Collocations in new headway pre intermediate and common errors in english collocations by non english major students at hanoi university of science and technology

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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

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Collocations in “New Headway Pre - Intermediate”
and common errors in English collocations by non English
major students at Hanoi University of Science and Technology
(Khảo sát kết hợp từ trong giáo trình New Headway Pre – Intermediate
và những lỗi sinh viên không chuyên tiếng Anh tại trường Đại học
Bách Khoa Hà Nội thường mắc khi kết hợp từ tiếng Anh)
Major Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 601410
Student: ĐỖ THU PHƯƠNG

Hanoi - 2011


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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

Collocations in “New Headway Pre - Intermediate”
and common errors in English collocations by non English
major students at Hanoi University of Science and Technology
(Khảo sát kết hợp từ trong giáo trình New Headway Pre – Intermediate
và những lỗi sinh viên không chuyên tiếng Anh tại trường Đại học
Bách Khoa Hà Nội thường mắc khi kết hợp từ tiếng Anh)
Major Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 601410
Student: ĐỖ THU PHƯƠNG
Supervisor : HOÀNG THỊ XUÂN HOA

Hanoi - 2011


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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
FoFL: Faculty of Foreign Languages
HUST: Hanoi University of Science and Technology
Adj: Adjective
Adv: Adverb
N: Noun
Prep: Preposition
Quant: Quantifier
V: Verb
MT: mother tongue
TL: target language
TOEIC: Test of English for International Communication.

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LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS
Chart 1

The percentage of lexical collocations in the course book

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Chart 2

The percentage of grammatical collocations in the course book

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Chart 3

A comparison of lexical, grammatical and long collocations in the

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course book
Chart 4

The percentage of more fixed and less fixed collocations in the course

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Table 1

The result of multiple choice task

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Table 2

The result of collocation identification and error correction task

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Table 3

The result of gap-filling task

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Table 4

The result of translation task

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Chart 5

A comparison of the wrong lexical, grammatical and long collocations

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Chart 6

The percentage of wrong collocations in terms of the strength

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Table 5

Teachers' attitudes towards the role of collocation in vocabulary

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book

in the test

teaching and their frequency of teaching collocation
Table 6

The collocation in the course book that teachers usually teach.

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Table 7

The suitable stages for teaching collocations

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Table 8

Reasons for teaching collocation

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Table 9

Methods for presenting collocations

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Table 10 The language skills involved in teaching collocation

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Table 11 Causes for students' collocational errors

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Table 12 The methods to improve students‟s knowledge of collocation.

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Table 13 The types of supplementary exercises to improve students‟ knowledge

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of collocation.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Submission of the final thesis

i

Aknowledgements

ii

List of abbreviations

iii

Abstract

iv

List of tables and charts

v

Table of contents

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PART A: INTRODUCTION

1

1. Rationale

1

2. Aims of the study

2

3. Scope of the study

3

4. The research questions

3

5. Method of the study

3

6. Design of the study

3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

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CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW

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1. An overview of collocation

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1.1.The notion of collocation

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1.2.Classification of collocation

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1.2.1. In terms of the structure

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1.2.2. In terms of the strength

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1.3. Properties of collocation

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1.3.1. Collocations are arbitrary

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1.3.2. Collocations are language specific

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1.3.3. Collocations are not nescessarily adjacent

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1.3.4. Collocations are non-reciprocal

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1.4. The distinction among free word combination, idiomatic expression and

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collocations
1.4.1 Free word combinations

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1.4.2 Idiomatic expressions

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1.4.3 Collocation versus free word combination and idiom

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1.5. The importance of collocation for learners of English

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1.6. Teaching and learning collocations

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1.6.1. Teaching collocations

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1.6.2. Learning collocations

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2. An overview of errors and error analysis

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2.1. The concept of errors in English Language Teaching

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2.2. The significance of errors and error analysis

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2.3. Classification of errors

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2.4. The sources or possible causes of errors

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2.5. Collocational errors and their possible causes

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CHAPTER 2: THE METHODOLOGY

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1. Research method

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2. Context of the research

27

3. Subjects of the research

28

4. Data collection methods

28

4.1. Course book analysis

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4.2. Collocational test

29

4.3. Questionnaire survey

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CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

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1. Course book analysis

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1.1. Aims of the analysis

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1.2. The course book under study

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1.3. Data analysis

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1.3.1. In terms of the struture

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1.3.1.1. Lexical collocations

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1.3.1.2. Grammatical collocations

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1.3.1.3. Long collocations

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1.3.1.4. A comparison of the number of lexical, grammatical and long collocations

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1.3.2. In terms of the strength

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1.4. Summary of the findings

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2. Collocational test

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2.1. Aims of the test

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2.2. The target population of the test

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2.3. Description of the test

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2.4. Test result analysis

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2.4.1. An analysis of the results of each task

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2.4.2. A comparison of the percentage of wrong answers among different types of

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collocations
2.4.2.1 In terms of the structure

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2.4.2.2 In terms of the strength

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2.5. Summary of the findings

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3. Survey questionnaire analysis

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3.1. Aims of the survey

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3.2. The target population of the survey

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3.3. Discription of the survey questionnaires

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3.4. Data analysis

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3.5. Summary of the findings

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CHAPTER FOUR: SUGGESTIONS

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1. Teaching collocations

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1.1 What to teach

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1.2 When to teach

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1.3 How to teach

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1.3.1 Teaching collocations of new individual words

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1.3.2 Presenting the meaning of a collocation

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1.3.3 Integrating teaching collocations in teaching language skills

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1.3.4 Giving exercises on collocations

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2. Learning collocations

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2.1 Forming the habit of learning words in collocations

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2.2 Using a good dictionary to look up collocational information

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2.3 Doing exercise on collocations

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2.4 Keep a record of common collocations

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2.5 Making comparison between English collocations and their Vietnamese
equivalents

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PART C: CONCLUSION

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1. Major findings

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2. Limitations and suggestions for further research

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REFERENCES
APPENDIX

Appendix A: The frequency of collocations in the course book in terms of the structure
I
and the strength
Appendix B: Test for students
II
Appendix C: Key to the test
IV
Appendix D: The number of wrong answers in the test in terms of the structure and
V
the strength
Appendix E: Survey questionnaire
VII
Appendix F: List of collocations in the course book
X


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PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Vocabulary plays an important role in learning a foreign language. It is an element
that links the four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing together. Indeed, many
researchers argue that vocabulary is one of the most important, if not the most important,
components in learning a foreign language (Keith S. Folse: 2004). Learning, as a language
based activity, is fundamentally and profoundly dependent on vocabulary knowledge.
According to McCathy (1990), the single, biggest component of any language course is
vocabulary. In vocabulary knowledge, there is a dimension that should be considered,
which is how far a learner knows the possible combinations of words. As a matter of fact,
words are never used alone but they go with each other and depend on each other. No
matter how well the learners master the grammar, how many words they can acquire, their

communication cannot be in a meaningful way without the knowledge on the possible
combinations of words or the collocation competence. For example, in terms of meaning, it
is actually possible for non-native speakers to use the combination weak listening skill but
the native speakers are much more likely to say poor listening skill. Furthermore, if the
students do not know the collocation that expresses precisely what they want to convey,
they may resort to wordy or unnatural ways of expressions like He took a course in which
he was trained for three years to become a pilot instead of saying He took a three-year
training course for a pilot. Obviously, apart from grammar and lexical meaning, a right
sentence must have the agreement between words; otherwise, it sounds unnatural or even
makes no sense.
The importance of the agreement between words or collocation in language
learning has been stated by a number of linguists. According to Hammer (1992),
collocation belongs to vocabulary and is an essential aspect of vocabulary. Nunan (1991)
also considers collocation an aspect of word use. In assessing the position of collocations
in vocabulary, McCathy (1990:12) states that “Collocation is an important organizing
principle in vocabulary”.


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Collocation can be explored by applying corpus-based approach, which is
analyzing collocation in a collection of given material and the material chosen for the
study is “New Headway Pre-Intermediate, the third edition” by John and Liz Soars (2007).
It has been chosen the main course book for non English major students at several
universities in Vietnam, including Ha Noi University of Science and Technology. The
book is comprised of 12 units that cover the four skills, reading, listening, speaking and
writing as well as separate sections for grammar, vocabulary, and everyday English. All
these skills have been combined together so they represent the real way language is used.
Like many other course books, the knowledge of collocation in New Headway PreIntermediate is vast and confusing because English words are collocated almost arbitrarily
and the collocations are so diverse and even mistaken from idioms and multiword units.

Due to the vast knowledge of collocation, several teachers find it rather confusing
and difficult to introduce it to the non English major students at Hanoi University of
Science Technology, who are used to learning separate words but not in combination with
others. Therefore, they are confused and even embarrassed when they do not understand
the meaning of a sentence of very simple words or fail to choose the right words to express
their ideas and feelings. To overcome these problems, it is essential to conduct a research
on English collocations in “New Headway pre-Intermediate” the third edition by John and
Liz Soars (2007). Based on the result analysis of the study, it is possible to suggest
valuable solutions for learning and teaching collocations to non English major students at
Hanoi University of Science and Technology.

2. Aims of the study
The study aims at :
 Identifying the types and frequency of collocations in “New Headway Pre-Intermediate”
the third edition by John and Liz Soars (2007) in terms of their structure and strength;
 Finding out common errors in collocations by non English major students at Hanoi
University of Science and Technology;


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 Identifying possible causes of the collocational errors made by non English major
students at Hanoi University of Science and Technology;

3. Scope of the study
Due to the limitation of time, knowledge and resources, the research only deals with
an aspect of vocabulary, which is the collocation in the course book “New Headway PreIntermediate” the third edition by John and Liz Soars (2007). It is conducted within Hanoi
University of Science and Technology and the participants are its teachers and non English
major students. The author will not try to provide all possible ways for learning and
teaching collocation but only give out some suggestions based on the findings from the

course book analysis, the collocational errors and the questionnaires.

4. The research questions


What are the different types of collocation and their frequency in “New Headway

Pre-Intermediate” the third edition by John and Liz Soars (2007)?


What are the common errors in collocations made by non English major students at

Hanoi University of Science and Technology?


What are the possible causes of the collocational errors by non English major

students at Hanoi University of Science and Technology?

5. Method of the study
In general, the study uses both quantitative and qualitative approach as the strategic
methods to analyze data collected from course book analysis, tests on collocations and
questionnaires. Inductive reasoning is then applied to draw out the general statements,
which are the answers to the research questions.

6. Design of the study
PART A

INTRODUCTION introduces the background, the

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aims, the scope, the method and the organization of
the study.
PARTB

DEVELOPMENT

Chapter one

LITERATURE REVIEW gives an overview of the
theoretical background of the research. It deals with
concept of collocation, errors and a general way in
teaching and learning collocations.

Chapter two

THE METHODOLOGY presents the research method,
the context, and the subjects and data collection
instruments.

Chapter three

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION presents and analyses
the data collected from three data collection instrument
to answer the three research questions.

Chapter four

SUGGESTION

provides

some

suggestions

for

teaching and learning collocation.
PART C

CONCLUSION offers the overview of major
findings and gives some suggestions for further
research.


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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW
3. An overview of collocation
3.1. The notion of collocation
The term “collocation” was first mentioned by J.R.Firth (1957), a British linguist.
He used this term to characterize certain linguistic phenomena of co-occurrence that
principally originate from the linguistic competence of native speakers. In 1960s and
1970s, the phenomena of co-occurrence were concerned by a group of British linguists
like John Sinclair and Michael Halliday, who developed two key articles in 1966 stressing
the importance of collocation in the study of lexicology. In fact, collocation tended to be

ignored because of its complex nature and mistaking with some related phenomena like
idioms or multiword units.
It is easily seen that words in English are rarely used alone but usually keep their
companies to make their own combination. In considering the ability of words to combine,
Wilkins (1972:26) states that “In everyday English, there are items which co-occur with
high frequencies, others which co-occur as the need arises and others whose co-occurence
seems impossible”. In order to achieve naturalness in speech and writing, we tend to use
common and regular items. For example, fast food or fast train are common in English but
it seems to be unnatural to say quick food or quick train although these adjectives have the
same meaning. The phrase a great deal, meaning a lot can be taken as another example. A
near equivalent quantifier would be a good deal. However, if a big deal is used instead,
the meaning changes; and a large deal is extremely unlikely to occur at all. If the
collocation is with extent, it is meaningful to say to a large extent but we find it
inappropriate to say to a big extent. There are endless of these kinds of combinations in
English. A pair or group of certain words usually fit closely together to form natural
expressions. If one word in an expression is substituted by a different one of the same
meaning, the sense might remain unchanged but the native speakers may find the
expression a little unnatural. The tendency of words co-occurring to reach the naturalness


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in speech and writing is called collocation.
Like other languages, English has a great number of collocations and the term
“collocation” has been defined in different ways. From an applied linguistic point of view,
collocation is defined as “the binding force between the words of a language” or “a
marriage contract between words” (McCathy, 1990:158). In line with McCathy, Norberth
Schmitt (1997) shares the same idea when he characterizes collocation as the tendency of
two or more words to co-occur in the discourse. According to Oxford Collocations
Dictionary (2002), collocation is the way words combine in a language to produce naturalsounding speech and writing. Richards et al (1992:6) give a more specific definition:

“Collocation is the way in which words are used together regularly. Collocation refers to
restrictions on how words can be used together, for instance, which prepositions are used
with the particular verbs or which verbs and nouns are used together”.
Although collocation is a term defined and understood in many different ways,
there is still a common core of agreement , which is the consensus on the co-ocurrence of
words. Thus, while the definitions of collocation have varied, the working one for the
study could be generally stated that collocation refers to words that keep company with
one another to achieve naturalness in the language process and use.

3.2. Classification of collocation
From different linguistic views and criteria, there are various types of collocations.
As a result, it is difficult to develop an unique classification of English collocations. While
some types of collocations are recognised by one school of thoughts, they are denied by
others; and it is the fact that some researchers restrict the so-called collocation more
tightly than others. Consequently, the distinction between collocation and other linguistic
phenomena is faint and the classification is just relative. Basing on what is held by
Jackson (2002), Runcie (2002), this study develops the classification of collocation under
the two following criteria: the structure and the strength.


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3.2.1. In terms of the structure
Bahns (1993), Hill (1999) share general agreement that collocation can be
struturally divided into grammatical, lexical and long collocations. Most grammatical and
lexical collocations consist of two elements called the base and the collocate in which the
base bears most of the meaning of the collocation and triggers the use of the collocate.
1.2.1.1 Grammatical colllocations
Grammatical colllocations are paired syntactic combinations of a lexical content
word (verb, noun, adjective) followed by a grammatical word, typically a preposition that

is fixed in the collocations. There are four systactic patterns as follows:
 Noun + Preposition: solution to, in favor of
 Verb + Preposition: think of, turn down
 Adjective + Preposition: interested in, afraid of
 Preposition + Noun: at home, by mistake
The open class word in grammatical collocation is called the base and it detemines
the word or the collocate it can go with.
1.2.1.2 Lexical collocations
Lexical collocations are described as a pair of lexical content words co-occured.
Lexical collocations do not contain prepositions; instead, they consist of various
combinations of nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. Lexical collocations are often in the
following patterns:
 Adverb + Adjective: surprisingly modern, fully aware
 Adjective + Noun: regular exercise, maiden voyage
 Noun + Noun: job interview, ceasefire agreement
 Quantifier + Noun: bars of soap, a kilo of sugar
 Noun + Verb: bomb + go off, plane + take off
 Verb + Noun: do homework, make one’s bed
 Verb + Adjective: keep fit, stay healthy
 Verb + Adverb: whispered softly, vaguely remember


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1.2.1.3 Long collocations
Long collocations are a special type of collocations that consist of more than two
items like get access to, take care of, etc. Collocation phrases, including more than just
two words, often occur. For example a collocation such as by chance in turn collocates
with verbs such as find, discover. Flexible word pairs include collocations between subject
and verb, or verb and object, any of the intervening words may occur between the words

of the collocations.

3.2.2. In terms of the strength
Several authors have described collocations in terms of their fixness or strength.
Jimmie Hill (1999:25) divides collocations into four kinds: unique collocations, strong
collocations, medium-sttrength collocations and weak collocations. McCathy (1990)
believes that the relationship of collocation is “a marriage contract between words” and
“some words are firmly contracted than others”. It should be noted that different degrees
of cohesiveness of collocations are observable but they cannot be measured in a precise
way. As a result, it is difficult to achieve an exact classification.

For this reason,

collocations should be divided into two types in terms of strength, which are more fixed
and less fixed collocations.
More fixed collocations are those with strong cohesiveness and the replacement of
individual words are not allowed. The collocation table of contents can be cited as an
example of a more fixed collocation because there is almost no replacement of the two
elements table and contents.
Less fixed collocations are those with weak cohesiveness and individual words can
be replaced by certain other words. For example, in the collocation make money, make can
be replaced by another verb such as earn and get. All these three possibilities are
collocations of the same meaning. Therefore, make money should be regarded as a weak
collocation.
3.3. Properties of collocation


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3.3.1. Collocations are arbitrary

The arbitrariness of English collocations can be seen easily from several examples
in the previous parts. In fact, there is no cohesive rule for the formation of collocations.
Native speakers naturally make the correct collocations based on a lifetime‟s experience of
hearing and reading the words in set combinations. Although they know collocations well
and use them naturally, they still fail to explain why tell the truth is correct while say the
truth is unacceptable
The arbitrariness also takes place in the substitution of the elements of a
collocation. From time to time, the substitution is restricted. For example, it sounds natural
to say highly sophisticated and extremely happy; both adverbs have the same lexical
function, which is adding the degree, or magnifying the impact of the adjectives
(sophisticated, happy). However, they are not interchangeable. Still, other adverbs, such as
very can replace both highly and extremely.
The fact that collocations are arbitrary has been studied by many linguists.
According to Gairns, R. and Redman, S. (1999), the formation of collocations follows
certain habitual conventions, which cannot be described by rules and which native
speakers are usually unaware of. There are numerous examples that can show the illogical
and random relationship between components in a collocation. The adjective blond, for
example, is often found only with the word hair or few nouns like woman or lady, but it
never goes with paint or paper even though there is no reason semantically why they
should not go together. Michael Swans (1997) also claims that it is just so happen because
the native speaker chooses one word to combine with others. That means collocation
patterns are randomly made by natives‟ habitual word choices, accumulated naturally for
generations through natives‟ communication activities and then gradually become a stock
of ready-made combination. At first, collocations are totally free word combinations, but
when those words strings are used repeatedly among natives, they become more fixed and
semi-fixed patterns which do not allow any alternative.
Due to arbitrariness, substituting a synonym for one of the word in some


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collocations may result in inappropriate lexical combinations. For example, a phrase such
as warm greetings is a true collocation but hot greeting is not acceptable. Similarly, it is
acceptable to use high/tall building, tall boy but not high boy.
To sum up, as there is no absolute rule of collocation, only a native speaker can
intuitively judge whether a collocation is acceptable or not. For non native speakers, it is
almost impossible to make up any rules about how words are collocated. Therefore,
learning collocations is learning what words are most likely to occur together without any
rules.

3.3.2. Collocations are language specific
This is an interesting feature of collocations and might be the causes of
collocational errors among non native speakers. It is not certain to say that collocation is
an universal phenomena but it is absolute to say collocations are obviously varied across
languages and dialects. It is true for Larson (1984:14) to state that “ combinations of
words will differ from language to language. A perfectly acceptable collocation in one
language may be unacceptable in another”. Therefore, learners of English are likely to
make collocational errors because they combine words that go together in their first
language but not go together in English. This can be seen from the following examples. In
English, we say He has trouble or he suffers from trouble but in other languages, we may
say He sees trouble or he drinks trouble. Similarly, wear a hat and fly a plane are common
in English combinations. However, their Vietnamese equivalents are not mặc mũ or bay
máy bay but đội mũ and đi máy bay. It can be seen that different words are combined to
indicate the same meaning.

3.3.3. Collocations are not nescessarily adjacent
As collocations need not to be continuous, they can either occur next to each other
or be separated by several words or phrases. For instance, the expression the difficulties
that we tried our best to overcome still contains the collocation overcome the difficulties.

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In another case, knock and door is a collocation in the sense that the word knock and door
seldom occur next to each other, but rather they are separated with a couple of words like
he knocked on the front door. As McCathy (1990:13) believes, the collocational
relationship still applies even though several words may separate the collocational items.

3.3.4. Collocations are often non-reciprocal
One of the characteristics of the way words collocate is that a word in frequent use
may often combine with a much less widely used word. According to Jackson (2002),
“one of the pair may exercise stronger attraction than the other”. For example, wine is
more likely to co-occur with red than red is with wine because red can co-occur with
many nouns while wine occurs with only a small number of adjectives. Another example
is the unequal strength of collocation between blond and hair. Blond will collocate with a
very limited number of words such as hair (or words that in some extend relate back to
hair, e.g girl, woman), but hair will collocate with numerous words, eg: long, short, curly,
etc. From these examples, it is clear that the strength of the bond between words in a
collocation is not equal.

3.4. The distinction among free word combination, idiomatic expression and collocations
As stated above, collocations are not easily defined. The broad spectrum of
collocations make them inevitably overlap to other adjacent language phenonmena such as
idioms, multiwordunits, phrases, free word combinations, etc. McKeown and Radev
(2000) point that collocations fall somewhere along a continuum between free word
combinations and idioms. As a result, in the linguistic and lexicographical literature,
collocations are often discussed in contrast with free word combinations at one extreme
and idiomatic expressions at the other.

1.4.1 Free word combinations

Free word combinations have the properties that each of the words can be replaced by


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another without seriously modifying the overall meaning of the composite unit and if one
of the words is omitted, a reader can not easily infer it from the remaining ones. To put it
simply, a free word combination can be described as a combination with alternative. For
example: old people is a free word combination because the word old can be replaced by
any other expressions conveying the idea of old without the danger of sounding unnatural.
So words such as old-aged or elderly are possible, among others.

1.4.2 Idiomatic expressions
According to Cruse (l986:37), an idiom is an expression whose meaning can not
be inferred from the meanings of its parts and frequently involves metaphorical meaning.
In other words, the meaning of the overall expression is often different from the separate
parts. To be more precise, according to Moon (1997), a neutral collocation and a typical
idiom can be dishtinguished by the fact that the former reasonably observe grammatical
rules, has relative fixedness and is considerably non-idiomatic; whereas the latter has
irregular grammatical regulations, is absolutely fixed and its meaning can not be derived
on the word-on-word basis. An important point about idiom is that the sequence of words
that form the idiom would not make any sense if used together outside the context of the
idiom that they share. Therefore, without knowing the idiom, it is often almost impossible
to understand it. For example: to kick the bucket, to rain cats and dogs.

1.4.3 Collocation versus free word combination and idiom
As stated above, collocation is described to occur somewhere in the middle of the
spectrum of free word combinations and idiomatic expressions. Collocation falls between
these extremes and it can be difficult to draw the line between categories. At one extreme,
a word combination failed to be classified as free but is termed collocation when the

number of words occurring in a syntactic relation with a given headword decreases to the
point where it is not possible to describe the set using semantic regularities.
For example: learn + a subject is a free word combination because the words that


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can occur as a subject are virtually open-ended. In this case,the semantic constraint on the
subject is relatively open-ended and thus the range of words that can occur is relatively
unrestricted. In contrast, reach an agreement illustrates a much more restricted
collocational range. Possible substitutions are limited to words such as consensus,
decision.
At the other extreme, phrases such as red tape functions as a composite, where no
words can be interchanged and variation in usage is not generally allowed. Moreover, the
meaning of the individual words is totally different from the meaning of the whole idiom.
Thus, red tape is considered an idiom in English.

3.5. The importance of collocation for learners of English
The importance of collocations for learners of language has been proved by recent
researchers. Hill (1999:5) goes so far to suggest:“We are familiar with the concept of
communicative competence, but perhaps we should add the concept of collocational
competence to out thinking”. According to him, non-native speakers have problems “not
because of faulty grammar but a lack of collocations”. Therefore, collocations play a
significant role in the language learning process of every learner.
 Knowledge of collocations will help increase language accuracy and naturalness
McCathy (1990:13) indicates that "knowledge of collocation appropriacy is part of
native speakers' competence”. In his opinion, intuitive knowledge of collocations helps
them know which words frequently combine and which do not. They would rather use
combinations that sound natural to them, even though a different combination of similar
words can express the same meaning. For example, powerful and strong have the same

meaning. But we always say strong coffee but never powerful coffee. Then, if you do not
choose the right collocations, you will still be understood but you will not sound natural.
Moreover, non-native learners of English are likely to combine words that can go together
in their first language but do not go together in English. The word mất thời gian in
Vietnamese can be cited as a typical example in this case. In English, the verb lose can not


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collocate with time. So it is deadly wrong to say lose time. To be precise, the verb take
usually collocates with time and the phrase should be take time instead of lose time. As a
result, only by learning words in collocations, can learners get accuracy and naturalness in
English.
 Knowledge of collocations will help learners to increase their language fluency
According to Nattinger and Decarrio (1992), it is the ability to use lexical phrases
that help to speak with fluency. Sharing the view with Nattinger and Decarrio, Lewis
(1997:15) believes "fluency is based on the acquisition of a large language store of fixed
and semi-fixed prefabricated items, which are available as the foundation for any
linguistic novelty or creativity”. In his opinion, by storing multi-word chunks in the brain,
learners can recall and use them without having to construct phrases from individual
words each time they want to use such phrases. When these separate words are already in
place in the forms of collocation of varying strength, the brain has more time to focus on
its message. It is in this way that collocational competence promotes language fluency.
 Learning collocation makes the process of vocabulary acquisition easier
It is obvious that human beings have limited memory, so they can not memorize all
the generally-used vocabulary. Instead, some linguists believe that the human brains tend
to store language in chunks or a large number of collocated words rather than individual
terms. That is why it is easy for native speakers to give an example with interview, but
when asked to define the word interview, hardly anyone could do this accurately. That
means the native speakers routinely used chunks without analyzing the constituent parts.

Thus, when you speak or write, it is more efficient to remember and use phrases as chunks
rather than construct them one word at a time. If you learn words in their combinations,
you can remember more of them in an easier way because then, you learn the whole
combination as one item.
 The frequency of use of collocation is high
As mentioned in the previous part, idioms and collocations share some common
features but while idioms are difficult on the perception level and they do not appear too


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frequently in every situation, collocations, however, occur practically in everyday
utterances or sentences. In fact, collocations are integral parts of our everyday language.
Therefore, learners cannot do effectively without them in their performance.

From the above discussion, it is obvious that collocations are important to language
learners. When learners use collocations, they will be better understood as native speakers
unconsciously predict what is going to be said based on the use of phrases. If a non-native
speaker uses frequently-used patterns (collocations), it will be easier for native speakers to
guess what the non-native speaker is saying and may help compensate for other language
issues, such as pronunciation. When learners write and speak, if they use collocations
central to their topic, their readers are more likely to understand their message. In one
word, knowledge of collocation can help learners of English increase their accuracy,
naturalness, as well as fluency and thus make them better understood.

1.6 Teaching and learning collocations
1.6.1 Teaching collocations
There is a common assumption in teaching vocabulary that the more words a
learner knows, the larger the learner's vocabulary knowledge is. However, the mere
number of the words the students know does not indicate a good knowledge of vocabulary

because the matter is not with the breath but the depth of the words, i.e. how far they know
the combinatory possibilities of these words. Therefore, there is an absolute necessity of
teaching collocations to the students. Hill (1999) asserts that when teaching collocation,
teachers need to pay close attention to the following issues. The first thing to take into
consideration in teaching collocations is to raise the awareness of collocations among
them. Teachers can raise the students‟ awareness of collocations by the two following
techniques. On the simplest level, teachers should encourage students to always look for
the two or three word expression. For example, asking students to underline all V+N
collocations in the text will be a typical exercise. Besides, taking a common word and


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asking students to as find as many collocates as they can will be another typical activity in
awareness-raising. Moreover, when teaching collocations, teachers also encourage
students to be involved in extensive reading in English. This will not only expose them to
a massive amount of vocabulary, but will also help them to discover and acquire new
collocations. According to Taiwo (2001), chances that ESL learners cannot combine
words correctly without having previously read them are very high.
According to Wei Yong (1999), another important point is that teachers should not
run seriously into the problem of proliferation in collocation. To put it simply, the
knowledge of collocations in English is so vast that it is almost impossible to teach all
collocations. One way of limiting proliferation is by taking note of distinction between the
possible and typical collocations. Therefore, teachers need to make sure that the
collocations they teach are typical of the language. To do so, teachers should decide what
collocations to teach in the classroom by considering the frequency of words. Learner‟s
dictionaries are excellent sources of common used collocations. After selecting the words,
it might be necessary to select the meaning. For example, with the word manage, the
meaning succeed in has much higher occurrence than the meaning be in charge of. The
two have their own distinct collocations: the former mostly occurs with the structure

manage to do something whereas the latter often collocates with a noun that refers to a
business such as a shop, a company, a restaurant, etc. For this word, it is advisable to put
more focus on the meaning of higher frequency.
One can easily resort to teaching collocations in isolation as well. However, this
kind of teaching is no better than teaching single words in isolation. Unless students are
taught in context-based classes, collocations will not make sense to learners, and
meaningful learning will probably not take place. In other words, rather than wait for
students to meet common collocations, we need to present them in the context just as we
present individual words, for example, take medicine, miss the bus, fall in love. When
teaching a new word, do not forget to teach the most common at the same time. If the
word is coffee, we should teach: a cup of coffee, have some coffee, make a cup of coffee or


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strong coffee. Lewis (2001:60) states that “it is definitely worth emphasizing to students
that they do not really “know” or “own” the word unless they know how that word is used,
which means knowing something about its collocational field.
Extending students‟ collocational competence with words they already know is
considered an effective way to improve their knowledge of collocations (Lewis 2001). A
student with a vocabulary of 2000 words will only function in a fairly limited way. A
different student with 2000 words, but collocationally competent with those words, will
also be far more communicatively competent.
Last but not least, in order to prevent students from making collocational errors,
teachers should emphasize areas of differences in the collocational patterns of the mother
tongue (MT) and the target language (TL). Studies of collocational errors reveal that
collocations in the MT are often translated directly into English. Mother tongue‟
interference can be a great source of collocational errors. For example, the sentence Đồng
hồ chết sounds natural in Vietnamese but it must be the watch stopped in English, not the
watch died.

1.6.2 Learning collocations
As previously mentioned, collocations are important to language learners and some
following points in learning collocations are worth considering.
McCathy (1990) suggests some practical guidelines for learning collocations. If a
word is a noun, the learner needs to write down adjectives and prepositions that often go
with it. For example: sincere thanks, grateful to. If a word is a verb, the learner needs to
write down nouns and prepositions that often go with it. In other words, learning
vocabulary in collocations is learning words at work. Besides, at higher levels, when
students learn less common vocabulary items, they need to be made aware that some
words are used in a restricted number of collocations. Students also need to know how to
use new vocabulary items, which makes it necessary to know about their collocational
field and contexts in which they are used.