Pre-Service Teachers’ Knowledge and Perceptions of Teaching Collocations to EFL Learners

Despite a large body of research on teaching and learning collocations, it appears that there has been little study investigating pre-service teachers’ professional knowledge of teaching collocations to EFL learners. This study thus explored pre-service teachers’ knowledge and perceptions of teaching collocations. The instruments administered to ۱۰۰ pre-service teachers included a questionnaire with ۱۰ open-ended items and an interview with eight questions. The results indicated that pre-service teachers held a positive attitude toward teaching collocations and preferred implicit teaching of collocation more than explicit one through contextualization and consciousness-raising activities. They also held the view that collocations could be taught indirectly through games, movies, technological tools, and pictures. They also stated that as language includes prefabricated structures appearing in chunks, teaching and learning collocation should be seriously taken into account to enhance EFL learners’ knowledge of language. Considering assignments, tasks of filling in the blanks, matching, using collocations in written and spoken texts were the most frequent ones. Regarding challenges of teaching collocation, first language interference was reported as the main challenge. The findings recommend teacher educators to enhance the professional knowledge of pre-service teachers about teaching collocations.