An investigation on CTU second year EFL students’ misuse of collocations categorized by parts of speech and implications for teaching and learning

CAN THO UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

An Investigation on CTU Second-Year EFL
Students’ Misuse of Collocations Categorized by
Parts of Speech and Implications for Teaching and
Learning
B.A Thesis

Supervisor: Tran Thi Chau Pha, M.Ed.

Student:
Nguyen Thi Ha
Student ID: 7075845
Class: NN0752A1
Course: 33

Can Tho, April 2011


An Investigation on CTU Second – Year EFL Students’ Misuse of Collocations Categorized
by Parts of Speech and Implications for Teaching and Learning

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I owe my deepest gratitude and highest appreciation to my
supervisor, Ms. Tran Thi Chau Pha for the continuous support of my thesis, for her
patience, motivation, enthusiasm and immense knowledge. She gave me much more
encouragement and advice than I expected. Her guidance helped me all the time of
research and writing of this paper. My thesis would not have been possible without
her wholehearted instructions.

Secondly, I would also like to express my gratitude to all teachers of the English
Department for their encouragement. They supported me useful materials and
precious advice during the time I did my research.
Thirdly, my sincere thanks are sent to fifty-nine students of English education from
course 35 for their participation in my investigation. Besides, many profound thanks
go to all of my friends for their support and assistance during the completion of my
research.
Last but not the least, I remain indebted to my family for their love, warmth, support
and encouragement in driving me to achieve my academic goal.
Nguyen Thi Ha

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An Investigation on CTU Second – Year EFL Students’ Misuse of Collocations Categorized
by Parts of Speech and Implications for Teaching and Learning

ABSTRACT
The issues of collocation mistakes and influential factors have been revealed in
several recent studies in diverse contexts. However, little research on this subject has
been investigated in Can Tho University (CTU). Therefore, a descriptive study was
conducted to explore some common collocation mistakes in writing among
sophomores in English Teaching at Can Tho University and discover vital factors
affecting the misuse of collocations with some implications for EFL teaching and
learning. Significant data based on collocation tests and questionnaires were collected
with the participation of fifty-nine second-year English education majors of the

English Teaching Department at Can Tho University. The results indicated that
Adv+Adj and Noun+Noun were the two most difficult collocation types for informants
with the rate of 75.3 % for the former and 74.1% for the latter. It was also found that
semantic field and culture competence were the two crucial aspects affecting EFL
students’ use of collocations with the mean score of 3.95 and 3.9 correspondingly.

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by Parts of Speech and Implications for Teaching and Learning

TÓM LƯỢC
Những bài nghiên cứu gần ñây ñã chỉ ra nhiều lỗi về collocations (sự kết hợp từ tự
nhiên) cũng như những yếu tố ảnh hưởng ñến vấn ñề này trong nhiều ngữ cảnh khác
nhau. Tuy nhiên, cho ñến nay trường Đại học Cần Thơ có rất ít nghiên cứu xoáy sâu
vào mảng ñề tài này. Chính vì thế, tác giả ñã thực hiện một bài nghiên cứu mang tính
chất miêu tả nhằm mục ñích khảo sát một số lỗi về collocations trong môn viết mà
sinh viên chuyên ngành Sư phạm Anh văn năm thứ hai thường mắc phải và dồng thời
tìm ra nguyên nhân cùng với một số gợi ý cho việc dạy và học tiếng Anh. Thông qua
bảng câu hỏi và bài kiểm tra về collocations, dữ liệu liên quan ñến nghiên cứu ñược
thu thập nhờ vào sự giúp ñỡ năm mươi chín sinh viên năm thứ hai thuộc Bộ môn Sư
phạm tiếng Anh của trường Đại học Cần Thơ. Kết quả nghiên cứu cho thấy Trạng từ
+ Tính từ và Danh từ + Danh từ là hai loại mà sinh viên mắc lỗi nhiều nhất với tỉ lệ
lần lượt là 75.3 % và 74.1 %. Song song ñó, tác giả cũng nhận ra rằng ngữ nghĩa và
văn hóa là hai yếu tố chủ yếu ảnh hưởng ñến việc sử dụng collocations của sinh viên

chuyên ngành Anh văn với chỉ số trung bình lần lượt là 3.95 và 3.9.

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by Parts of Speech and Implications for Teaching and Learning

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements.....................................................................................................................i
Abstract ......................................................................................................................................ii
Tóm lược.................................................................................................................................. iii

Table of contents ....................................................................................................................iv
List of tables.............................................................................................................................vii
List of figures...........................................................................................................................vii
Acronyms and abbreviations.................................................................................................. viii
Chapter 1: Introduction ..........................................................................................................1
I. Rationale.............................................................................................................................1
II. Research aims....................................................................................................................2
III. Research questions...........................................................................................................2
IV. Research significance ......................................................................................................2
V. Organization......................................................................................................................3
Chapter 2: Literature review..................................................................................................4
I. Introduction to collocations ................................................................................................4
1. Definition of collocation ................................................................................................4

2. Properties of collocations...............................................................................................4
2.1. Being arbitrary........................................................................................................5
2.2. Being language-specific..........................................................................................5
2.3. Being recurrent in context ......................................................................................5
2.4. Being common in technical language .....................................................................5
3. Types of collocations .....................................................................................................5
3.1. Collocations categorized by their strength .............................................................5
3.1.1. Strong collocations...........................................................................................6
3.1.2. Weak collocations............................................................................................6
3.1.3. Medium- strength collocations ........................................................................6
3.1.4. Unique collocations .........................................................................................6
3.2. Collocations classified by their structure ...............................................................6
3.2.1. Lexical collocations .........................................................................................6
3.2.2. Grammatical collocations ................................................................................6

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3.3. Collocations categorized by frequency of words ....................................................7
3.3.1 Downward collocations ....................................................................................7
3.3.2. Upward collocations ........................................................................................7
3.4. Collocations categorized by parts of speech ..........................................................7
4. The importance of collocations......................................................................................8

II. Related literature and studies about collocation mistakes.................................................9
1. Some previous studies related to common collocation mistakes...................................9
2.

Factors causing collocation mistakes.......................................................................11
2.1. Native language interference................................................................................11
2.2. Culture competence ..............................................................................................11
2.3. Semantic field........................................................................................................12
2.4. Teaching strategies ...............................................................................................12
2.5. Learning strategies ...............................................................................................12

Chapter 3: Research methodology .......................................................................................14
I. Research design ................................................................................................................14
II. Participants ......................................................................................................................14
III. Research instruments .....................................................................................................14
1. Test..............................................................................................................................14
2. Questionnaire for students ...........................................................................................15
IV. Procedure: ......................................................................................................................15
Chapter 4: Results and discussions ......................................................................................16
I. Results ..............................................................................................................................16
1. Collocation test analysis ..............................................................................................16
2. Questionnaire analysis .................................................................................................18
II. Discussions......................................................................................................................19
1. Common collocation mistakes that CTU second-year English Teaching majors make
2. Factors on the misuse of English collocations in writing among CTU English –
majored sophomores ........................................................................................................20
Chapter 5: Implications, limitations, suggestions for further research and conclusions
..............................................................................................................................................21
I.

Pedagogical implications .............................................................................................21

II.

Limitations ...................................................................................................................22

III.

Suggestions for further research ..............................................................................23

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by Parts of Speech and Implications for Teaching and Learning

IV.

Conclusion ...............................................................................................................23

References ..................................................................................................................... ix
Appendix ....................................................................................................................... xi

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by Parts of Speech and Implications for Teaching and Learning

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Clusters of the questionnaire for students............................................................15
Table 3. The total and mean score of correct answers.......................................................16
Table 4. Seven categories in the questionnaire for students ................................................. 18

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Proportion of collocation mistakes in each type among English- teaching
sophomores ................................................................................................................. 17
Figure 2 . Students’ opinions about factors causing their misuse of collocations.............. 19

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by Parts of Speech and Implications for Teaching and Learning

ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
1. CTU:

Can Tho University

2. EFL:

English as a Foreign Language

3. ESL:

English as a Second Language

4. SPSS:

Statistical Package the Social Sciences

5. s.o:

someone

6. s.th:

something

7. Adj:

Adjective

8. Adv:

Adverb

9. Pre:

Preposition

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Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, rationale (I), research aims (II), research questions (III), research significance
(IV) and organization (V) of the thesis are introduced.

I. Rationale
Being aware of collocations and using them appropriately assist English learners in
expressing their ideas accurately and naturally in the target language. Indeed, Runcie
("Oxford Collocations: Dictionary for Students of English," 2002) states that
collocation runs through the whole of English language. No piece of natural spoken or
written English is totally free of collocation. With respect to students, choosing the
right collocation will enable them to produce natural speech and writing and more
native-speaker-like.
However, learning and using collocations in English appropriately is a big challenge
to English learners. Several recent studies have shown that students still commit

several different collocation mistakes (Dao & Nguyen, 2010; Duong & Lai, 2010;
Mongkolchai, 2008; Nguyen, 2010). The findings have indicated that students often
make collocation mistakes in the patterns of: (1) Verb + Adv, (1) Adv +Adj
(Mongkolchai, 2008; Dao & Nguyen, 2010), (3) Verb + Preposition (Duong &Lai,
2010), and (4) Adj + Noun (Dao & Nguyen, 2010). In terms of factors influencing on
students’ use of collocations, a number of them have been discovered such as
semantic fields (Huang, 2001), learners’ native language (Boonyasaquan, 2005;
Duong & Lai, 2010; Huang, 2001), learners’ collocational and cultural competence
(Huang, 2001), teaching and learning strategies (Nguyen, 2010).
Still, it is a fact that these studies took place in different language learning contexts.
As a result, the outcomes came out differently. Although the topic of collocation
mistakes in EFL teaching and learning has widely been investigated, there have been
few studies focused on violation of collocations in Vietnam, especially at Can Tho
University so far. For that reason, this study was conducted to explore more deeply
that issue in the context of Vietnam in general and at Can Tho University in particular
in order to add more literature to the field of EFL teaching and learning.

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In a word, the current research was carried out to investigate common collocation
mistakes in writing that sophomores in English Teaching at Can Tho University make
and find out key factors causing those mistakes with some implications for teaching

and learning collocations.
II. Research aims
This research firstly aims to investigate some common collocation mistakes in writing
that CTU second -year English teaching students make. Secondly, key factors
influencing on the use of collocations in writing will be shown. Finally, to help
students reduce the misuse of English collocations in writing, some implications for
EFL teaching and learning will be discussed in the later chapters of this research
paper.
III. Research questions
This study aims to seek answers for the following questions:
1. What are some common collocation mistakes that CTU second-year English
Teaching majors make when they do writing assignments?
2. According to the students, what are the key factors that cause their misuse of
English collocations in writing?
IV. Research significance
The results of the current research will significantly contribute to EFL teaching and
learning at Can Tho University for two reasons. Firstly, it reviews the common
collocation mistakes that current English- teaching sophomores at CTU make in their
writing assignments. Secondly, factors affecting the poor performance of collocations
with some implications for teaching and learning are presented. On the basis of these
two sources of input from this research, teachers can have a clear idea about what
types of collocations should be paid more attention to. In addition, they can minimize
the negative effects of the factors which impact on students’ correct use of
collocations in their teaching. More significantly, they can review and improve their
teaching methods in a way that helps learners master collocations to the best.

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V. Organization
This paper consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 is about the introduction which
includes rationale, research aims, research questions and organizations. The literature
review is presented in chapter 2. Research design, participants, research instruments,
and procedures of the study are shown in chapter 3, research methodology. Chapter 4
presents the results and discussions of the study. Finally, in chapter 5, the pedagogical
implications, limitations, suggestions for further research and conclusion will be
stated.

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Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter consists of two main sections. Section one presents the introduction to
collocations including definition, properties, classification and the importance of collocations.
Section two discusses relevant literature and studies about collocation mistakes.

I. Introduction to collocations
1. Definition of collocation
Collocations mean the ways words combine in a language to produce naturalsounding speech and writing ("Oxford Collocations: Dictionary for Students of
English," 2002). In other words, a collocation is considered a natural combination of
words (McCarthy & O'Dell, 2005). That means the way English words are closely
associated with each other. For example, do and homework go together, as do make
and mistakes; tall goes with man/woman and high with mountain. Similarly, Nation
(2000, cited in Nguyen, 2010, p. 3) states that “The term collocation is used to refer to
a group of words that come together, either because they commonly occur together
like take a chance, or because the meaning of the group is not obvious from the
meaning of the parts, as by the way or to take someone in”.
According

to Macmillan Collocations

Dictionary ("Macmillan Collocations

Dictionaty for Learners of English," 2010), collocations are considered the most
typical ways in which common English words combine with one another.
Furthermore, collocation is the property of language whereby two or more words
seem to appear frequently in each other’s company ("Macmillan Collocations
Dictionaty for Learners of English," 2010). In short, collocations are chunks of words
that can go together so that they sound natural to native speakers.
2. Properties of collocations
According to McKeown and Radev (1997), collocations possess four main properties.
They are arbitrary, language-specific, recurrent in context and common in technical
language.

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2.1. Being arbitrary
Although a word may have a variety of synonyms, we cannot replace a word in a
combination by its synonyms. For example, it is acceptable to say make an effort, but
make an exertion is not. Similarly, we cannot say a running discussion, hot greetings
instead of a running commentary and warm greetings.
2.2. Being language-specific
Every language has its own way to combine words together. For example, an
American says set the table and make a decision while a British one uses the phrases
lay the table and take a decision to express the same meaning. Similarly, we know
that in English, the word eat means ăn, but the native speakers never say eat a
breakfast, instead they say have breakfast to indicate ăn sáng.
2.3. Being recurrent in context
Collocations are combinations that occur frequently together in the same environment
or given context. Several words such as go, know can combine with any other words;
they are therefore used more recurrently than others.
2.4. Being common in technical language
Words that rarely contribute to a collocation in everyday language often take part in a
collocation in technical language. For instant, when discussing computers, file can be
collocated with create, save, delete, and so on.
3. Types of collocations
There are four different ways to categorize collocations. Specifically, they are

classified by (1) their strength, (2) their structure, (3) frequency of words and (4) parts
of speech
3.1. Collocations categorized by their strength
Collocations can be classified into four types: strong, weak, medium-strength and
unique collocations (Hill, 2000; Lewis, 2000, cited in Mongkolchai, 2008)

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3.1.1. Strong collocations
Strong collocations are collocations that have a very limited number of words very
closely associated with one another. For example, rancid only goes with butter or oil,
and mitigating almost always collocates with circumstance or factor.
3.1.2. Weak collocations
Weak collocations refer to collocations that have a wide variety of collocates. For
example, many things can be long or short, cheap or expensive, good or bad.
3.1.3. Medium- strength collocations
Medium- strength collocations are words that always go together more frequently than
weak collocations. Some examples are hold a meeting, carry out a study, and so on.
3.1.4. Unique collocations
Unique collocations are collocations that are fixed and cannot be replaced by any
other words. For example, to foot the bill, to foot the invoice, or to foot the coffee is
obviously wrong.

3.2. Collocations classified by their structure
According to their structure, collocations are divided into two categories: grammatical
and lexical collocations (Baker, 1997, cited in Boonyasaquan, 2005).
3.2.1. Lexical collocations
Lexical collocations are those that do not involve prepositions or infinitives but only
content words (Benson, 1985, cited in Nguyen, 2010). In other words, they consist of
diverse combinations of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Some examples are
strong coffee (Adj + Noun), highly controversial (Adv + Adj) and smile proudly (Verb
+ Adv)
3.2.2. Grammatical collocations
Unlike lexical collocations, grammatical collocations comprise a content word (a
noun, verb or an adjective) along with a grammatical one (a preposition or infinitive)
(Benson, 1985, cited in Nguyen, 2010). Turn on the radio (Verb + Pre + Noun) and

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fond of (Adj + Pre) are examples for these types. In other words, grammatical
collocations are combinations of words that consist of grammatical structure.
3.3. Collocations categorized by frequency of words
There are two types of collocations classified by the frequency of words namely
downward and upward collocations (Sinclair, 1991).
3.3.1 Downward collocations

Downward collocations are words which habitually collocate with words that are less
frequent than they are, e.g. words arrive, bring are less frequently occurring collocates
of back. For example, arrive and bring are less combined with other words than back,
so the combinations consisting of these two words belong to downward category
(Martyńska, 2004).
3.3.2. Upward collocations
Contrary to downward collocations, upward collocations consist of words which
regularly combine with the words more frequently used in English than they are
themselves, e.g. back collocates with at, down, from, into, on, all of which are more
frequent words than back. Most of those collocates are adverbs and close words such
as prepositions, conjunctions and pronouns such back, into, when, and so on
(Martyńska, 2004).
3.4. Collocations categorized by parts of speech
In Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English (2002), collocations are
categorized into thirteen types as follow:
1. Adjective + Noun: bright/ harsh/ intense/ strong light
2. Quantifier + Noun: a beam/ray of light
3. Verb + Noun: cast/emit/ give/ provide/ shed light
4. Noun + Verb: light gleams/ glows/ shines
5. Noun + Noun: a light source
6. Preposition + Noun: by the light of the moon
7. Noun + Preposition: the light from the window
8. Adverb + Verb: choose carefully

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9. Verb + Verb: be free to choose
10. Verb + Preposition: choose between two things
11. Verb + Adjective: make/ keep/ declare s.th safe
12. Adverb + Adjective: perfectly/ not entirely/ environmentally safe
13. Adjective + Preposition: safe from attack
In connection with the main aim of this study which centers on common collocation
mistakes of second-year English Teaching sophomores, seven types of collocations
have been chosen as the main focus. They were selected on the basis of relevant
previous studies in the context of Can Tho University (Pham, 2006; Nguyen, 2010).
These seven types are detailed below.
1. Adverb + Adjective: deeply impressive
2. Verb+ Expression with preposition: carry out
3. Verb + Noun: give s.o a call
4. Adjective + Noun: low wage
5. Noun + Noun: a bar of chocolate
6. Verb+ Adverb: smile proudly
7. Adjective + Preposition: be annoyed with s.o
4. The importance of collocations
According to Rundell ("Macmillan Collocations Dictionaty for Learners of English,"
2010), there are two main reasons why collocations are important. The first reason is
that collocation is a key characteristic of language. Although getting the grammar
right is essential, selecting appropriate collocations is much more significant in
producing natural and fluent sounds in language. The second reason is related to
semantic field. In fact, most common words in English have more than one meaning,
and collocations help language learners use the surrounding context to indicate which
meaning is intended.

In addition, collocations not only help learners express themselves much more clearly,
but they are also able to convey the meanings quite precise ("Oxford Collocations:
Dictionary for Students of English," 2002). For instance, let’s consider two following
sentences:

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by Parts of Speech and Implications for Teaching and Learning

(1) This is a good book and contains a lot of interesting details.
(2) This is a fascinating book and contains a wealth of historical detail.
It is obvious that the two sentences are correct in terms of grammar and vocabulary;
but the second one is more specific.
Similarly, McCarthy and O’Dell (2005) indicated two other reasons for learning
collocations. First, they help learners speak and write English in a more natural and
accurate way. For example, it is unnatural and confused to say a high man instead of a
tall man. Second, learning collocations assists learners in choosing the appropriate
word for the context. Particularly, this is useful when they take a written exam
because those word combinations make their work more impressive on the examiners.
Additionally, Nesselhauf (1996) pointed out that prefabricated units, i.e. collocations,
are essential for fluency in spoken and written language. This is because our brain has
a tendency to memorize words in chunks. Accordingly, the memorization of available
combinations in a language contributes to the fluency. Besides, the awareness of
collocations supports the comprehension. In fact, learners can understand the meaning

of the whole passage or text without paying attention to each single word in it if they
can achieve collocations.
II. Related literature and studies about collocation mistakes
1. Some previous studies related to common collocation mistakes
In relation to university students’ ability in using English collocations, there have been
three main studies conducted. These are the ones by Duong and Lai (2010),
Mongkolchai (2008) and Nguyen (2010). The first study conducted by Mongkolchai
(2008) took place
at the Faculty of Humanities, Srinakharinwirot University with the participation of 57
third year English majors. The instrument was a well-designed test with two main
parts. The first part was in a sentence completion form and the second a multiple
choice form. The findings revealed that students’ ability in Noun + Noun collocation
was at the highest level (68.64%), followed by Adjective + Noun (67.32%), Verb +
Noun (55.26%), Adjective + Preposition (51.10%), Phrasal verb (46.05%), Verb +

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Adverb (41.67%) and Adverb + Adjective (36.18%). Therefore, Verb + Adverb and
Adverb + Adjective were two collocation types that trouble English majors the most.
The second study was carried out by Nguyen (2010). The participants were 76 thirdyear English majors at Can Tho University. The data were collected by using a
collocation test and questionnaires for students. The test was adapted from
Mongkolchai’s (2008) study, and the questionnaire consisted of 20 statements. The

findings demonstrated that the advanced Vietnamese students faced a problem on
learning and using English collocations. Based on the score of the correct answers, the
researcher concluded that the two highest levels of the informants’ ability in using
English collocations were 52.63% (Verb + Adverb) and 52.3% (Verb + Noun), and
the two lowest levels were 48.8% (Noun + Noun) and 44.08% (Adverb + Adjective).
So, this result indicates that the most typical collocation mistakes were Noun + Noun
and Adverb + Adjective.
The third study was conducted by Duong and Lai (2010). The subjects were 25
second-year English majors and two lecturers of English at The University of
Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. Writing
assignments and interview were used as instruments of the study. The result showed
that three highest proportions of collocation mistakes included Adjective+ Noun
(16.1%), Preposition + Noun (16.9%) and Verb + Preposition (16.9%).
In short, previous studies have revealed different collocation mistakes. Mongkolchai
(2008) found Verb + Adverb and Adverb + Adjective the most difficult to learners.
Nguyen (2010), however, realized that Noun + Noun and Adverb + Adjective were
common collocation mistakes among students although Mongkolchai concluded that
students’ abilities in using the former was at the highest level. Yet, according to
Nguyen and Lai (2010) Verb + Preposition was one of the most common mistakes.
Notwithstanding these studies demonstrated that the use of collocations is problematic
to EFL learners, the findings were diverse in connection with different situations. This
research was thus carried out with the intention of contribute more literature about
learning and using collocations in writing of second-year students of English
education in the context of Can Tho University in Vietnam.

Supervisor: Tran Thi Chau Pha, M.Ed.

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An Investigation on CTU Second – Year EFL Students’ Misuse of Collocations Categorized
by Parts of Speech and Implications for Teaching and Learning

2. Factors causing collocation mistakes
There are five key factors affecting on the use of collocations. They are: (1) native
language interference, (2) culture competence, (3) semantic field, (4) teaching
strategies, and (5) learning strategies (Duong & Lai, 2010; Huang, 2001; Nguyen,
2010; Yan, 2010).
2.1. Native language interference
The mother-tongue interference influences on EFL learners’ understanding and
production of collocations (Boonyasaquan, 2005). In fact, most lexical collocation
mistakes are related with the native language since learners tend to compare the target
language with their first language although the unequal associations between the two
languages do exist (Yan, 2010). They even translate word by word from Vietnamese
into English. For example, students may translate gửi nó cho tôi into send it for me
instead of send it to me (Duong & Lai, 2010). Additionally, learners may mostly refer
English to their first language equivalent without considering the context of the target
language (Ying, 2009). Furthermore, it is believed that when learners lack collocation
knowledge, they entirely depend on the first language as the only source (Huang,
2001).
2.2. Culture competence
Culture also contributes to collocation mistakes among learners of English. In fact,
some kinds of collocations are highly connected with cultural connotations and
discourse stereotypes, especially unique collocations such as idioms. These
collocations are perceived to be more appropriate by native speakers in specific
contexts. Particularly, the horse appears much in English idioms because has long
been part of life in Britain (H.U.K., 2011). For instance, straight from the horse’s
mouth is used to imply that the information comes directly from the original source.

This idiom comes from the practice of measuring a horse’s age by observing the
condition of its teeth (H.U.K., 2011).

In brief, if learners are short of cultural

competence, they will fail to acquire such culturally-marked collocations (Huang,
2001).

Supervisor: Tran Thi Chau Pha, M.Ed.

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An Investigation on CTU Second – Year EFL Students’ Misuse of Collocations Categorized
by Parts of Speech and Implications for Teaching and Learning

2.3. Semantic field
Certain collocations are very difficult for learners, particularly, unique collocations or
idiomatic expressions. They are confusing for learners such as a withering glance, It
rains cats and dogs, etc (Ying and Hendricks, 2004, Boonyasaquan, 2005). Moreover,
a word has many synonyms, but each word only fits to one context or situation. Both
ride and drive, for example, mean control something, but it is wrong to say ride a car
(Ying, 2009; Yang, 2010). In the same way, Huang (2001, p.4) approves that the more
synonyms an item had, the more difficulties learners encountered in producing a
restricted collocation.
2.4. Teaching strategies
Unlike the previous researchers, Nguyen (2010) believes that teaching is one of the
most important parts affecting greatly the use of collocations as they are arbitrary and

unpredictable (Lewis, 1997, cited in Nguyen, 2010). For example, it is true to say
make the bed but not do the bed. Apparently, it is difficult for EFL students to handle
collocations successfully if those word combinations are not focused and practised
(Boonyasaquan, 2005). Actually, basing on the result of her study, Nguyen (2010)
concluded that teaching collocation has not been paid a proper attention to in EFL
classroom. Accordingly, the correct uses of collocations should be reminded and the
efficient collocation learning strategies should be suggested by the teachers.
2.5. Learning strategies
Learning strategies also have effects on the collocation use because each student has
his own way of learning which may be effective such as contextual learning,
dictionary and note- taking (Nguyen, 2010). As a matter of fact, successful learners
are more aware of what they could learn about new words, become more conscious of
textual learning and pay more attention to collocations in context. Meanwhile, less
successful learners are so passive in learning; they have a tendency to ignore the
context and become less conscious of textual learning (Ahmed, 1980, cited in Nguyen,
2010).

Supervisor: Tran Thi Chau Pha, M.Ed.

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An Investigation on CTU Second – Year EFL Students’ Misuse of Collocations Categorized
by Parts of Speech and Implications for Teaching and Learning

To conclude, a variety of factors causing collocations mistakes have been revealed
concerning dissimilarity in contexts. In addition, according to the previous studies,
factors such as native language interference, semantic field, lack of cultural

competence, teaching and learning strategies were pointed out the most.
Correspondingly, to examine whether or not those issues influence on the poor
performance of collocations among second-year English education students at Can
Tho University and which one among them is the key factor, questionnaires to collect
relevant data for the current survey are designed based on those five issues.

Supervisor: Tran Thi Chau Pha, M.Ed.

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An Investigation on CTU Second – Year EFL Students’ Misuse of Collocations Categorized
by Parts of Speech and Implications for Teaching and Learning

Chapter 3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In this chapter, four main parts are presented: (I) the research design, (II) participants, (III)
instruments and (IV) procedure of the research.

I. Research design
In order to investigate students’ collocations mistakes as well as factors that influence
their use of collocations in writing, a descriptive study was conducted. The data were
collected by the means of a test and questionnaires for students.
II. Participants
Participants were 59 second-year English Teaching majors. The sampling approach
was nonprobability sampling. Specifically, the convenience-sampling was used
because the participants were available and willing to take part in the study.
Moreover, it was easy for the researcher to approach them.

III. Research instruments
The data for this study were collected by the means of a collocation test and
questionnaires for both teachers and students.
1. Test
The test was designed on the basis of the classification of Lewis (2000, cited in
Nguyen, 2010) and McCarthy and O’Dell (2005). There were seven types of
collocations included. They were listed as below.
1. Adverb + Adjective: deeply impressive
2. Verb+ Expression with preposition: carry out
3. Verb + Noun: give s.o a call
4. Adjective + Noun: low wage
5. Noun + Preposition + Noun: a bar of chocolate
6. Verb+ Adverb: smile proudly
7. Adjective + Preposition: be annoyed with s.o

Supervisor: Tran Thi Chau Pha, M.Ed.

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An Investigation on CTU Second – Year EFL Students’ Misuse of Collocations Categorized
by Parts of Speech and Implications for Teaching and Learning

In the test, there were seven passages; each of which represented one type of
collocations (see Appendix). Each passage had 3 blanks with 4 items provided.
Participants were asked to select three of them to complete the blanks.
2. Questionnaire for students
The questionnaire was designed on the basis of Nguyen (2010) and included two main

parts (see Appendix). The first part was participants’ demographic features including
course, class, and gender. The second part consisted of sixteen statements about the
causes of collocation mistakes with seven clusters (see Table 1) and a five- point
Likert scale (1- strongly disagree, 2- disagree, 3- no idea, 4- agree, 5- strongly agree)
was used. In addition, the data were calculated and analysed by using SPSS program
17.0. The reliability of the questionnaire was .702
Table 1: Clusters of the questionnaire for students
Clusters

Statements

1 Students’ use of collocations in reality

1 and 2

2 The importance of collocations

16

3 Factor 1: teaching

3, 4

4 Factor 2: learning

5, 6, 7 and 8

5 Factor 3: culture competence

9 and 15

6 Factor 4: Vietnamese

10, 11 and 14

7 Factor 5: semantics

12 and 13

IV. Procedure:
The test and questionnaires for students were administered in class during school time.
Administration took about half an hour during which students were asked to complete
the test and questionnaires right after the test. Furthermore, the questionnaires for
students included a covering letter from the researcher which provided information
about the study and the guarantee of confidentiality of their participation.
The data collected from the tests and questionnaires were subjected to SPSS program
in order to find out the common collocation mistakes as well as factors that have an
influence on students’ misuse of collocations.

Supervisor: Tran Thi Chau Pha, M.Ed.

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An Investigation on CTU Second – Year EFL Students’ Misuse of Collocations Categorized
by Parts of Speech and Implications for Teaching and Learning

Chapter 4

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
This chapter consists of two main parts. The first part is about results including the analyses
of collocation test, questionnaire for students and teachers. Discussions about the three
research questions are presented in the second part.

I. Results
1. Collocation test analysis
To discover common collocation mistakes, fifty-nine portfolios with twenty-one items
in each was analyzed and calculated using SPSS program version 17.0. The reliability
of the test was at an acceptable value with α = .656 (Nunnaly, 1978; George &
Mallery, 2003; Lehman, 2005)
In order to calculate the average score each participant got in the test, the following
formula was used:

M=S/N
* M: mean score of correct answers
* S: total score of the correct answers
* N: total number of portfolios (59)
After analyzing the data, the result was found as in Table 2
Table 2. The total and mean score of correct answers

N

S

M

59

557

9.44

Table revealed that students’ competence of collocations was quite low with the mean
score of 9.44 while the maximum score for the test was 21. Probably, the test was
rather difficult for students.

Supervisor: Tran Thi Chau Pha, M.Ed.

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