an investigation on the impact of teaching vocabulary through collocations on the vocabulary retention of efl learners

Vocabulary is of paramount importance in communication and the other skills of language. when vocabulary teaching is taken into account, efl teachers usually prefer to apply traditional techniques for teaching new words. the purpose of this study was to determine the impact of a relatively new vocabulary teaching technique; teaching vocabulary through collocations on vocabulary retention. this experiment employed a pre-test/post-test control group design. sixty female students at the pre- intermediate level of english proficiency, learning english as a foreign language were selected through convenient sampling. they were divided into two groups of 30. in the experimental group new vocabulary was instructed by means of collocation technique, while in the control group classical techniques such as synonym, antonym, definition and mother tongue translation were used. the statistical analysis of the collected data proved that teaching vocabulary through their collocations resulted in a better retention of the words than teaching them by means of traditional techniques. vocabulary instruction by means of collocations can be a effective factor in helping students to remember and make use of the new vocabulary without difficulty in efl classes.