Abstract:

Many EFL undergraduates use simple and common vocabulary words in their writing as a result of their limited vocabulary repertoire and uncertainty of the use of more sophisticated word choice. Consequently, their writing is affected (Kim, 2014). Hence, for the purpose of refining the EFL writing quality, an experimental study was done on 200 Lebanese undergraduates. Through the use of the online Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), the experimental group produced more medium frequency vocabulary (MFV), which are words produced by adult native speakers or fluent secondary students (Douglas, 2015). Consequently, the group’s vocabulary and writing performance scores simultaneously increased. The results are significant in their indication for EFL teachers of a predicative lexical feature that helps in improving students’ writing. Another significance is in implementing COCA corpus in the writing syllabus as a reliable lexical tool that helps expand students’ sophisticated word choice and at the same time their lexical accuracy. All these features make the writing process a less challenging task.

Keywords:

COCA corpus, lexical sophistication, writing proficiency, EFL classes.