Introduction

For many years, it has been largely assumed that teaching grammar takes priority over teaching vocabulary in second language (L2) learning programs, and as observed by Schmitt (2000), no systematic work on vocabulary began up until the late twentieth century. In this context, the traditional views of the language have emphasized the mastery of grammatical structures and based on its very fundamental principles “vocabulary is kept to a minimum while the students are mastering the sound system and grammatical pattern” (Larsen-Freeman, 2000, p. 46). Due to the fact that meaning is basically delivered through vocabulary, Wilkins (1972) in the same vein, posited that "while without grammar little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed" (p. 111). Therefore, a profound knowledge of vocabulary helps L2 proficiency and “vocabulary learning is at the heart of language learning and language use” (Laufer, 1997). At the same time, with the reception of the proposals on teaching vocabulary during the 1990s, Bahns (1993) alluded to one particular aspect of vocabulary knowledge which falls into the category of word combinability—the collocational properties of words which is evident in EFL learners’ limited knowledge of those that they encounter in various contexts. In the same vein, the importance of collocations in vocabulary teaching has been stressed by many theorists (Decarrico, 2001; Gitsaki, 1996; Lewis, 2000; McCarthy, 1990; Nation, 2001; Wei, 1999). Thus, collocations have gained importance together with the developments in computer-assisted investigations in the field of ELT through the advent of lexical approaches. Nation (2001), in line with the previous studies, maintained that vocabulary knowledge comes to be more than simply knowing the meaning of a word in isolation. In this perspective, Lexical Approach (Lewis, 1993), which is at the center of attention in a communicative model of language teaching and learning, supported the teaching of collocations. In this respect, a range of studies (Cowie, 1992; Wray, 2002), it has been demonstrated that collocations play a central role in both the receptive (reading) and productive (writing) uses of the language for both less proficient and proficient language learners. Therefore, among linguists, there exists a consensus on the use of consciousness-raising (C-R) activities in teaching collocations whether frequent or infrequent (Seesink, 2007; Stoitchkov, 2008; Willis & Willis, 1996; Ying & Hendricks, 2004). In accordance with Ellis’ (1993, 1995) Input Enhancement as a subcategory of C-R tasks (such as boldfacing, underlining, and italicizing) are a helpful option in English Language Teaching (ELT) in order to make learners aware of some specifically targeted form(s) in learning situation.

Literature Review

Collocations

In proportion to traditional approaches which held supremacy over language teaching vocabularies during the 1980s and 1990s, vocabulary received secondary attention because of the importance of emphasis placed on the syntactic structures in traditional language teaching (Bogaards, 2001; Carter & McCarthy, 1988; Henriksen, 1999). Vocabulary words were taught as distinct items without considering their relationships with the surrounding words within the text. Collocations which fell under the category of use in Nation’s (2001) three-dimensional model devised to show what it is meant by knowing a word, were widely ignored. In the same vein, a lack of attention to vocabulary instruction has been broadly addressed in the literature (Judd, 1978; Nunan, 1991; Richards, 1976; Zimmerman, 1997). With reference to this issue, there has been a plethora of research in the field of applied linguistics pertaining to the role of collocations (Richards & Rogers, 2001; Schmitt, 2000; Zimmerman, 1997). Collocation is connected with the idea of lexical patterning, and Schmitt’s (2000) y defines it as “the tendency of two or more words to co-occur in discourse” (p. 76).

One of the most basic concepts that must be understood is “what is a word”. Folse (2008) refers to five levels of words (single words, set phrases, variable phrases, phrasal verbs and idioms. Nation (1990), building on Richards’ (1976) previous work referred to the difference between receptive and productive knowledge and later (Nation, 1990) distinguished between a learners’ vocabulary depth (knowledge of words) and vocabulary depth (number of words in their mental lexicon).

As maintained by Lewis (2000) and Nation (2001), collocations having a degree of sematic impulsiveness rather than arbitrarily appear conventionally or statistically. In the same vein, Henriksen (2013) defines collocation as “frequently recurring two to three-word syntagmatic units” (p. 30). Based on the provided definitions, the position of collocations knowledge receives a particular attention in both written and spoken discourses and for a learner, it takes more than just a simple teaching of a word in order to form a mental lexicon (Willis, 1990).

In principle, as proposed by (VilkaitÄ—, 2017) lexical collocations are counted as multiword units (e.g. heavy smoker = adjective + noun) consisting of two or more words that make up a whole unit of meaning that are used in various discourse communities. “Lexical collocation, classified into three categorizations: free combinations, collocations and idioms, is explored by examining its internal combinatory strength” (Ying & Jingyi, 2014, p. 3). However, Conzett (2000) and (Farghal & Obiedat, 1995) classified them based on their degree of fixedness as weak and strong sequences. Without a doubt, collocations whether frequent or infrequent. have a significant role in the development of learner’s interlanguage, being a part of formulaic sequences (Wray, 2000) who also maintained that collocations are better taught not only for competence, but also for accuracy and fluency as well. With regard to this, it has been demonstrated that collocations play a central role in both receptive (e.g., reading and listening) and productive (e.g., speaking and writing) use of the language for both less proficient and proficient language learners in a range of studies (Cowie, 1992; Wray, 2002(.

Teaching Collocations through C-R

In teaching, C-R also refers to the "techniques that encourage learners to pay attention to language form in the belief that an awareness of form will contribute indirectly to language acquisition”, (Richards & Schmidt, 2002, p, 109). Among linguists there are conflicting ideas in which some underscore the importance of explicit teaching of collocations through consciousness-raising activities (Nesselhauf, 2003; Seesink, 2007; Stoitchkov, 2008; Willis & Willis, 1996; Ying & Hendricks, 2004) while others profess that implicit teaching of collocations can be constructive for language learners in applied domains (Ellis, 1997; Nation, 2001). However, the C-R based studies outweigh the non-C-R ones.

Teaching Collocations and Reading Comprehension Achievement

Exploring the relationship between vocabulary teaching with a focus on collocations and reading ability, it turned out that there existed no significant correlation between collocation knowledge and reading ability. (Shooshtari & Karami, 2013). Lee (2009) also examined the effects of collocation-based English vocabulary instruction on the four language skills (listening, reading, writing, and speaking) with Korean middle school students. Lee discovered that the impact of collocation-based instruction was less significant on receptive skills (listening and reading) whereas more observable in productive skills (speaking and writing).

Teaching Collocations Using the Lexical Approach

The Lexical Approach establishes that lexicon plays a pivotal role in forming and putting teaching goals into reality; language learning and communication is not grammar, notions or any other units of teaching. Rather, it proposed teaching words and word combinations in the form of collocations (Richards & Rodgers, 2007). In fact, such an approach focused on the importance of setting lexis, words or collocations as the primary goal of the learning process, surpassing grammar teaching/learning in value (Webb et al., 2013). Kweldju (1997) introduced lexical-based language teaching which helped Indonesian students overcome two main problems: first, they could improve their vocabulary knowledge size and second, they mastered collocations. This was because lexical-based materials made the students aware that learning vocabulary goes beyond learning words in isolation, rather it means learning them in a broader sense in collocations. Yulia (2005, cited in Chandra, 2014) claimed that this approach facilitated learning more than many instructional materials do. Students are provided with a continuous process of vocabulary learning with or without special instruction. Chandra considered two elements proposed in this approach by Yulia: contrived learning and incidental learning. The first uses reading passages, which create opportunities for students to encounter lexico-grammatical units and observe how they were used in the context through creating repeated exposures to words, structures and expressions while the incidental learning section required students to read extensively, so as to obtain as much exposure to language as possible Students were to do library researching guided by certain sub-lists.

Teaching Collocations Using a Corpus-Based Approach

In recent years, studies have looked at L2 learners’ difficulties in acquisition collocations with special focus on integration of learner corpora (Durrant & Schmidt, 2010; Wolter & Gyllstad, 2013). Concordancing is used for lexicography, L2 research, and teaching. It has been used recently for studying multiple meanings of words and comparing the collocations. Chambers (2005) proposed the essential need for involving corpora in L2 teaching admitting that corpus consultation must be a component of textbooks. Collocational competence is a sort of competency involved in a L2 learning process. However, it is typically disregarded in the field of L2 learning. To be fluent and use as many English idioms as native speakers utter, a learner needs to know a huge number of collocations. On the other hand, the number of learned collocations is not really important. The important thing is to know the right collocations and use them in a right situation and in the right way.

Incidental Learning of Collocations

Recent studies into the learning process of collocations have been performed on two major approaches: explicit (intentional) learning, and incidental learning. Explicit learning occurs when there is an intention to learn specific materials and the incidental way of learning is when learners’ attention is attracted by an item with no serious intention to learn the vocabulary used. Several explicit teaching activities have shown to lead to the acquisition of collocations. It is worth pointing out that it is impossible to teach all the collocations of a specific language in explicit way because class time is usually limited, so other incidental approaches are needed (Pellicer-Sánchez, 2017). To put it simply, Bahns & Eldaw (1993) argued that since the knowledge of L2 learners regarding single-word items is much more than that of multi-word structures (collocations), there is a need to teach collocations extensively and explicitly. Thirdly, the recognition of the time required for incidentally learning a collocation provides a guideline for how to design input materials in order to promote students’ learning process (Webb et al., 2013). Mackin (1978) claimed that collocations are most likely to be learned incidentally in a way similar to what is usually employed for teaching single-word items. He maintained that there is some evidence indicating that the body of collocations a student is expected to obtain might be incidentally gained through reading (which is a part of the present study methodology). Several researchers have admitted that while it is necessary to encounter a word several times to learn it, it is required for a collocation to be encountered by the student repeatedly for it to be incidentally learned. Due to this fact, some researchers differ regarding the necessary number of encounters for learning a word:

• Nation (2001): Five to 16 encounters.
• Webb (2007): One or two encounters
• Lawley (2010): Seven or more encounters.
• Pellicer-Sanchez and Schmitt (2010): At least 10 times of repetition.
• Daskalovska (2011): Between 11 to 20 times of repetition
• Bisson et al. (2014) : Two, four, six or eight exposures.
• Kormos (2016): A very high number of encounters (not specified)

The reason for the different numbers of encounters reported by various researchers is that more proficient or advanced learners may learn items after fewer encounters when compared with elementary students (Zahar et al., 2001). Another reason could be that some contexts provide more useful, influential information attracting full notice of the students in comparison to a less informative text which must be read over and over again (Webb et al., 2013).

Evaluation of Collocation Knowledge through Writing

Undoubtedly, as proposed by McCarthy and O’Dell (2005), teaching collocations to L2 writers is important for three basic reasons. First, the teaching of collocations helps the learners develop both accuracy and native-like selection of lexis within writing. Non-natives from time to time make use of expressions like pass the law, bring examples, and stand in front of a problem while native speakers prefer the choice of words such as break the law, give examples, and face a problem (Laufer & Waldman, 2011, p. 652). Therefore, collocations are of great consequence for accuracy in writing. Second, teaching collocations can benefit the learners and remove the uncertainty of meaning from words of a polysemous nature. For instance, break can take a range of different meanings in various contexts: “He broke yet another record [improved]; He broke his promise [failed to keep]; Who broke the news [announced]? He broke his leg [cracks/separates into pieces] (Rott, 2007). Third, as stated by Sinclair (2004) collocations can aid the learners to recognize a connotative meaning of the vocabulary words in a context. As an example, the verb cause is mostly used with negative words (e.g., cause trouble /damage /problem) while provide co-occurs with positive words (e.g., provide service /information /advice). Therefore, the knowledge of collocations helps the learners develop the productive skills as in writing tasks.

Methodological Issues in Learning Collocations

The lack of enough research on incidental learning process of collocations can be justified for two main reasons. First, in spite of single frequent parts of collocations (separate constituent words) which are usually faced by students in different contexts, the whole target combination might not often be observed. For example, the collocation learn by heart consists of the main words learn and heart which are often used in various contexts and reading passages separately (Webb et al., 2013). Students might never imagine these words together and when a preposition is added there could be a different meaning. As admitted by Ashouri et al. (2014), vocabulary should be taught in the form of collocations rather than as separate items. However, the frequency of the combination is significantly lower than that of the separate constituent parts, “each item might be encountered many times before it is encountered with the other item” (Webb et al., 2013: 94). Hence, the lower frequency of encounters with collocations results in better recalling single parts and increasing the likelihood of forgetting the combination. In studies examining the frequency of multiword units, researchers identified 505 phrasal expressions embodied in the most frequent 5000-word families of the British National Corpus (BNC) (Martinez & Schmitt, 2012), 84 collocations included in the most frequent 1000-word types, and 224 collocations embodied in the second most frequent 1000-word types (Shin & Nation, 2008). It is clear that the frequency of collocations varied among spoken and written contexts. When comparing these contexts, Shin and Nation (2008) found that collocations were used from 50% to 100% more frequently in speaking. This indicated that fewer collocations might be encountered in written contexts which results in short-term memorization. The second reason for there being little research on incidental learning of collocations might be the fact that researchers studying vocabulary learning have almost exclusively concentrated on learning form and meaning. “Measuring knowledge of the form and meaning of collocations is not as straightforward as it is for single-word items and presents design problems for researchers” (Webb et al., 2013, p. 95). While form and meaning are important facets of collocational knowledge, Nation and Webb (2011, p.190) proposed nine other aspects of learning multiword items each in terms of form, meaning, and use in regard to a collocation.

Input enhancement

In general, input plays an essential role in helping learners through acquisition of a L2. It is worth mentioning that not all of the input presented to the learners is taken as intake for learning. There must be another element crucial for learning in between, attention. Attention can mediate input and learning. “Manipulating texts in a manner to make syntactic chunks salient can be a way to positively affect the learning process of L2 students and thereby increase their syntactic awareness” (Park & Warschauer, 2016, p. 183). There are two general approaches to attract the learners’ attention: visual input enhancement (textual) and learners’ output. These two methods have a basic function in common: directing the learner’s attention to the problem in the input in order to enhance his/her acquisition. Put simply, it is argued that “visual input enhancement is an internal attention-drawing device” (Izumi, 2002, p. 543), but in output, the learners themselves decide what problem they have in their language production and what gains their attention most in the input. Visual input enhancement is an implicit means of attracting learners’ attention to the subject in input writing. The primary way of enhancing input is simply increasing the appearance of the word and making it more noticeable by, for example, bolding, capitalizing or underlining.

Syntactic Enhancement by means of Technology

The above-mentioned disadvantage can be resolved through technology which increases the whole input in quantity and quality of input (Gascoigne, 2006). A study performed by Le Vasseur et al. (2008) where computer-based reading training was employed as an input enhancement method, found that a phrase-preserving format improved reading fluency of the students. Furthermore, other studies explored syntactic enhancement by means of visual-syntactic text formatting (VSTF) technology in L2 contexts. VSTF technology is used for calculating sentences in a text. Also, phrases embodied in the original text can be taken out and indented in order to make the meaning and underlying structures more salient compared with the previous position (Park & Warschauer, 2016).

Restatement in Writing

Restatement provides the essence of the whole paragraph. In words of Kane (1994), restatement is actually repeating what you have just read in an easy and, simultaneously, difficult way to form a paragraph. It is easy because it is not necessary to look for examples. On the other hand, it is a difficult task since you must repeat a previously-stated idea while keeping creativity in mind. This is the reason of shortness of restated texts. Monotonous patterns of the new statement results in increased similarity between the original text and the restatement (Kane, 1994). Reading what a text says requires a basic comprehension of the whole concept. One must focus on understanding every single sentence and follow the thought from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, and page to page. Generally speaking, restatement is like writing a summary or paraphrasing. Restatements should lack the language equal to the source in order to avoid plagiarism and, besides, indicate perception. In our opinion, it seems possible that when reading a topic, the elementary objective is to understand what others had understood before. It is expected to use the power of imagination, illustration, and our critical faculties to understand the topic. Simply repeating sentences with no personal intervention or interpretation shows lack of critical thinking (Kurland, 2000). In the researcher’s view, restatement is nothing but repeating the subject matter. McNamara (2007) believed that summary is in fact a modification of a restatement strategy. Restatement encourages readers to build meaning representations coherent at the local level. This paragraph restatement strategy considerably influences the recall of major, incidental information and performance in items of traditional instructions. Sencibaugh (2005) claimed that “paragraph restatement along with text-structure-based strategies yield the most significant outcomes” (p.8). Bryson (2006) defined negative and positive restatement, and continued that this is a method of emphasizing something by stating an idea twice, first in negative form and again in positive form. This kind of restatement often takes the form of parallelism. He believed that the obvious variation of this method is to first state the idea positively and then represents the negative form to the audience.

In this regard, the present study addressed the following research question.

RQ: Does using input enhancement techniques in the use of frequent collocations via reading influence Iranian Intermediate EFL learners’ writing restatements?

The following null hypothesis, in response to the above-mentioned research question, was formed:

H0: Using input enhancement techniques in the use of frequent collocations via reading makes no significant difference in the Iranian Intermediate EFL learners’ writing restatements.

Method

Participants

The participants in this study were 60 EFL learners (30 males and 30 females) ranging in age from 15 to 23. They were randomly selected from a pool of a population of 200 learners who were enrolled in general English classes in a private language institute in the city of Tehran and were exposed to four hours of formal instruction per week. The participants had prior exposure to EFL in primary and secondary schools, two to four years of which were formed in private language institutes. None of them had the experience of staying in a native English-speaking country. A consent form for participation was administered with an indication of the general purpose to investigate English language learning and procedures of the study.

Instruments

The present study attempted to investigate the impact of using input enhancement on the use of frequent collocations via reading on restatement in writing of EFL learners. The researcher employed the following instruments in this study:

Language Proficiency Test

The first research instrument was a language proficiency test, (the Oxford Proficiency Test for Solutions Series, a test developed for the book series under business name Solutions, 2nd Edition, by Edwards (2009)). This was used in the present study to help the researcher select homogeneous participants for the study. The test addresses the core vocabulary and grammatical items for each level comprehensively and so the learners were tested technically and professionally. This test included 50 items of vocabulary and grammar and was administered to the participants (Appendix C). It took the participants 45 minutes to answer the questions. The proficiency test revealed that all students were at the intermediate level of proficiency (Table 1). The reliability of the test was estimated 0.91 by KR-21 formula.

Table 1: Participants’ Placement test data

A Teacher-made Language Achievement Pre-test

A teacher-made test was administered as pre-test in order to measure the current level of the collocational knowledge and participants' performance in writing before application of the treatment. This test consisted of ten paragraphs each containing four collocations derived from English Collocations in Use (McCarthy and O’Dell. 2005). The students were required to provide a restatement of each paragraph to fill in the blanks (Appendix D). To determine the validity of the contents of the pre-test two experienced English teachers analyzed it and concluded that it was valid. The reliability of the test was estimated at 0.695 by the KR-21 formula.

A Teacher-made Language Achievement post-test

Another teacher-made language achievement test, the post-test, which was identical to the pre-test was given to the participants. This test was administered with the same content to evaluate the knowledge of frequent collocations currently acquired by the participants through reading enhanced texts (treatment) and the way of using them in their restatement performance. The participants were tested, and their responses were scored by the researcher for further comparison. The reliability of 1.023 was also computed using KR-21 by the researcher for the post-test. To determine the validity of the contents of post-test two experienced English teachers analyzed it and concluded that it was valid.

Collocation Knowledge Scale (CKS)

Before starting instructional sessions, a CKS test was applied to learners to measure homogeneity of the participants in collocational knowledge. This test was designed after a Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKS) developed by Paribakht and Wesche (1993). Their vocabulary knowledge scale aimed at measuring depth of word knowledge by placing a learner’s perception of each set of words (Ronald & Kamimoto, 2013) along the (modified) points of a scale:

1. I don't remember having seen this collocation before.
2. I have seen this collocation before, but I do not know what it means.
3. I have seen this collocation before and I think it means……. (Synonym or Persian translation).
4. I know this collocation. It means ……… (Synonym or Persian translation).
5. I can use this collocation in a sentence (write a sentence): …….

The adapted version of VKS (CKS) showed the degree of familiarity of the learners with the target collocational terms prior to teaching them. It included ten items and was administered to the two groups. According to Tekingül (2013), VKS is a self-reporting test measuring lexical knowledge of learners on a continuum from zero points to the ability of producing the target word precisely in a sentence. However, the same is intended with the target collocations. The target collocations were chosen from the passages Countryside (p.34), People: Physical appearance (p.40), and Relationship (p. 44) in Intermediate English Collocations in Use: Intermediate level (McCarthy & Dell, 2008). These texts were used with the students in the following twelve sessions. The aim of implementing this test at the very beginning of the process was to measure homogeneity of the participants in collocational knowledge and get the impression of the students’ complete knowledge of the collocations they were expected to be taught (Appendix A). The reliability of this test was estimated 1.035 based on the KR-21 coefficient.

Materials

Selection of Reading Passages

Reading passages of general context were selected from English Collocations in Use by McCarthy and O’Dell (2008) as a source and guidance to plan the tests. This series included a variety of collocational exercises in context (Appendix B).

Selection of collocations

The target frequent collocations were randomly selected from the book English Collocations in Use (McCarthy & O’Dell, 2008). The 28 target collocations were embedded in the instructional passages to be used during the treatment sessions.

Procedures

Before collecting the data, the researcher prepared the four research tools: a proficiency test (Oxford proficiency Test of Solutions Series) for measuring the participants’ language proficiency, a CKS test for measuring the homogeneity of the participants in collocation knowledge, a pre-test used for measuring the participants’ performance of using collocations in restatement writing before the treatment, and a post-test to measure their performance after the treatment. After taking the proficiency test, the participants were divided into two groups. One group was randomly assigned to the experimental group and the other one tothe control group. Since we had to follow the syllabus content given by the institute for teaching writing, both groups received the same lessons in content. The experimental group was taught the collocations mainly through input enhancement techniques including boldfacing, underlining, and italicizing the frequent collocations within the reading text. Each text included 7-10 collocations and one task which was an assessment of students' writing restatement performance. Consequently, they had to use the recently-taught frequent collocations in writing their restatements. On the other hand, the control group received no specific techniques as treatment to acquire frequent collocations, but they also had to do the writing restatement task. The KR-21 formula was used to determine the reliability of the pre-test and post-test. To determine the validity of the content of pre-test and post-test the scoring profile along with the writing samples were given to the two experience English teachers for scoring. Therefore, each test was scored by two raters.

Administering the Pre-test

Before the main instructional sessions, a CKS test and pre-test was given to evaluate learners’ collocational knowledge and their writing proficiency in restatements. The test was carefully constructed by the researcher, and was reviewed by two experts. The reliability of the pre-test was computed through computing the KR-21 and also the validity of the pre-test was checked by two experts.

Implementing the Treatment

The participants were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The study was conducted for 18 hours, spread over six weeks, i.e., two days a week and each session lasted for 90 minutes. The target collocations were chosen from the passages of the English Collocations in Use book (Appendix B). Instructor, material and exposure to language in two groups were the same, except using the input enhancement techniques (e.g., boldfacing, underlining, and italicizing) within the given reading texts in the experimental group which started from the beginning session to help them develop their depth of collocational knowledge. However, the control group received the same instruction without the input enhancement techniques. Both groups were required to complete the task which was related to restatement in the writing assignment. After the treatment, the participants of the control group and experimental group took part in the post-test in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment based on the mean score of the two groups, to test their collocational knowledge in their restatement in writing performance.

Administering the Post-test

A post-test of restatement in writing equivalent to the pre-test in terms of frequency of the selected frequent collocations after the 12 sessions of instruction was administrated to measure the participants’ performance in restatement in writing and collocational knowledge. The administration session was the same as that of pre-test. Thus, the results were compared to those of pre-test. The data elicited by using the two tests were analyzed to test the null hypotheses. Having analyzed the data, the researcher reported the findings, wrote the discussion, and conclusion.

Data Analysis

In order to seek statistically supported answers to the research question in this study, the data of the two tests in the two groups were compared. At first, descriptive statistics were used to display the data elicited from the two groups both numerically and graphically. The mean, variance, and standard deviations were computed for both pre and post-test. Based on the sample statistics, the normality of data or the equality of variance in the two measurements was investigated through the amount of skewness and kurtosis. It is worth mentioning that the kurtosis and skewness values were calculated by functions (=kurt) and (=skew), respectively, in Microsoft Excel 2010. T-test, means, comparison and creation of graphs were performed in SPSS version 22. Then, to estimate the reliability index of the post- and pre-test, the researcher used KR-21 formula. It was not possible to compute Cronbach alpha since this kind of reliability computation works better for a population consisting of at least 100 people. KR-21 is performed through the following formula:

Where k is the number of questions, μ  is the population’s mean score, σ²  is the variance of the total scores of all the participants, and ρ_KR21 is the reliability of the test. Inferential statistics were used to compare the means of the experimental and control group together to test the null hypotheses. An independent t-test was employed to test the hypothesis to find out whether the difference between the two groups was statistically significant.

Descriptive Statistics

Descriptive statistics are used to display the different variables of the participants that have been taken into consideration. For the ease of description, these variables are explained one by one, and the numerical information related to each is represented Based on the design of the study, there were two groups of participants in the study. The demographic specifications of the participants based on their groups, gender, learning experience, and age are presented.

Demographic Specifications of the Participants

The participants were divided into two groups; that is, one experimental group and one control group. There were 30 students (50 %) in the experimental group for whom input enhancement techniques were used as their treatment, and 30 students (50 %) were in the control group in which these techniques were not taught. There were 60 participants in the present study, from whom 31 (51%) were female and 29 (48%) were male EFL learners. The researcher attempted to collect data from male and female learners proportionately; the youngest participants were 15-year-old females while the oldest ones were 23-year-old males. The participants were randomly assigned into two groups. The number of participants in the two groups was proportionate.

The Reliability of the Instruments

Due to the small number of participants, the reliability of all the implemented instruments used was estimated by computing the KR-21 formula. This method needs the number of questions, number of all students included, the total scores that can be obtained, and the separate scores of each student in the relevant test. The mathematical elements of this formula were explained in detail in the previous section chapter. The KR-21 formula coefficient ranges from 0 to 1 where 0 is not accepted, and 1 (or above) is considered a perfect reliability. Hence, the more reliable the test is, the closer the score is to 1. Usually the scores above 0.5 are accepted and reasonable. For ten items the KR-21 coefficient obtained as .522.

CKS was a test measuring lexical knowledge of a student from the lowest level (no encounter) to the ability to make a sentence using the target collocation. CKS consisted of ten Likert-scale questions each including five levels starting from 1 to 5. Points 1-5 were specified for each question dependent on the level chosen by the student. OPT consisted of fifty 4-option questions where the student had to choose only one option. Thus, the total score one could obtain was 50. Using the KR-21 Coefficient, the reliability statistics for the fifty-item Oxford Proficiency Test was 0.91; for the 10-item teacher-made achievement pre-test it was 0.736; and for similar ten-item post-test it was 0.874.

This shows that the reliability statistics of all the instruments used in the current study fell within the accepted level. The lowest level of KR-21 formula coefficient belonged to the writing restatement pre-test with the score of 0.736 which was graded as accepted. That was due to the low familiarity of the students before treatment. Consequently, the reliability of this test after treatment was observed .874 which was graded as accepted in KR-21 formula coefficient status.

Inferential Statistics

Inferential statistics included analyzing the placement test and the basis on which the students were ranked as intermediate language learners, as well as the values of min, max, variance, STD deviation, kurtosis and skewness. Also, the researcher attempted to graphically demonstrate the normality of distribution of this test. Analyzing pre-test and post-test and performing a t-test are included in this section.         

The Analysis of Placement Test

As previously mentioned, the results of the placement test revealed that all participants were at intermediate level. Based on the Solutions Placement Test Scores Interpretation, the participants giving correct answer in more than 31 items were ranked in intermediate level (See Table 2).

Table 2: Oxford Placement Test Solutions Series Categorization (Edwards, 2009: p.1)

It is worth mentioning that the proficiency test used in the present study consisted of only the grammar and vocabulary section according to the requirements. Based on the obtained data, the students all correctly answered more than 31 items. the analysis was done and it showed homogeneity. The various terms such as mean, standard deviation, variance, kurtosis, skewness, minimum and maximum have been measured for the variables. The researcher attempted to check the normality of variances in the sample to see whether they belong to the same population or not. After administering the proficiency test to 60 students, descriptive statistics demonstrate the inferential statistics of the language proficiency test used for homogenization of participants. The mean and standard deviation equaled 35.4 and 3.12 for the control group, and 38.13 and 2.28 were computed as mean and standard deviation of the experimental group, respectively. Based on the given figures, the skewness was 0.35 and -0.11 for the control and experimental groups, respectively, which is between -1.96 and +1.96 meaning that we had a normal distribution.

Table 3: The Independent Sample T-Test for OPT

The Analysis of CKS

Before starting the treatment, the researcher had to check for the homogeneity of the participants in their collocational knowledge and the effect it may have on their restatement writing. Since this test is based on the 5-point Likert scaling – starting from the least level to the highest understanding and proficiency level in using the collocation – the total amount of the scores obtained by the students was calculated by the sum of items they had marked. One point shows that they never heard the collocation before; two points shows that they heard the collocation earlier but did not know what it means; Three points shows that they thought that they know the meaning in their mother tongue (in this case, they should provide us with a Persian translation. Four points shows that they could understand the collocation (with a Persian equivalent collocation). Five points, finally, shows that they could both understand and use the collocation in a complete sentence. It was the students’ own estimation about what they believed the collocation mean. Table 4 below summarizes the values of the participants scores in CKS.

Table 4: The values of participants’ scores in CKS

As seen in the above table, the values of skewness fall within the standard range (-1.96 to +1.96). The amounts of skewness were observed near 0 showing a good symmetrical distribution in both groups (.360 for the control group compared with the normal distribution of -.164 for the opposite group). On the other side, kurtosis values were all negative in both groups showing the flat peak of the histogram. Significant differences were not observed in the amount of minimum, maximum, and mean values. As observed above, the variance of experimental group is not considerably higher than that of the control group. The same is observed in standard deviation where the experimental group surpasses the control group by only 0.08. In brief, it can be concluded that the previous collocational knowledge of the students participating in both groups was to a very much extent similar. As can be seen in Table 5 below, since the sig. value is higher than 0.05, the first row was taken into consideration. In the first row it is observed that the t-critical value is lower than 2 at the 58 degree of freedom implying the lack of significance. The sig. (2-tailed) value is higher than the significance level (0.05), so there is no significant difference between the mean values.

Table 5: The Independent-Sample T-Test for CKS

The Analysis of the Pre-test

In this phase of the study, the researcher found that the assumption of approximate normality was observed in the distribution shape of the experimental and control groups. The treatment used input enhancement techniques in the use of frequent collocations via reading on restatement in writing proficiency of learners, while in the control group no techniques were used for enhancing the collocations.

Table 6 below presents the independent-sample T-Test for the pre-test. The significance level was set at 0.05. Since the Sig. value was higher than 0.05, the equality of variances is not rejected. That is, the first row is considered. In the first row, the sig. (2-tailed) value is higher than 0.05 meaning that the difference is not significant at 58 degree of freedom. Additionally, the t value was lower than 2.000 confirming lack of significance. In total, the pre-test showed that the previous knowledge of the students regarding the target collocations was almost at the same level.

Table 6 The Independent-Sample T-Test for Pre-Test

The Analysis of the Post-Test

Unlike some approximately similar scores obtained in the pre-test, which is normal due to lack of experiencing any treatment, in the post-test results, we witnessed scores with large deviations in all items. These are presented below in Table 7.

Table 7: The values of participants’ scores in the language achievement post-test

The experimental group demonstrated higher standard deviation and variance equal to 3.34 and 11.19, respectively; the same items in control groups were estimated up to 2.49 and 6.24 showing much lower results. The minimum score of experimental groups was 5 surpassing the opposite group by 2 points; on the other side, the maximum score of the experimental group (18) was 5 points higher than the score of the other group. The most important and considerable point is observed in the result of means and sums. It is clearly understood that the mean score of the experimental group (12.33) was much higher than the control group (8.96) and the sum of the two groups were 370 versus 269 for the experimental and control group, respectively. This indicated the effectiveness of the treatment on writing restatement skills of the students. Table 8 below presents the independent-sample T-Test for the post-test.

Table 8: The Independent-Sample T-Test for Post-Test

A significant difference is not observed in the above table. This is due to this fact that both groups had progress in their performance. The sig. value was higher than 0.05, t-critical value was lower than 2, and the lower/upper limits do not include zero value, all implying no significant difference. The clear difference was observed in the comparison between pre- and post-test in the two groups which was represented in the following section.

Testing the Research Hypothesis

Various descriptive statistics can help identify a lack of variability. The distributions of scores obtained from pre-test and post-test by the learners were checked for their normality, distribution and further analyses. Since the values of skewness ranged from -1.96 to +1.96, the normality of the statistics was proved, thus, the t-test could be utilized for testing the significance of statistical differences between mean and variance values of both groups. Based on the data collected on the post-tests, the researcher tested the research null hypothesis. To test the hypothesis - using input enhancement in the use of frequent collocations via reading makes no significant difference in the Iranian EFL learners’ writing restatements - the researcher had to compare the mean scores and variance values of the experimental and control groups. Tables 9 to 10 show the results of paired-sample t-test for control and experimental groups.

Table 9: Paired-sample t-test statistics      

The paired-sample t-test was run in order to have a general impression of the data obtained during the pre- and post-test. To see whether the intervention was effective or not, the means of the two groups were compared through an independent t-test. As shown above, the mean values in pair 1 and pair 2 were significantly different.

Table 10: Paired Samples Correlations

As shown above, the correlation for control and experimental groups were .926 and .929, respectively. The correlation coefficient shows the strength and direction of a linear connection between the two groups which is always a value between -1 to +1. The obtained values in the present study (above .30) indicate a weak positive linear relationship implying that although the control group improved in the post-test, the other group had a better positive progress.

Table 11: The Independent-Sample T-Test

Based on the data shown in the above table, both groups had progress in their performance; however, the mean differences had a long distance with each other. The mean difference between pre- and post-test in the control group was equal to –4.10 compared with the one of the opposite group equal to -6.73. This evidence confirmed that the experimental group’s scores were at a higher level. The means are significant at 0.05 with the sig. (2-tailed) value of .000. Another obvious difference was observed in the lower and upper limits of the two groups. The control group showed values -5.49 to -2.70 in comparison with the one of the opposite group -8.25 to -5.20. In total, it became clear that there was a significant difference between our two groups in their performance. The experimental group outperformed the control group. Therefore, it is concluded that the treatment was considerably influential in improving the skill of restatement writing of the respondents participating in the experimental group.   

Discussion

Having collected the data, and done the data entry, the researcher went through the data analysis procedure. Regarding the research question, results showed the positive effect of input enhancement techniques on collocations on the experimental students’ post-test was significant compared to the control group. The results of Independent Samples t-test analysis showed that there was a significant difference between the control and experimental groups in terms of using collocations in restatement writing performance. By the comparison of mean scores of participants, using input enhancement techniques on collocations appeared much more beneficial to the experimental group rather than to the control one. The post-test scores indicated that the collocational knowledge was gained by the experimental group. The post-test scores of the experimental group indicated that the group had a better retention rate compared to the control one. Therefore, input enhancement techniques had positive effects on learning collocational elements. As proposed by Lewis (2008) stimulation of learner’s noticing the language in terms of collocations paves the path for the mastery of the target language and this plays a pivotal role in any lexical approach towards language learning or teaching program.

Input enhancement techniques help students notice these lexical chunks through using them in the writing process. Like previous studies, the findings of the present study have shown that collocational knowledge is essential for both receptive and productive use of language. It is often considered as the main obstacle to reaching a native-like fluency. Put simply, collocations are the determinants showing and differentiating natives from non-natives (Wu, 2015). Wu posed that if a learner says, “I did a few mistakes”, natives understand the meaning; however, a native prefers to say “I made a few mistakes”. Why do we say “fast food” instead of simply “quick food”? The reason is established in collocation. Thus, in line with the current study’s aim, Wu (2015) has recommended changing the method of teaching vocabulary and collocations from the number to depth. That is, the breadth of a student’s vocabulary knowledge is not as important as his/her correct use of it. In other words, instead of asking a student “How many words do you know?” it is better to ask “What do you know about those words” or “How do you use them?”. This way, the students will begin concentrating more on a deeper area like collocations. In this respect, Adelian et al. (2015) argued that “knowing a word refers to the word usage by learner and how learners learn a new word to use it in different contexts correctly. With regard to using a word correctly, it is important to note that words are used in chunks not in pre-constructed clauses and phrases” (p. 974). Hong (2011) added to this claim that learners can memorize language chunks better when expressing their ideas. Hong claimed that “important purpose of acquiring vocabulary is closely related to the proper use of collocations” (p. 35). In the realm of another related study Baleghizadeh et al. (2017) scrutinized the impact of Textual Input-Enhancement (TIE) on the mastery of academic vocabulary. Overall, their study brought about one major finding which indicated that the employed TIE techniques in the given study helped both receptive and productive academic vocabulary knowledge to grow significantly.

Many studies have indicated the positive impact of input enhancement and/or collocations on various learning skills of students. The best example of such research with similar results is probably the work of Ahranjani and Shadi (2012) where they empirically proved the positive impact of input enhancement on EFL students’ capability of acquiring collocations. Another instance could be the paper written by Movahediyan et al. (2013) where they discussed about teaching collocations on the speaking skill of Iranian EFL learners. They used the same book as the source and instructed about collocations. They found that the speaking ability of the students working in an experimental group considerably improved. Besides, Szudarski and Conklin (2014), on the same track with the present study, reported the significant role of L2 input conditions influencing the learning of collocations.

The findings of the current study can be verified in the framework of the recent study by Yazdanjoo and Fallahpour (2018a) where the creative teaching of specific chunks, namely, collocations will reinforce the EFL learners descriptive and academic written language recognition and production. In the same vein, they designed communicative tasks in “IELTS Speaking Canvas” (Yazdanjoo & Fallahpour, 2018b) teaching both frequent and infrequent collocations with the application of IE techniques.

El-Dakhs (2015) believed that collocational knowledge significantly contributes to language proficiency and, in this regard, examined collocational competence of Arab students with increasing exposure to the English language. She also classified the types of collocational errors produced by the learners and divided them into 5 major groups: (1) L2 synonym, (2) another meaning, (3) first language transfer, (4) word class, and (5) formal similarity. L2 synonym got the highest frequency of errors amongst others, L2 synonym (30%), another meaning (14%), L1 transfer (6%), word class (8%), and formal similarity (7%). Additionally, Fahim and Vaezi (2011) achieved similar results by investigating the effect of visually-enhanced input on acquiring collocations. Their enhancement method was bolding and capitalizing. They admitted that the students taught via visual/textual input enhancement had better performance over learning and recalling lexical collocations.

The results of the present study were in line with the interpretation of the scores obtained from the learners by Nahavandi and Mukundan (2014) regarding examining the effect input enhancement has on learning vocabulary. Since collocations are word combinations, it is not hard to perceive that the input enhancement methods working on learning vocabulary can also bring about the same positive results for collocations acquirement. Jahan and Kormos (2015) similarly concluded that textual enhancement results in better acquisition during procedures of instructed L2.

Birjandi et al. (2015) examined if input enhancement can facilitate the learning English phrasal verbs by Iranian EFL learners. They specifically instructed lexical elaboration of phrasal verbs to observe its effects on retaining phrasal verbs by the passage of time. They found that the learners exposed to enhanced input showed better performance compared to participants who had received unenhanced input. They used typographical enhancement which resulted in better noticing and, consequently, better learning of the target word combinations (phrasal verbs). Their results were consistent with the ones of the present study.

Abdi and Tarbali (2016) admitted that input enhancement can be used as a technique for attracting students’ attention to target input items and increase the perceptual salience of language units which then can then be used in speaking when the student is placed in the L2 environment. This can also contribute to increasing the span of lexical knowledge of the students.

Therefore, the findings of the present study are in agreement with Mounya (2010) and Bahardoust (2012). According to these results, collocational knowledge is a source of fluency in written communication among students. Additionally, Park and Warschauer (2016) reported great improvement in reading and writing skills of sixth-grade L2 students via syntactic enhancement techniques where they visually and syntactically formatted the context. Like the results of the current study, their change of format resulted in clear improved English reading and writing skills of the participants in academic contexts.

As a result, in line with the above-mentioned studies and the present study, it could be strongly argued that there is a significant relationship between enhanced input presented to the students and their obtained collocational knowledge through reading. This improved knowledge was shown in the restatement tasks the participants performed in the present study where the experimental group member could obtain better scores in a collocation knowledge scale test and, hence, used more frequent collocations when writing the required restatement.

Conclusion

Abdi and Tarbali (2016) believed that input enhancement is necessary for input change in order to attract the conscious attention and maintain the input content in the long-term memory. It has been claimed that input-oriented enhancement can be as much influential as traditional teaching methods. The logic behind input enhancement is that making visible, clear and salient changes in the input is more attractive and eye-catching for the students. This way, they will be more likely to pay attention to the target collocations which, per se, results in more knowledge intake (Fahim & Vaezi, 2011). The main goal of this study was to investigate the possible effects of input enhancement techniques on Iranian Intermediate EFL learners’ collocation knowledge and their appropriate use of them in restatement in writing. It also sought to find out whether collocational input enhancement techniques had any significant effect on learning collocations and using them in restatement writing of Iranian intermediate EFL learners. In doing so, two groups were selected; one group was taught on the basis of input enhancement techniques. The other group was taught through the usual current prevalent techniques. The result of Independent Samples t-test analysis and the descriptive statistics showed that there were statistically significant differences between the scores of the experimental and control group on the post-test, i.e., after introducing treatment for the experimental and control group. In fact, the experimental group outperformed the control group on the post–test. The scores in the post-test indicated that participants who used input enhancement techniques on collocations via reading performed significantly better than who used a traditional approach. Thus, the null hypothesis of this study was rejected. The use of input enhancement techniques on collocations via reading might be considered as the merits of this study, which increased the depth of collocation knowledge and writing restatement performance. According to the findings of this study, input enhancement techniques have a powerful influence on raising collocational knowledge. In addition, it could be strongly maintained that input enhancement techniques can significantly influence Iranian EFL intermediate language learners’ appropriate use of collocations in their restatement in writing.

Pedagogical Implications of the Study

This study has empirical and pedagogical implications for different target groups. Teachers, EFL learners, researchers, and material developers may be among the target groups using the results of the present study. Collocations have an effective role in the successful and native-like performance of EFL learners. Collocation knowledge is very important not only for language accuracy but also for language fluency. EFL teachers should become aware of the problematic areas with collocation and should find a way of improving learners’ knowledge in the use of English collocations. Teachers have to direct learners' attention toward collocation and vocabulary through using input enhancement techniques. Learning collocation should be taken into account both in class and after class for the benefit of the students. To develop fluency in a L2, it is not enough to learn singular words and their meaning. Therefore, vocabulary should be taught by means of collocations both inside and outside the classroom, so that, learners can become aware of how words associate together. Teachers can enhance collocation input by using some techniques (bold facing, highlighting, italicizing) and motivating students to produce more collocations in their classes. However, in the case of a lack of specific instruction, language teachers can teach frequent collocations by simply manipulating texts and enhancing the input data. This form of instruction can be included in incidental learning of other parts of language (e.g., grammar) to bring about the best results. In order to find out the students’ weaknesses in using collocations, collocation tests can be used. When the problems with collocation are recognized, teachers should concentrate more on those areas when teaching collocations. A Lexical Notebook might be beneficial to store collocations. Another target group who can benefit from the results of the present study is researchers. As for the present study, the participants have shown that when the input enhancement techniques are taught to them, they could have better performance in restatement in writing. For researchers, it might be worth replicating similar studies with some other subjects in other settings to explore more about the nature of such instruction. Material developers will get some useful hints from the results of the present study. In most cases, language learners become motivated because of the attraction to the content they read. It is important to insert stimulating ideas and attractive visual or verbal features in books to motivate language learners to learn the content enthusiastically. Also, when language learners feel a sense of achievement in their learning process as a result of input enhancement techniques, they will become more willing to learn. Material developers should create positive attitudes among language learners through developing high-quality materials in which all different types of input enhancement techniques could be included. Collocations should be included in the writing syllabus. They should be taught explicitly through input enhancement techniques.

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