Recent studies have shown that collocation knowledge may be a strong determiner of L2 speaking proficiency (Kyle & Crossley, 2015). Considering the significance of collocations, this research investigated the effects of context and productive learning methods in English collocation acquisition and retention. Context can provide specific information about the situation in which target collocations are used, which may help learners better remember them. The surroundings of a word can carry pertinent information, and facilitate learner’s gain in depth vocabulary knowledge. Productive vocabulary knowledge can be defined as the ability to produce the word according to its L1 equivalent (Webb, 2009) and receptive vocabulary knowledge is often defined as the ability to perceive its meaning (Webb, 2008) or provide translation in a learner's first language (Webb, 2009). 204 Korean middle school students participated in this study. They were divided into 4 groups according to the learning method (productive and receptive), and context. To measure the acquisition and retention of collocations, three types of tests were conducted four times at intervals. The results of one-way ANOVA revealed that the group who productively learned collocations without context scored higher on the tests. When comparing the two groups who learned receptively, the context group got a higher score than the other group. Findings suggest that context may impose a cognitive burden on learners in productive learning, but context also enables learners to gain more collocation knowledge when learning receptively. The implication of this study is that “how” to present learning materials can affect learners' acquisition and retention.
