Title: An Investigation into the Effect of Teaching Phrasal Verbs on the Learners' Knowledge of Grammatical Patterns
Abstract: AbstractThe present study aimed to investigate the effect of teaching phrasal verbs as a classroom activity on Iranian EFL learners' knowledge of grammatical patterns. The main question this study tried to answer was whether the knowledge of phrasal verbs might enhance higher knowledge of grammatical patterns in Iranian learners of English. To answer the question, 40 English intermediate trainees participated in the experiment of the study. They were randomly selected from among a population of trainees via an OPT test score of at least one standard deviation below the mean score. They were then divided into two groups of 20 and were randomly assigned to an experimental and a control group. A pretest of English grammatical patterns (sentence word order) was administered to both groups, then, they were taught grammatical patterns for 8 sessions but with different methodologies: the experimental group received a treatment of phrasal verbs while the control group received a placebo. A posttest of English grammatical patterns (sentence word order) was then administered to both groups. The data of the study were analyzed using an independent sample ttest to indicate the groups' posttest mean difference. The results indicated that the Iranian EFL learners in the experimental group received higher scores, though not significantly, in grammatical patterns after being treated with 8 sessions of phrasal verbs.Key Words: Phrasal Verbs, Grammatical Patterns, Sentence Word Order, Iranian EFL Learners, OPT.1. IntroductionOver the last decade the number of studies concerned with the effects of different ways such as making the learners familiar with phrasal verbs on learning a second or foreign language has increased considerably. This is due to the fact that many linguistic or non-linguistic factors can extremely influence language learning in individuals. In this study, grammar is magnified because it is considered as one of the most basic components in learning English as a foreign language. The purpose of this study was to explore the probable effect of making the learners familiar with the phrasal verbs as an independent variable on the learners' knowledge of grammatical patterns (word order) as a dependent variable. It is worth mentioning that by making the subjects familiar with phrasal verbs, the researcher can at least help the subjects to be aware of the appropriate sequence and position of verbs, their particles, and their related objects in sentences.Syntax along with the concepts such as grammar, grammatical patterns of sentences and word order, which are deemed to be the subcategories of the broad notion of syntax, is one of the first notions highlighted in this paper. The syntax of English language has several interesting properties which have often been discussed in many works of research. According to a net source, syntactic theories are commonly divided into two broad types, formal and functional. Linguistic form is what the formal theories of syntax focus on, relegating meaning to a peripheral position; by contrast, functional theories tend to focus on the function that language serves, and the ways that syntax is organized to serve these functions; in other words, meaning plays a central role.An enormous range of variation can be found in the extent to which theories are formal and functional within these two camps. Extreme functional syntaxes recognize only meaning or functions, and deny the existence of structure in syntax. In extreme version of formal syntax, by contrast, grammar tends to be conceptualized as an abstract algebraic system specifying the acceptable strings of symbols making up a language. Meaning is considered irrelevant, and syntax (in whole or part) is seen as constituting an autonomous system. The majority of theories fall in somewhere between the two poles.These days there are different views regarding syntactic theories. Most syntacticians agree that there are limits on the range of syntactic variation possible among languages. …
Publication Year: 2013
Publication Date: 2013-06-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 1
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