Interplay between translation direction and frequency in short- and long-term retention of English collocations

Considerable research has focused on the impact of translation in forward (from L1 to L2) and backward (from L2 to L1) directions on mastering single lexical items. Expanding on this line of inquiry, the present study examined how translation direction and frequency affect the short- and long-term retention of multiword combinations known as collocations (e.g., strong coffee). Participants were seventh graders (N = 99) in Korea, and they were divided into three groups: forward, backward, and bidirectional (a mixture of forward and backward). After studying a list of 20 English-Korean collocation pairs, the participants were asked to translate L1 or L2 collocations displayed two or four times on an LCD screen. Immediately and one week after the training, form recognition and recall tests were administered. Overall results showed superiority of the forward and bidirectional groups over the backward counterpart. These results, however, varied as a function of test type, retention phase, and frequency. For instance, in form recognition, the forward and bidirectional groups significantly outperformed the backward group on the delayed test, not the immediate test, whereas in form recall, the forward and bidirectional groups performed significantly better than the backward group on the immediate test, not the delayed test. Notably, with increased frequency, the forward group exhibited more pronounced gains in the delayed test. These findings hold significance for intentional L2 collocation learning.