Abstract:
The impetus for performing this study came from Thornbury's (2005) approach to teaching speaking in which he claimed that awareness-raising techniques and appropriation strategies facilitate the developing speaking skill. Accordingly, this study explored the impact of an appropriation-based syllabus to teaching speaking by using chunks-on-card activities based on quasi-experimental method. To do so, 30 Iranian intermediate EFL learners were selected from four classes in a language institute and the classes were randomly allocated to two groups: an experimental and a control group. To observe the effect of the treatment, the participants underwent pre- and post-tests on speaking skill. They participated in 14 treatment sessions in which the experimental group practiced the chunks-on-card approach through drilling while the control group practiced the conventional approach. The findings of the Independent-Samples T-test as well as the Paired Samples T-test revealed significant differences among the pre- and post-tests scores of both groups. Thus, the hypothesis of the study which postulated that the appropriation-based teaching of lexical chunks had a significant impact on these intermediate EFL learners’ speaking skills was confirmed.
Machine summary:
Thus, the hypothesis of the study which postulated that the appropriation-based teaching of lexical chunks had a significant impact on these intermediate EFL learners’ speaking skills was confirmed.
Using communicative practice and dialogue memorization strategy, Taguchi and Iwasaki (2008) examined the efficacy of grammatical chunks instruction on Japanese EFL learners' speaking fluency development.
In Iranian EFL contexts, attempts have also been made to shed light on the efficacy of explicit instruction of various categories of lexical chunks in developing learners' listening (Khodadady & Shamsaee, 2012; Mohseni, Marzban, & Keshavarzi, 2014), reading (Sadat Kiaee, Heravi Moghaddam, & Moheb Hosseini, 2013; Sadighi & Sahragard, 2013), and writing skills (Araghi, Yousefi Oskuee, & Salehpour, 2014; Ranjbar, Pazhakh, & Gorjian, 2012; Shamsabadi, Ketabi, & Eslami Rasekh, 2017).
Regarding the impact of lexical chunks instruction on speaking ability, Mahdavi- Zafarghandi, Tahriri, and Dobahri Bandari (2015) studied Iranian intermediate EFL learners.
Besides the emphasis on adopting appropriate tasks for teaching, a plethora of studies conducted on lexical chunks have highlighted the pivotal role they play as a production strategy for language learners (Conklin & Schmitt, 2008; Underwood, Schmitt, & Galpin, 2004; Wood, 2006; Wray, 2005; Wray & Fitzpatrick, 2008).
The results of the study are substantiated by several previous studies which have demonstrated that teaching lexical chunks is a valuable method to develop learners' speaking skill as it facilitates the learning process and it has a continuing effect on memory retention (Attar & Allami, 2013; Boers et al.