Investigating the Efficacy of Three Divergent Output Tasks in the Acquisition of Formulaic Expressions

Abstract

The significance of learning formulaic expressions in EFL/ESL is undeniable; however, few studies have been conducted on teaching through collaborative approaches. Accordingly, the current study intended to investigate the efficacy of three divergent output tasks including individual, collaborative pair, and group work in the acquisition of formulaic expressions among Iranian EFL learners. To this respect, 65 intermediate female students were divided into three experimental groups and were taught 76 formulaic expressions during 12 sessions. A test for participants’ homogeneity as well as a test of formulaic expressions including 60 idioms to measure the participants’ knowledge over the acquisition of idioms in two levels of comprehension and production was utilized. The findings of the present study indicated that the individual group outperformed the collaborative groups at the level of production which shed light on the negative side of collaboration.