Predictive power, stability and variability of psychological factors in teaching English collocations
Abstract
Foreign language aptitude, anxiety, motivation and learning strategies are among the most important individual factors that influence the learning process. In our study, we investigated the relationship between these factors and learning outcomes in two formal learning environments: an explicit collocation learning setting with lexically oriented instruction (experimental group) and an instructional setting in which collocations were not emphasised (control group).
We also examined whether the experimental instruction had an effect on anxiety, motivation, and the use of learning strategies. The participants of the study were university students (N=39) divided into the aforementioned groups based on individual factors.
From the measured correlations, we conclude that lexically oriented instruction focusing on explicit collocation consolidation seems to be beneficial for students regardless of their individual psychological predispositions and helps to balance the differences among students. Yet, it does not yield any significant changes in students' motivation, learning strategies or situational anxiety.