Thuy Bui
LALS PhD Candidate

Multiword expressions have proved a challenging part in EFL learners’ vocabulary acquisition. Yet it is still unclear how teachers and learners can best tackle this challenge. One possible approach is to train learners to identify MWEs in written texts (text chunking) and to use online resources (COCA and online dictionaries) to verify their MWUs. In this presentation, I am going to share some of the findings from my PhD research which investigated this whole-class approach with English language learners in Vietnam (N=54). I will report on the effectiveness of text chunking and the strategies the learners employed when identifying the forms and working out the meaning of MWEs.