The effects of lexical inferencing strategies on Iranian EFL learners comprehension of L2 idioms

This study was an attempt to investigate the effect of four different forms of strategy instruction on idiom comprehension. To fulfill the purpose of this study, 120 female students were selected from among a total number of 140 based on their performance on the Michigan Test of English Language Proficiency (MTELP) and randomly assigned to four experimental and a comparison conditions. The four experimental groups were taught four lexical inferencing strategies including form-focused, monitoring, evaluating, and meaning-focused strategies while the students in the comparison group received no such instruction. After 12 sessions of treatment, an idiom comprehension posttest was administered to the participants. The obtained data were analyzed using ANOVA procedure. The results showed that three of the experimental groups significantly outperformed the comparison group. Meanwhile, the form-focused group performed significantly better than the evaluating and meaning-focused groups. The findings of the present study can have theoretical and practical implications for learners, teachers, and syllabus designers.