The Effect of Corpus Activities on EFL Learners' Acquisition of Phrasal Verbs: Contrasting Explicit and Implicit Instruction

Abstract

Phrasal verbs (PVs) are considered an important aspect of EFL mastery; however, they are among the most puzzling forms for EFL learners (Celce-Murcia et al. 1999; Thrush, 2001). Arab EFL learners often find PVs exceptionally challenging, as Arabic, a Semitic language, does not have a specific category of PVs. It is hypothesized in this study that data-driven learning (DDL) is a possible foreign language learning approach to promote Arab EFL learners’ acquisition of PVs (Johns 1986). The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of corpus-based activities on EFL learners’ acquisition of PVs and examines how explicit and implicit instructions through corpus-based activities influence PV acquisition. Before conducting the classroom intervention study, an exploratory corpus-based study of EFL learners', particularly intermediate Arab EFL learners’, usage of PVs was carried out to gain a clearer image of EFL learners’ actual usage. A selection of the 10 most and 10 least frequently used English PVs as identified in Liu (2011), were chosen for analysis. The EF-Cambridge Open Language Database (EFCAMDAT) served as a source of data produced by intermediate Arab EFL learners. The descriptive statistics for this study revealed that several semantic and syntactic PV errors are produced by Arab EFL learners. The main semantic error observed was the learners’ use of unsuitable PVs in various contexts. This included either choosing an incorrect verb or a wrong particle. Regarding syntactic errors, the primary grammatical errors were the lack of tense consistency with the PVs and the absence of subject-verb agreement. As part of an experimental classroom intervention study, 76 female intermediate Saudi students studied 27 transitive and intransitive PVs by one of three different methods. I) The Control Group (N=25) followed the traditional learning approach through dictionaries. Learners had access to English definitions of each PV and carried out PV translation activities into Arabic. II) The Explicit DDL Group (N=26) followed the explicit ‘inductive’ learning protocol through which students were exposed to concordances with PVs and carried out some activities such as determining the meanings of the PVs from context or completing concordances with a suitable PV. III) The Implicit DDL Group (N=25) adopted the implicit instruction approach that exposed learners to a set of concordance lines and drew their attention to aspects other than PVs. All learners’ knowledge was tested before the start of the intervention, as well as after the intervention, at two different points in time, 7 days for the post-test and 28 days for the delayed post-test. A mixed effects linear regression analysis revealed a statistically significant improvement between the post and delayed post-test results for the Explicit DDL group compared to the Control group. While there was no significant difference between the Control group and the Implicit DDL group in the post-test, there was a statistically significant difference in the delayed post-test results, with an improvement for the Implicit DDL group. Finally, the Explicit DDL group scored better in the post-test in comparison with the Implicit DDL group, but there was no significant difference at the time of the delayed post-test. This project contributes to advancing our understanding of Arab EFL learners' usage of PVs. It also involves an exploration of the effects of corpus-based activities on PV acquisition and the influence of explicit and implicit types of instructions on short and long-term learning gains, which can help relevant stakeholders make informed decisions about PV learning and teaching.