How to teach collocations.

Collocations are both problematic and crucial for language learners. Researchers have identified collocations as being a common source of error, while also being crucial for fluency development (Bahns & Eldaw, 1993; Nesselhauf, 2003). Webb and Kagimoto (2009) state that very few empirical studies have addressed the issue of how collocations can be most effectively taught in the language classroom. However, researchers have suggested several guidelines for how teachers can approach collocation instruction in the classroom.

Advocates of an increased focus on collocations in the classroom often mention language use as being important for collocation acquisition. “Students need to learn words and sentences not as isolated, planned answers to classroom exercises, but rather to learn how to use these structures to create the flow and purpose of a spontaneously unfolding conversation” (Nattinger & DeCarrico, 1992, p. 113). First language learners benefit from large quantities of comprehensible input to determine how and when a particular collocation is used. L2 adults’ lack of exposure likely causes their lack of collocational knowledge (Durrant & Schmitt, 2010). Language instructors must compensate for this impediment.

Explicit instruction in collocations is one possible way to make up for the lack of exposure. Laufer and Paribakht (1998) note that the majority of words are learned through direct instruction with relatively few gains being made incidentally in an EFL context. Webb and Kagimoto (2009) make a similar claim by stating:

In the ESL context, it may be enough to make learners aware of the importance of learning collocation, and to teach them to notice words that regularly appear together in context. This method may, in turn, lead to incidental gains. However, in an EFL context, in which incidental gains tend to be relatively small, it may be useful for teachers to not only make their learners aware of collocation, but also to teach it. (p. 71)

Nesselhauf (2003) also states the importance of explicit instruction “It seems indispensable that a number of collocations be taught and learnt explicitly” (p. 238). Collocation acquisition is mentioned by Durrant and Schmitt (2010) “Explicit focus on target collocations would dramatically improve their acquisition” (p.181). Language instructors must incorporate explicit activities for collocations if acquisition is to be expected.

Students know that learning new vocabulary will improve their receptive and productive knowledge. However, students are often not familiar with collocations and the important role they play in language acquisition. Ying and O’Neill (2009) state that teachers need to raise student awareness of collocations. Fan (2009) similarly states that raising students’ awareness is important because collocation use is arbitrary. Willis (1990) believes that for collocation acquisition students need to notice and speculate about patterns of language within a text. Teachers should start this process by using the most common patterns containing the most common words which will create a useful learning experience (Wray, 2000). For awareness raising of collocations, Henriksen and Stenius Stoehr (2009) believe language instructors must overcome several challenges: they must develop

pedagogical tools for raising student awareness, they must support the students’ ability to notice patterns in the input, and they must increase their students’ understanding of the need to develop collocational knowledge of frequently occurring lexical items. Ying and O’Neill (2009) also claim that learning is most effective if students see the significance of what they have learned and are able to exhibit it. The characteristics of productive activities for collocations will be discussed in the next paragraph.

In section 3.5.2 Webb and Kagimoto’s study (2009) about learning word pairs was described. They believe that productive ability is improved through the use of productive tasks, while receptive tasks mostly lead to receptive gains. Fan (2009) states that teachers should create the need to productively use collocations in the classroom. Repetition is also commonly mentioned as a key component of productive collocation activities. Durrant and Schmitt (2010) claim repetition is effective for improving learning. They state fluency based re-reading exercises are particularly effective and there is a need for substantial exposure. Wood (2010) believes activities with repetition of formulaic sequences are important for automatization, which is crucial for fluency. In addition to repetition, he continues by stating that fluency development activities should impose speed constraints and force the production of speech in chunks. Fan (2009) also mentions that effective activities require repeated use of collocations, in addition to being communicative, authentic, and focusing on everyday events.

Wood (2010) explains in depth how collocations should be taught. He advocates the use of models of speech from fluent speakers. The students should be encouraged to notice formulaic sequences within these models and determine their meaning and discourse

function. For this process, teacher and peer feedback is valuable. He also believes students will benefit by learning entire chunks of language (including articles and prepositions) and not just which words collocate with other words. For verb + noun collocations, teachers and students should focus on the verb because it is the more common cause of mistakes. He makes a final recommendation of targeting collocations based on the students’ L1. This

recommendation is similar to Bahns’ study (1993) described in section 3.5.2. For beginner students and learners who are not proficient, Wray (2008) suggests that memorization may be more beneficial than using other methods for acquiring collocations. Hill (2000) also suggests rote learning by stating that collocations should be learned in such a way that ‘‘We can retrieve them from our mental lexicon just as we pull a phone number or address from our memory’’ (p. 53). The majority of researchers argue for an explicit approach to

collocations.

An alternative to explicit instruction for collocations is made by Liu (2010) in his study described in section 2.3.6. A cognitive approach is proposed when he stated that students should be taught why collocations use a particular combination of words. He believes some potential benefits are that using cognitive analysis will help students to use collocations productively because there are too many collocations to memorize. It may also help the students use the verbs more accurately since they will understand the motivation for the verb in the collocation. By understanding the semantic differences between ‘make a trip’ and ‘take a trip’ students might understand ‘make’ and ‘take’ collocations better. However, he tempers his claims by stating “Although I see strong benefits of cognitive analysis in learning collocations, based on the new research findings, I also understand the need for students to notice, memorize, and repeatedly practice collocations to attain a good grasp of them” (p.24). He also concedes this approach is probably not suitable for young children, students of different learning styles, and students of low language proficiency. In addition, not all

collocations require the same level of cognitive analysis. Wray (2000) has cautioned against approaches which overgeneralize the characteristics of a formulaic sequences. She believes it is impossible to present only grammatically and semantically regular sequences because subtle restrictions arise as a result of idiomaticity. She states “This makes all formulaic sequences potentially unreliable for analysis” (2000, p. 485).

To summarize, researchers propose an explicit approach to collocation instruction, which will partially compensate for L2 learners lack of exposure to the target language. It is also important to raise student’ awareness for collocations. Learners need to understand the importance of collocations for developing their productive abilities and fluency. Productive tasks are seen as being more effective for improving a learner’s speaking and writing ability, and repetition is a key element that should be present within these tasks. Finally, cognitive analysis may help with collocation acquisition, but it is important to carefully choose the targeted collocations and consider the characteristics of the students before devoting class time to this approach.