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Exploring the Role of Collocation in Creative Writing among Pakistani Learners at Secondary Level: A Corpus-based Study

Research works on the usage of lexical collocations for enhancing the creative writing of foreign language learners is considerably lacking. To examine the impact of collocation on reading, speaking and writing skills have been the focus of the researchers. It was observed that the writing skill of EFL learners was weak and they faced difficulties in English writing. Pakistani EFL learners are facing problems while writing English creatively especially at secondary level. Their writing is weak due to lack of adequate combinations of words according to the context. The undertaken research endeavours to explore the impact of English collocations on the creative writing skill and the effect of English Newspaper corpus to improve the collocation knowledge among the EFL learners at Secondary level in Punjab, Pakistan. Quasi experimental research design is adopted for the present study. Two groups of English language learners participate in this research. SPSS, version 23.00 is used to analyse the collected data statistically. The research employs a mixed method. Quantitative data is collected through pre and post-tests, writing task. Qualitative data is collected through semi-structured interviews. Sinclair’ (1991), Ying and Hendrick (2003)’s models are utilized to analyse the data. The results of the study reveal that the participants of the two groups possess inadequate knowledge of collocation. The corpus-based collocation intervention proves significantly effective and it assists the students in experimental group to develop their collocation knowledge and creative writing. The results also reveal that collocation approach contributes a lot to creative writing. Therefore, the results of the study demonstrate that the corpus-based collocation intervention has a significant effect on the participant’s performance in expressing their knowledge in a creative way. This study implies that the collocation knowledge plays a significant role in enhancing EFL secondary learner’s creative writing.