چكيده
The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether Iranian EFL learners’ knowledge of English collocations can be enhanced by shadowing through listening in face-to-face classrooms. Furthermore, it was aimed to investigate possible differences in the effects of shadowing through listening on the Iranian male and female EFL learners’ knowledge of English collocations. To fulfill this purpose, 80 intermediate female and male learners were selected in a convenience non-probability design and assigned to four groups (i.e., male / female, control / experimental) with 20 learners in each of them. All the participants took pre-test. The aim of the pre-test was to determine the participants’ background knowledge of collocations. Then, the learners in the experimental groups experienced shadowing through listening. It means that they heard a voice repeating the collocations in the background while reading the text whereas in the control group, the participants only read the text without any shadow listening. In the end of the course, all participants took the post-test and the scores were analyzed. The whole study lasted for ten 90-minute class sessions. A multiple-choice test including 40 items was developed by the researcher to check the knowledge of the selected participants both as pre- and post-tests. To investigate the first and second research questions, both paired and independent samples t-tests were used, and the third research question was investigated only using independent samples t-test. The results revealed the higher effect of shadowing through listening on both male and female EFL learners’ knowledge of English collocations. However, no significant differences were found between male and females in this regard. The results of the present study may prove useful for several entities including teachers, learners, textbook writers and material developers in improving the language skills of EFL learners and especially their collocation knowledge.
