturally. However, in writing lessons, despite having been instructed with single words, learners still struggle in producing them in their free writing compositions. To address this, this study employed a qualitative research design, incorporated within an action research framework to investigate the impact of teaching collocations to a small group of ten young adult learners at pre-intermediate level in a private English center on their written production. Through a series of three lessons, students were taught verb-noun, adjective-noun, and adverb-adjective collocations and encouraged to incorporate these into their writing. Data were collected via written compositions scored with an analytic rubric and informal conversations capturing students' perceptions. The findings indicate that collocation instruction improved students’ vocabulary use and fluency in writing, with participants showing increased confidence and reduced reliance on translation tools. However, challenges with articles, prepositions, and plural forms persisted. The study suggests that integrating collocation-based instruction could enhance vocabulary teaching in EFL contexts, though further research with larger samples and over longer periods is needed to confirm and expand upon these results.
Biography
Pham Hoang Thu Trang is an EFL teacher at The IELTS Workshop, a private center specializing in IELTS coaching in Vietnam. She is responsible for IELTS preparation courses for students at levels ranging from elementary to upper-intermediate. With experience teaching all four skills, she is particularly interested in effective methods that enhance language acquisition and optimize test preparation for adult learners. Her research focuses on fluency development in speaking and the integration of technology in language learning.
