Effectiveness of High School Students’ DDL of Verb-noun Collocations in an EFL Context

This study explores the impact of data-driven learning (DDL) activities on the enhancement of collocation proficiency among Chinese high school students studying English as a foreign language (EFL). Additionally, participants' attitudes toward learning through the indirect DDL approach are examined. The empirical research spanned three weeks and involved two comparative groups, employing a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods with three instruments: a pre/post/delayed post-test, an attitude questionnaire, and interviews. The participants comprised 10 Chinese high school students. The control group followed traditional teaching methods, while the experimental group utilized DDL methods using the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). Through nonparametric test analysis in SPSS, the results reveal minimal significant differences in corpus-assisted teaching of high school verb-noun collocation in the pre-test, post-test, and delayed post-test outcomes. However, a notable distinction emerges between the two groups in the writing segment of the delayed post-test, suggesting potentially deeper acquisition in the experimental group. Further empirical studies are expected to excavate its developmental potential and appropriate application for promoting high school student-centered learning in vocabulary.