More and more institutions have started focusing on syllabi whose central feature has been lexis. Whether this is a valid and successful approach or not is still debatable among researchers; what is of great benefit to learners, though, is the emphasis that has been placed on collocations, among other word combinations. Being an English language learner, myself, I remember struggling to learn chunks of language which, when together, as it is usually said, acquired a completely arbitrarily choice of words in each chunk or string.
As a teacher, I still observe my learners, particularly the adult ones, having difficulties when trying to learn collocations, which is why I believe that exposing learners of lower levels of instruction to a variety of collocations and ways of learning and storing, is of crucial importance.
Bollas, A. He differentiates between collocations that have a grammatical relation verbs collocating with prepositions or nouns and those that have a lexical relation, when both parts of the collocation are content words.
Thornbury, 34 In an earlier publication, though, he includes binomial pairs pairs of words that have an idiomatic use when used together under the broad category of collocations Thornbury. To illustrate this, further, they use the example of the phrase the lions roar, which is what a NS will use instead of the lions bellow.
They Bollas, A. Grains, 37 2. Specifically, the different forms that Lewis lists in Teaching Collocation Lewis, are: 1. Some of them, as he suggests, are usually included in the EFL syllabi, whereas others are new to language instruction. They identify four categories to describe it: Pure Idioms e. This particular categorization may be very useful for the teacher as it indicates the degree to which these expressions are fixed. A teaching approach, which is informed by such knowledge, says Lewis, is more likely to include more types of collocations in its curriculum.
Lewis, What is also significant here is that this list provides the teacher with a tool to distinguish among collocations and make choices as to which ones to teach at which level that would benefit the learners. Instead, he Bollas, A. In the particular example, these words collocate with one another only in academic or news articles contexts, according to a corpus study undertaken by the author.
Following this discussion, the author introduces his idea that every human has and continuously builds-up a mental concordance in which every encounter for every word has been stored and can be retrieved so as for the person to identify or use a collocation. In this section, I will discuss a variety of learning and teaching problems. Don't just correct the mistake, give some extra collocations as well - three or four for the price of one.
The transcript below showshow this works. I have to make an exam in the summer. T indicates mistake by facial expression S I have to make an exam. Writes 'exam'on the board T What verb do we usually use with 'exam'? S2 Take. T Yes, that's ight. Writes 'take'on board What other verbs do we use with 'exam'? S2 Pass. Ant Suddenly1'or you elicit od There is nothing as practical as a good theory Lsefrom the able L,r'not.
And the opposite? Writes 'pass'and 'fail'on the board And if you fail an exam sometimesyou can do it again. What's the verb for that? Waitsfor response No? OK, re-take. You can re-take an exam. Writes 're-take'on the board If you passan exam with no problems,whal can you say?
Yes, or we often say 'comfortably'. I passedcomfortably. What can you say? I just passed. You can alsojust fall. Writes on the board For advancedleamers you may also give them scrape through. I use formats similar to this to organisethe responses: take re-take pass fail scrapethrough an exam With this language,studentscan not only name the concept exam, they have the collocations they need to talk about exams with confidence.
The Tlsr You may like to think how you would respondif a learnersaid one of thesein your class: I am toofat so I have to makea strongdiet.
If you have a problem with yourself it is good to talk abowtit in an openway to a nearfriend. Everybodymustagreewith the law if we want a good society. Which nounsare you going to explore? What questionswill you ask to elicit or teachextra collocations? You can extend this activity further by thinking not only of collocates of the main word in question, but also of other common collocations and expressionslikely to be said or written around the same topic.
In the heavy smoker example it is only a very short step to elicit or give the item give up smoking. And from there you could add: I wish I could give up smoking.
Suddenly you find yourself with two minutes practice of I wish I could. ICI 2. Make learners be more precise It is obviously demotivating if every time studentscommunicate effectively, the teachernitpicks and asks for perfection. However, at the right time and in the right way, improving students'performance is an imporlant part of the teacher'sjob, and what studentsneed.
Ot if a studentwrites: Thereare good possibilitiesfor improvingyowrjob, you may want to write excellentpromotion prospectsin the margin. In other words, it's not just mistakes that are opportunities for teaching but also the kind of circumlocutions we discussed earlier. If you notice the roundabout expressionswhich are the symptom of the lack of the necessarylexis, you will frequently recognise opportunities for helping students be more precise or more concrse. Donot explain - explore When students ask What's the dffirence between.
For example, with make and do you might give: make a mistake, make an enquiry, make the most of the opportunity; do your best, do some overtime, Can yow do me a favour? The same procedure is particularly useful with those nouns which have very little meaning unless used in collocations,such as effect,position, action, point, way, grownd' If you look in a collocation dictionarY,You will see that thesenouns have very 'knowing' a word like large collocational fields.
The most important part of this is knowing a large number of its collocations. Consider this classroom scenano: T. You say it in every S Excuse me but you said 'point' lessonbut it's sometimesdifferent. What does mean? T Point. Here are sometypical ways we use it. Writes on the board : Why do you want me to do that? I can't seethepoint; I know you want to comebut, thepoint is, you're not old enough.
That's a good point. L aF r g i,lea L r Y v r J r rt jiime and in 1r part of the '- of treat with ms suchas this :rd leamers,it :r intermediate frattem.
Notice r:, repair itself, ; people,repair 35 Almost always, a list of authenticexamplesmakesyou aware of both patterns and problems which you would have almost certainly overlooked if you had relied only on your intuition.
Not only should they notice common collocations in the texts they meet, but more importantly, they should select those collocations which are crucial to their particular needs. This is very much in line with modern trends in languageteaching, where there is a shift from simply teaching the languageto helping learnersdevelop their learning skills. How, then,can we encourageand developthe students'abilityto notice the collocations which are significant and useful for them?
I believe most studentsneed to spend some time initially in identifying the basic grammar categoriesof noun, verb, adjective,and adverb,as theseare the categorieswhich are the focus of co-textual searchstrategiesfor collocation. This can be done through traditional exercisesin sentenceanalysis.
The next stageis to highlight the pivotal role of the noun. The fact that nouns tend to be the focus of information in a text, that we tend to build the information up around the nouns, means that they are the most suitable headwords for collocationsearches. Search strategiesthemselves are relatively simple and straightforward, and reflect the procedures we followed in teaching collocation above. Isolatekey nounsin the text 2. Look for unexpected verb collocates 3.
Look for unexpected adjective collocates 4. Look for unexpected adverb collocates I've added 'unexpected' in brackets as a reminder that the purpose of these searchstrategiesis not to notice all collocates of a word, but for learners to select those combinations that they do not already know or expect. For example, the collocation big disappointmentis not surprising or unexpected whereasbitter disappointment is likely to be, which makes the latter worth noticing and recording.
One useful way of monitoring their developmentis to establishregular slots in the courseprogramme where students report back to the class on interesting collocations they have encounteredand noticed outside the classroom.
It is probably true to say that the teacher's role today is becoming more and more one of facilitating leaming, and one issue of importance centres on how we help our students maximise their leaming of collocation outside the classroom. However, if encounterswith particular words are left to random or chancemeetings in texts, learning will be extremely haphazardand inefficient. To a certain extent, we can partially resolve this situation by heeding Swan's earlier point that we provide a more concentrated exposure to collocations through careful planning of the vocabulary input to our courses.
However, outside the classroomwe need to direct our studentsto concentratedsourcesof this kind of information. Traditional dictionaries One would expect dictionaries to be an obvious source of relevant information. However, dictionaries tend to focus on the decoding process. That is, they provide excellent descriptions of the meaning s of words through synonymy and other word relations such as paraphrase and contextualisation.
The organisation reflects the students' approach to the dictionary as a resourcefor answeringthe question What does X mean? A major drawback is that most dictionaries give relatively little explicit attention to collocation and other co-textual featuresof words. Dictionaries can, however,be approachedin a different way and prove to be a worthwhile sourceof information on collocation. A good English-English dictionary usually provides one or two expressions or sentences demonstratingthe use of a word, and these will probably contain one or two useful collocates of that word.
Teachersshould encouragestudentsto browse theseexamplesfor collocations. This needsto become an automatic habit. By switching the focus to the collocational field of a word, the studentis now using the dictionary as an encoding tool, rather than a decoding one. For most studentsthis is new, and as such, they will need some guidance and training in using the dictionary in this way. An approachwhich I find useful, is to set exercises which actively direct the students to the dictionary to explore a word's collocatesrather than its meaning.
Such exercisescan be free-standing or integratedinto a lesson. In one of my classes,the word criticism in the sentenceThe Governmenthas received heavy criticism for increasing taxes became a focus. Electroni What is clea studentsu,it greater num solutions ar technology. I ROM, which using a persc the book for former has tr AdvancedI-e configured to word or phras Collocation - encouraging learner independence monitodng nme where they have to say that lacilitating ur students iil naturally runterswith eaming wiil :an partially lr ide a more mng of the n u,e need to nai10n.
A r:it aftention i lror,e to be rlish-En,ehsh I n Oneor two rts to browse a:ir-habit. For most trqinino rfu1.
The idea was to seeif they could find other verbs and adjectives which would completethe sentence, The Governmenthas. The Governmentcame in for severecriticism. From the two instancesof use given by the dictionary the studentswere able to work out that the phrasal verb come in for could replace receive, and that severeandfierce were appropriatealternativesto heavy.
This kind of noticing is vital to encoding and enablesstudentsto transfer their findines rnto their own production. I then asked the class to talk about the criticism that their governmentshad met, and this led to a number of responseswith the pattern, My Government has comein for severecriticismfor. This is certainly a problem if the student is looking for a particular collocation. More often than not, the dictionary will not provide it. We had earlier noted that the opposite of heavy cold was slight cord, not light cold.
I asked what is clear is that dictionary entries in their presentformat cannot provide students with a sufficient range of collocates. Ideally, our students need a greater number of examples of use to browse. Fortunately, a number of solutions are becoming available through developments in computer technology. Most of the major ELT dictionariesare now availableon cDRoM, which allows the contentsof the dictionary to be accessedand searched using a personal computer.
The main advantageof the electronic format over the book format lies in the powerful and speedy search functions that the former has built into it.
The head teachercome under a lot of criticism from the parents. There was growing criticism of the govemment's conduct of the war. I'm sick to deathof your endlesscriticism. She received a lot of unjustified criticism.
The power and speedof the electronic medium in providing a larger sample of examplesof use to browse for collocation meansthat, in order to promote and assistthe independentlearning of collocation, we need to make this type ofresource available to our studentsand train them in the constructiveuse of their powerful searchtools. Collocation dictionaries A further lesoulce has appeared recently in the form of dictionaries of collocations. These dictionaries deal exclusively with co-text and provide a much more comprehensiveaccountof a word's collocatesthan the traditional dictionary.
Used in tandem with a traditional dictionary they help to provide some of the co-textual information that the former lacks' The LTP Dictionary of Selected Collocations presents a range of common collocates of words in a clear and concise manner.
A: adverse, basic, biased, bitter, blunt, common, constant, destructive, devastating, un fair, ferocious, fierce, friendly, fundamental, furious, harsh, helpful, hostile, implicit, incisive, lively, merciless, mild, muted, objective' oblique, open, overt, penetrating, perceptive, personal, savage,searing, severe,sharp, sincere, stinging.
My students have found this to be an invaluable resourceto have on hand when writing. It is becoming clear that dictionaries are underusedresourcesin language teaching and that they must be given a greater and more central role to play in language leaming. In particular, browsing the exemplifying expressions and sentencesin dictionaries can provide useful information on collocation, and teachers need to encourage and train their students to approach dictionaries in this way.
I now encourageall my studentsto invest in a good English-English dictionary and a dictionary of collocations. Theseare being constantly added to and updated. Some contain over million words of both written and spoken text. These huge banks of data provide a basis for researchinto the use of English, and are used as a basis for modem dictionaries and teachingmaterials. The recent developmentof the Internet and the world wide web has greatly increased the amount and diversity of 'electronic' English that can be accessedwith comparative ease by individuals anywhere in the world.
Today's students of English in non-English speaking environments are no longer restricted to the limited amount of language provided by the coursebookand classroom. They now have an endlessamount of real English to explore and exploit. The question arisesas to how they can use this wealth of text constructively, without being overwhelmed by the sheer amount or density of the information. A great deal of thought and developmentis going on in this areaat the moment, but with our presentconcernsin mind, I would like to focus on one activity, that of 'concordancing', and how I have used it to help my studentsdevelop their knowledge of collocations.
A concordancer is a relatively simple piece of computer software which allows a constructive search of large amounts of text for examples of a particular word or phrase.
Below is an edited example of a concordance producedfor the word disappointment. Note how: ' the searchworddisappointmentis placed in the middle of the page where it is easily seen. In the example below the word to the left is the focus of organisation. This makes searchins much easier. Collocation - encouraging learner independence 40 the decision an's n's i: wiLl Austrafia.
As with the dictionary, studentswill need time and training in how to do this constructively. Simple exerciseswhich familiarise the studentswith the material and format are essential.
For example, I presentedmy students with this frame and askedthem to suggestways of completing it: I got grade E for Mathematics. The result was a. Next"I asked them to explore the concordanceextract above, and they were able to extract big, deep and greot as appropriatecollocates for disappointment.
As students work through more and more exercises on collocation, they become more and more sensitive as to whether two words are possible collocates or not. Such sensitivity is particularly important for their own production. For example, one student of mine had written the sentence:I think there's a big possibility of rain today, but expresseddoubt about the collocation big possibility.
It is importantto recognise that it is not useful or appropriateto say it is a wrong collocation. We only searcheda corpusof 2 million words,consistingmainly of newspaperarticles, and a searchof a larger and more varied corpus might well reveal an example of big possibility. The purpose of the searchis to uncover probable language,and my role as teacheris to show studentshow to find this for themselves,so that they will have the confidenceto decide on their own, not 'whether somethingexists' or not, but whether it is probable.
Decisions about collocation are about degrees of likelihood. This parlicular student then ran a concordancefor possibility and noted a number of examplesof strongpossibility in the readout. As a result, he edited his own writing to I think there's a strong possibility of rain today. A rarge number of occurrenceswere taken as an indication of a common and therefore useful collocation.
What is important to recognise in this processis that the studentcan searchthis type of data and make informed decisions,and that all this can take place without a teacheron hand. Resourceswork best when their use is integrated,and concordancescan and should be used intelligently with dictionaries.
An example of the interplay betweenthesetwo resourcesis exemplified by the samestudent. Below is an extract from the concordanceoutput for possibilie rhat the studentexplored. Learners have to realize that the learning materials written in native language is very important.
Teachers should encourage learners to listen to or read genuine English written by native speakers. Immersion in native idiomatic English is helpful for developing good sense of English, especially in case of collocation. So, learners should be aware of the different vocabulary learning strategies such as: The conventional memorization techniques, bilingual vocabulary lists or other traditional vocabulary learning techniques.
In addition, teachers and students have to use the modern vocabulary teaching techniques like collocational vocabulary learning, which is a type of widely-accepted modern technique. Mc Carten validates this suggestion about vocabulary instruction through collocation.
He utters that while vocabulary can be taught and practiced intentionally through collocation technique at higher levels, it can furthermore be used even at the elementary level presenting the idea of words and expressions that are used together without using the term of collocation itself. Nation proposes a list of the different aspects of knowledge needed, as presented in the below table.
According to the 6 table, collocations, as well as all other aspects of a word, can be taught in relation to both receptive and productive knowledge Nattinger Students are advised to make use of the rich resources of excellent dictionaries of collocations available in the Internet. Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English can meet the needs of students and teachers.
Types of Collocations According to Benson, Benson and Ilson [], collocations are defined as specified, identifiable, non-idiomatic, recurrent combinations. In their dictionary they are divided into two groups such as: grammatical collocations and lexical collocations.
They felt a need to do it. He took an oath that he would do his duty. It was imperative that I be here. The stu- For example, consider the noun moment see Figure 2. See Figure 1 for an example. Adjectives Noun Big 1. Phrase Match Note. Student answers are in italics. How Was it Used? Find a Better Word In this activity, teachers choose several collocations they would In this activity from Hill, Lewis, and Lewis , students use like their students to learn from a reading passage.
While this collocation is easily comprehensible ent and novel ways to attract guests. As a result, incidental exposure is unlikely to lead to uptake of these words. The students can then discuss an example other kinds of collocations. First, choose a noun that has many of each from their lives.
Tell the students that all the adjectives col- Example: locate with the same at a time for the noun. When they think they know the answer, they be described by one of the following collocations: an embar- stand up or raise their hands. Ask the students to not shout out rassing situation, a bewildering situation, a tricky situation, a their guesses to allow the others a chance to come up with the unique situation, an extraordinary situation, a tense situation.
The teacher should start by reading general collocates adjectives which can be used account change discussion issue action circumstance manner which strongly suggest the presence of a particular noun. For answer condition feature method example, for the noun future the adjective list might start with bright foreseeable.
Two examples are given in Fig- approach consequences idea move ure 4. It helps to have the students copy the empty, numbered argument decision information performance chart into a notebook beforehand. Problematic but Really Useful Words: 5. List from Hill, Lewis, and Lewis Figure 4.
The Collocation Game Note. Teacher reads collocates one by one. Students write them on the chart and try to guess the answer. Ask the students of questions about a particular topic, trying to speak for 4 min- could also give the students the nouns. Using a collocation utes continuously. During this step only, a partner can help by dictionary, students choose some common word combinations asking questions if the student cannot think of something to say.
The teacher can help the students choose the The students then change partners and repeat their previous an- most useful collocations. For instance, if the topic of an opinion swer; however, this time the student tries to say everything from essay is prisons or crime, four suitable nouns might be: prison, their previous answer in only 3 minutes. The students change criminal, crime, sentence.
The students can then write several col- locates for each noun. Example: - ing ability. This can be done as homework or in class. This should help the students to express their thoughts as well as provide ideas as to how they can extend their answers.
Editing Symbols Example: Using writing produced in class is an excellent way of target- 1. You can ing collocations that are especially useful for your students. If you use editing symbols to help the students understand 2. Speaking topic: their mistakes in writing classes, it is useful to have a symbol that highlights a collocation error.
When correcting a piece of » Have you ever had a pet? Try to talk for 4 minutes.
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