Cognitive Linguistics to Instruct Phrasal Verbs Through Google +: A Lebanese EFL Context

EFL textbooks, academic material, and language proficiency tests include phrasal verbs. However, many Lebanese high-school EFL learners reflect unfamiliarity with phrasal verbs and tend to avoid them in their language production. To this end, a twofold research was conducted. First, a corpus linguistics analysis of the Lebanese national EFL instructional material was carried out to map the occurrence of phrasal verbs and related activities. Second, an experimental research was conducted to investigate the impact of cognitive linguistics strategies on the instruction of phrasal verbs to EFL Lebanese high-school learners, through Google +. The utilized instruments were pre/post-tests, surveys, interviews, intervention tasks, anecdotal notes. In the first part, corpus analysis revealed that phrasal verbs occurred recurrently; however, related activities were seldom traced. In the second part, the results analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively highlighted the positive impact of cognitive linguistics strategies on the instruction of phrasal verbs through Google +; the experimental group outperformed the control significantly. Further research on a larger scale of participants can be done.