Effects of English collocation instruction on the writing skill of first year English major students at Hanoi University of Science and Technology = Ảnh hưởng c

The first and second causes of collocational errors may imply that collocation teaching and learning could be neglected in ESL classes and therefore, learners are not aware that collocat

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TRẦN THỊ HUỆ

EFFECTS OF ENGLISH COLLOCATION INSTRUCTION ON THE WRITING SKILL OF FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ẢNH HƯỞNG CỦA VIỆC DẠY KẾT HỢP TỪ TIẾNG ANH ĐẾN KỸ NĂNG VIẾT CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM

THỨ NHẤT CHUYÊN NGÀNH TIẾNG ANH Ở ĐH BÁCH KHOA HÀ NỘI

SUMMARY OF M.A COMBINED PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10

Supervisor: Dr TÔ THỊ THU HƯƠNG

HANOI – 2012

Table of Contents

Candidate‟s statement i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

List of Abbreviations vii

List of Tables viii

List of Figures .viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Statement of the problem 1

1.2 Scope and objectives of the study 3

1.3 Significance of the study 3

1.4 Organization of the study 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Overview of collocation 5

2.1.1 Definition of collocations 5

2.1.2 Characteristics of collocations 6

2.1.3 Types of collocations 10

2.2 Pedagogical issues on collocations 14

2.2.1 The benefits of collocations 14

2.2.2 Choosing which collocations to teach 17

2.2.3 Directions for teaching collocations 17

2.2.4 Teacher‟s role in collocation instruction 21

2.2.5 Materials for teaching collocations 22

2.3 Collocations in ESL writing 24

2.3.1 The need for collocation instruction in L2 writing process 24 2.3.2 How to incorporate collocation instruction in teaching writing skills25

2.3.3 Studies on the correlation between collocations and L2 writing

proficiency 26

2.3.4 Studies on the effects of collocation instruction on L2 writing 28

Conclusion CHAPTER 3: THE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 30

3.1 Type of research: Action research 30

3.2 Research design 32

3.3 Setting of the study 34

3.4 Selection of participants 35

3.5 Description of intervention 35

3.6 Data collection instruments 44

3.6.1 Tests 44

3.6.2 Semi-structured interviews 44

3.7 Data analysis procedures 45

3.7.1 Scoring 45

3.7.2 Examining the use of collocations in the test papers 45

3.7.3 Statistical techniques 46

3.7.4 Analyzing data from semi-structured interviews 47

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 48

4.1 The effects of the current HUST English collocation instruction on the English writing scores of first year non-native English-major students at HUST 48

4.2 The effects of the current English collocation instruction on the use of language in English writing of first year students at HUST 49

4.3 Correlation between non-native English-major students‟ use of collocation and their writing score 54

4.4 HUST first year non-native English-major students‟ reflections on collocation instruction 56

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS 67

5.1 Research questions revisited 67

5.2 Pedagogical implications 69

5.3 Limitations of the study 70

5.4 Suggestions for further research 72

REFERENCES 73 APPENDIX

Appendix 1: Examples of students‟ texts produced in the pre-test and post-test Appendix 2: Rubric for assessment of an essay (currently used at the research site) Appendix 3: Suggested interview questions

Appendix 4: Participation information statement & Participant consent form

List of Abbreviations

EFL: English as a foreign language

ESL: English as a second language

HUST: Hanoi University of Science and Technology L1: First language/Mother tongue

L2: Second language

List of Tables

Table 1: Lexical collocations (Benson et al, 1986) 12

Table 2: Grammatical collocations (Benson et al, 1986) 12

Table 3: Grammatical collocation type G8 (Benson et al, 1986) 13

Table 4: The writing syllabus with collocation instruction 42

Table 5: Descriptive statistics of the pre-test and post-test writing scores 48

Table 6: Paired samples t-test for writing scores 49

Table 7: Descriptive statistics of the pre-test and post-test language use scores 50 Table 8: Paired samples t-test for language use scores 50

Table 9: The number of correct collocations and collocational errors in the pre-test and post-test 51

Table 10: Correlation coefficients between the use of collocations and the writing score in the pre-test 54

Table 11: Correlation coefficients between the use of collocations and the writing quality in the post-test 56

Table 12: The students‟ preferences of collocation instruction activities 61

List of Figures Figure 1: Levels of collocational complexity 8

Figure 2: Howarth‟scollocational continuum 9

Figure 3: Conzett‟scollocational continuum 9

Figure 4: Conzett‟s model for recording collocations 21

Figure 5: Simple action research model 31

Figure 6: Gerald Susman‟s action research cycle with five phases 31

Figure 7: Differences between the pre-test and post-test in the quantity of correct collocations 52

Figure 8: Differences between the pre-test and post-test in the quantity of collocational errors 53

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Statement of the problem

Since Firth (1951, p.194) introduced the idea of collocation, there has been

an increasing awareness of the importance of using words naturally and appropriately In second language teaching and learning, many researchers have perceived the crucial role of collocations in developing vocabulary, communicative competence and being toward native-like writing style (Brown, 1974; Channell, 1981; Bahns & Eldaw, 1993; Howarth, 1998a, Gitsaki, 1999; Lewis, 1997, 2000; Nation, 2001; Nesselhauf, 2003; Hsu & Chiu, 2008)

On discussing the relationship between L2 learners‟ collocational knowledge and their writing proficiency, there have been two studies by Zhang (1993) and Hsu (2007) In his study, Zhang (1993) compared the participants‟ knowledge of collocations and their writing quality, and the use of collocations in the participants‟ essays and their writing quality He concluded that “collocational knowledge was shown to be positively correlated with writing quality” and “effective use of collocational knowledge may help improve writing quality” (p 165) In a later study by Hsu (2007), the finding was consistent with Zhang‟s study (1993) in the aspect that “there seems to be a significant correlation between Taiwanese college EFL learners‟ frequency of lexical collocations and their online writing scores” (p.192) From the findings of the two studies, it can be said that the knowledge and use of collocations is an indicator of good and poor writing Thus, it is absolutely essential for ESL learners to be aware of English collocations and to learn how to use collocations effectively in writing

Learning collocations; however, is a challenging job for ESL learners Wolter (2006) notices that in second language learning, collocational knowledge is more difficult to learn than grammatical rules Even advanced language learners

have great difficulties in the production of collocations (Nesselhauf, 2003; Laufer & Waldman, 2011)

There has been a great concern among researchers about the reasons why ESL learners make collocational errors Recent studies have pointed out that the causes

of collocational errors are mainly related to:

(1) The lack of collocational concept, i.e ESL learners are not aware of collocation

as a potential problem in language learning (Bahns & Eldaw, 1993, p 108) (2) The shortage of collocational knowledge, i.e students do not understand the potential collocational properties of the words they have already known For example, it can be assumed that most students know the collocation “a good boy”, but few students can generate “a good knowledge” (Ooi and Kim-Seoh,

1996, p 55)

(3) Interlingual transfer (the interference of mother tongue/L1), i.e some collocational errors are caused by direct translation (e.g for some Vietnamese ESL students, they write “learn knowledge” instead of “gain knowledge” or

“absorb knowledge”) (Bahns, 1993, p 61; Nesselhauf, 2003, p 234; Laufer and Waldman, 2011, p 665)

The first and second causes of collocational errors may imply that collocation teaching and learning could be neglected in ESL classes and therefore, learners are not aware that collocations may pose potential problems in their language learning

The use of collocation is more problematic on productive language skills, especially in writing because written contexts require precision in the use of words Having taught English writing skill to first year English-major students for many years, the researcher notices that collocational errors account for a relatively high percentage among the types of errors her students make in writing English When they write a paragraph or an essay, it is no easy task for them to find the right collocates of a word, which affects their writing fluency In addition, the

inappropriate combination of words makes their writing sound odd to native speakers of English It is, therefore, essential for teachers to raise students‟ awareness of collocations and to teach students how to use collocations appropriately and accurately in their writing

To date, there have been few published papers about collocation instruction

in relation to writing skill Due to this lack of studies, this study was conducted to explore the effects of English collocation instruction on English writing skill as well

as students‟ attitudes toward the teaching of collocation and its effect on their writing

1.2 Scope and objectives of the study

Within the scope of an MA thesis, this study only aimed at investigating the effects of English collocation instruction on the writing skill of first year non-native English-major students at a university in Hanoi, Vietnam More specifically, the study was designed to address the following research question:

Could English collocation instruction help improve the writing skill of first year non-native English-major students at Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST)?

This research question was broken down into 3 sub-questions:

1 What are the effects of the current English collocation instruction on the English essay writing scores of first year non-native English-major students at HUST?

2 What are the effects of the current English collocation instruction on the use of language in their English essay writing?

3 Is there any relationship between the students‟ use of collocation and their essay writing scores?

1.3 Significance of the study

The contribution of the study is pedagogical Although the study was carried out on a small scale, focusing on a particular group of Vietnamese English-major first year students, its results will (1) help teachers have a better understanding of English collocation instruction in relation to writing skill; (2) obtain students‟ opinions on ways to further enhance collocation instruction for better writing; and (3) provide recommendations for teachers who are interested in using collocation instruction to improve writing skill of students in their own teaching context

1.4 Organization of the study

This research report is divided into five main parts Chapter 1 presents a brief overview of the study The second chapter reviews previous studies whose focus and findings are relevant and beneficial to this one The third part discusses the methodology of this study, including the research type, the study site, the selection

of participants, the description of the intervention and the methods of data collection and data analysis The fourth chapter reports the findings and their discussions Finally, the report ends with the conclusion part which summarizes the research in some main remarkable points, gives some recommendations for those who want to teach collocations to improve students‟ writing skill in their own contexts and presents essential aspects relating to the study for future research

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents an overview of collocation, different aspects of collocation instruction and collocations in ESL writing

2.1 Overview of collocation

2.1.1 Definition of collocations

Firth R.J is considered the first scholar to introduce the term “collocation”

He claims that a “collocation” is a “mode of meaning” in his book “Papers in Linguistics” published in 1951 He proposes that words obtain their meaning from their co-occurrence in the same context and collocations of a word help us understand its meaning better Firth then gives the example of the two words “dark”

and “night”: “One of the meanings of night is its collocability with dark, and of dark, of course, collocation with night.” (p.196)

Since Firth‟s introduction of collocation, there have been various definitions

of this term Benson, Benson and Ilson (1986) clarify collocations as “fixed, identifiable, non-idiomatic phrases and constructions” (p.1)

McCarthy (1990) understands the term collocation as “the likelihood of

co-occurrence between words It is very likely that blond will occur with hair, but unlikely that it will occur with wallpaper; blond and hair are said to collocate” (p

158; cited in Schmitt, 1998) Schmitt claims that McCarthy‟s definition provides a general understanding of collocations for students However, this definition fails to determine “what the necessary degree of likelihood is before words are said to collocate” (p.29)

A leading author in studying collocations, Lewis (1997) defines collocation

as “those combinations of words which occur naturally with greater than random frequency” (p 25) He also notes that “not all words which co-occur are collocations” (p.25) The characteristics of collocations will be further discussed in the later parts of this chapter

Another scholar, Nation (2001) points out that collocations are “closely structured groups whose parts frequently or uniquely occur together We would also expect collocations to contain some elements of grammatical or lexical unpredictability or inflexibility” (p 324)

In this study, the researcher follows Laufer and Waldman‟s (2011) definition that collocations are “habitually occurring lexical combinations that are characterized by restricted co-occurrence of elements and relative transparency of meaning” (p 648) It is because their definition has pointed out “the necessary degree of likelihood” of “co-occurrence between words”, that is restrictedness and meaning transparency

2.1.2 Characteristics of collocations

Prefabrication

According to many researchers, one of the main characteristics of collocations is that collocations are pre-fabricated phrases (Howarth, 1998a, p 25; Hill, 2000, p 47; Pawley & Syder, 1993 as cited in Seretan, 2011, p 9 & p 16) Seretan (2011) claims that collocations are memorized as pre-fabricated chunks, therefore, collocations are available to native speakers as ready-made It means collocations are stored, retrieved and produced automatically by native speakers and this contributes to “conferring fluency and naturalness to their utterances” (p 16)

Arbitrariness

Another characteristic of collocations is that they are arbitrary (Cowie, 1998,

p 162; Lewis, 1997, p 26) In other words, the individual words in a collocation cannot easily be substituted by their synonyms For example, “a tall man” cannot be substituted by “a high man”, or you can “make a mistake” but not “commit a mistake”

Idiomaticity and non-idiomaticity

The matter whether collocations are idiomatic or non-idiomatic has been extensively discussed among researchers; however, the issue remains controversial

Idioms, according to McCathy and O‟Dell (2010), are “fixed combinations

of words whose meaning is often difficult to guess from the meaning of each individual word… It has a non-literal or idiomatic meaning.” (p 6) Spears (2005) indicates that “all languages have phrases or sentences that cannot be understood literally… They are opaque or unpredictable because they don‟t have expected, literal meaning… A phrase or sentence of this type is said to be idiomatic” (p v),

for example, a flash in the pan (meaning “something that happens only once”), a storm in a tea cup (meaning “a lot of worry or anger about something that is not

important”), etc

In studying collocations, some researchers tend to distinguish collocations from idioms Semantic transparency seems to be the most important criterion to discriminate collocations from idioms According to Laufer and Waldman (2011), the meaning of collocations is relatively transparent; however, the meaning of idioms is much less transparent and often opaque The meaning of idioms can never

be predicted from the meaning of the individual parts that compose them (p 649)

Additionally, in The BBI Combinatory Dictionary of English, Benson et al (1986) defines collocations as “fixed, identifiable, non-idiomatic phrases and

constructions” (p.1)

Cowie and Howarth (1995, as cited in Schmitt, 2000, p.79) proposes a framework for the levels of collocational complexity:

LEAST COMPLEXITY AND VARIATION

1 IDIOMS

bite the dust, shoot the breeze

2 INVARIABLE COLLOCATION

break a journey, from head to foot

3 COLLOCATION WITH LIMITED CHOICE AT ONE POINT

take/have/be given precedence [over noun phrase]

give/allow/permit access to [noun phrase]

4 COLLOCATION WITH LIMITED CHOICE AT TWO POINTS

as dark/black as night/coal/ink get/have/receive a lesson/tuition/instruction [in noun phrase]

MOST COMPLEXITY AND VARIATION

Figure 1: Levels of collocational complexity

According to this framework, idioms have the least complexity and variation Idioms do not permit any change in their constituents If there is any change in the constituents of an idiom, it ceases to exist as a unit Schmitt (2000) gives an example of the idiom “kick the bucket” meaning “to die” If this idiom is changed into “kick the pail”, “boot the bucket” or “kick a bucket”, they all lose the idiom‟s

meaning In Schmitt‟s words, idioms are called frozen collocations (p 78) In

comparison to idioms, collocations are relatively fixed and the meaning is much more transparent because it is composed from the meaning of all the components

Howarth (1998a) also makes an effort to categorize collocations, free combinations and idioms His criteria for categorization include “restricted collocability, semantic specialization and idiomaticity” (p 28), which are all gradable

Free combination

Restricted collocations

Figurative idioms

Pure idioms

Lexical composites

verb + noun

blow a trumpet blow a fuse

blow your own trumpet

blow the gaff

Grammatical

composites

preposition + noun

under the table under attack

under the microscope

under the weather

Figure 2: Howarth’s collocational continuum

Howarth indicates that free combinations consist of freely substitutable components and can be understood literally Restricted collocations have one component in a non-literal sense while the other is in its normal meaning Figurative idioms have both a current literal interpretation and metaphorical meanings in terms

of the whole, while pure idioms have a unitary meaning that cannot be derived from the meanings of the components Howarth also thinks that free combinations should

be included in collocation category He calls free combinations “open collocations”

(p 28)

In a later study, Conzett (2000) distinguishes collocations from idioms and free combinations and suggests a collocation continuum (p 74)

Figure 3: Conzett’s collocational continuum

The free combinations like friendly dog or old car as well as the fixed expressions like throw in the towel or Stars and Stripes are not regarded as

collocations The combinations which fall in the middle of the two extremes on the continuum are counted as collocations Strong collocations mean that when you see

a word, you strongly expect the presence of another Weak collocations mean the collocates can vary a great deal

Some other researchers, on the other hand, see collocations and idioms as similar, even overlapping terms Hill (2000) asserts that “all collocations are idiomatic and all phrasal verbs and idioms are collocations or contain collocations.” (p 51) Lewis (2000) shares the same view with Hill when indicating that

“collocations are idiomatic” (p 134) and “very few collocations are truly evident or literal; there is a partially non-literal, metaphorical or idiomatic element

self-to most collocations” (p 135) According self-to Lewis, collocations, like other idioms, are not fully predictable from their component words Lewis then gives an example

of the meaning of the expressions strong opinions, wind, coffee, cheese The meaning of the word “strong” would be different in each expression, and when we

translate these expressions into another language, we would need a different adjective in each expression Another scholar, Carter (2001) defines idioms as “non-subsitutable or fixed collocations, usually more than single word units and semantically opaque” (p 66) In this definition, idioms are considered a sub-class of collocations, or in other words, restricted collocations

From the reviewed literature, there seems to be no exact accord in the criterion to discriminate collocations from free combinations and idioms Some scholars believe that collocations include both fixed and open collocations while some do not Some scholars assert that collocations are idiomatic, but others say collocations are transparent in meaning In this study, collocations, free combinations and idioms are treated differently Collocations can be understood literally through the meaning of their constituents while idioms are opaque Collocations are pre-fabricated while free combinations are not ready-made

2.1.3 Types of collocations

Collocation has been classified in many different ways Hill (2000) suggests

four kinds of collocations (pp 63-64) Unique collocations refer to collocations

which are fixed and cannot be replaced by any other words, e.g “shrug our shoulders” or “foot the bill” We cannot replace the word “shoulders” with any part

of the body like “arms” or “legs”, nor can we replace “bill” with “invoice” Strong collocations are not unique, but strong collocations usually have few possible

collocates “Trenchant criticism” or “rancid butter” are two of the examples

“Rancid butter” is a strong collocation because “rancid” collocates with a very limited number of nouns (only “butter”, “meat”, “oil” and “smell”) Hill indicates that any knowledge of the words “trenchant” or “rancid” would be seriously incomplete without some knowledge of these strong collocates Strong collocations

are not unique , e.g “moved to tears” or “reduced to tears” Weak collocations refer

to collocations that have a wide variety of collocates; for example, many things can

be “long” or “short”, “cheap” or “expensive” Examples of weak collocations are

“an expensive car”, “a white shirt” Students can easily make these combinations; however, it does not mean that weak collocations deserve no attention Parts of weak collocations may also be components of many fixed or semi-fixed expressions For example, the word “good” is not interesting from a teacher‟s viewpoint because it can be used with many words, but it can be a component of some fixed expressions such as “It‟ll take you a good hour” or “Oh, he‟s a good

age” Medium-strength collocations are in the middle of the collocational

continuum and they make up a large part of what is said and written “Hold a conversation”, and “make a mistake” are examples of this type Medium-strength collocations cause much difficulty to EFL learners EFL learners may know the word “make” and “mistake”, but because they often do not store the collocation

“make a mistake” in their mental lexicon as a single item, they cannot retrieve it when they need it

Hill‟s classification of collocations is of great concern to EFL teachers It implies that when considering which collocations to teach, medium-strength collocations should be paid more attention as they make up a large part of what we

say and write In other words, medium strength collocation should be the main learning load for language users

There is, also, another categorization that there are two basic kinds of collocations: lexical collocations and grammatical collocations (Benson et al, 1986; Bahns, 1993) Lexical collocations are those that involve content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs), e.g “blonde hair”, and grammatical collocations

involve grammatical structures, e.g “He was a fool to do it” Lexical collocations

are further divided by Benson et al (1986) into seven types and grammatical are then divided into eight types

Table 1: Lexical collocations (Benson et al, 1986)

(Verbs meaning creation or activation)

compose music make an impression

Table 2: Grammatical collocations (Benson et al, 1986)

G2 Noun + to + infinitive It was a pleasure to do it

G3 Noun + that + clause We reached an agreement that she

would represent us in court

G4 Preposition + Noun in advance, by accident

G6 Adjective + to + infinitive It was necessary to do it

G7 Adjective + that + clause She was afraid that she would fail the

examination

G8 19 verb patterns, e.g Verb +

to + infinitive He decided to go to the party

Table 3: Grammatical collocation type G8 (Benson et al, 1986)

G8 (A) V + Od + to + Oi

= V + Oi +Od

He sent the book to his brother

= He sent his brother the book

She bought a shirt for her husband

= She bought her husband a shirt

V+ O+ Prep+ O

We will adhere to the plan

They based their conclusions on the available facts

G8 (F) Modals+ bare Inf We had better go./ We must work

G8 (H) V+ O + to Inf We forced them to leave

G8 (I) V+ O + bare Inf She heard them leave

G8 (J) V+ O+ V-ing I caught them stealing apples

G8 (K) V+ Possessive Adj + V-ing We noticed his leaving early

G8 (L) V+ that clause They admitted that they were wrong

G8 (M) V+ O + to be+ C We considered her to be a competent

engineer

G8 (O) V+ O1+ O2 The teacher asked the pupil a question

G8 (P) V (+O)+ Adverbial The meeting will last two hours

Tuesday comes after Monday

G8 (Q) V+ (O)+ clause/

wh-phrase He asks me how to do it

G8 (R) It+ V+ O+ to Inf/that clause

It surprised me that our offer was rejected

It surprised me to learn of her decision

G8 (S) V+ C (Adj or N) She became an engineer

The flower smells nice

2.2 Pedagogical issues on collocations

2.2.1 The benefits of collocations

Enhancing language competence

There is a general agreement that collocations play an important part in the development of L2 language competence (Brown, 1974; Channell, 1981; Bahns & Eldaw 1993; Zhang, 1993; Howarth, 1998a; Gitsaki, 1999; Lewis, 1997, 2000; Nesselhauf, 2003; Hsu & Chiu, 2008)

In his research in 1974, Brown underscores that the improvement in listening and reading can be helped by increasing students‟ knowledge of collocations (p 1) Channell (1981) claims that learners may fail to realize the potential of words they know well because they only use them in a limited number of collocations of which they are sure (p 120) This fact underlines the necessity of teaching collocations

since teaching collocations can help promote vocabulary expansion Bahns and Eldaw (1993), furthermore, affirms that “a knowledge of collocations is actually necessary to communicative competence in English as one cannot always easily paraphrase one‟s way around collocations” (p 109) In another study, Zhang (1993) also finds a significant correlation between learner‟s collocational knowledge and the quality of their written communication

In recent years, more and more researchers and language teachers have emphasized the importance of collocations in language development According to Lewis (2000):

The reason so many students are not making any perceived progress is simply because they have not been trained to notice which words go with which They may know quite a lot of individual words which they struggle to use, along with their grammatical knowledge, but they lack the ability to use those words in a range of collocations which pack more meaning into what they say or write (Lewis, 2000, p 14)

Morgan Lewis argues that collocations help learners to get beyond the intermediate level He suggests that instead of trying to perfect their grammar and learn new, rare words, intermediate students should learn to use the words they already know in the huge number of collocations of which these words are parts By doing this, most intermediate students would increase their language competence dramatically

Nesselhauf (2003) also states the importance of collocations: “Collocations are of particular importance for learners striving for a high degree of competence in the second language” (p 223)

Being toward native-speaker fluency

In communication, the main factors to decide whether a speech is native-like

or not involve the native-like selection of lexical items and native-like fluency

According to Pawley and Syder (1983), native-like selection is selecting “a sentence that is natural and idiomatic from among the range of grammatically

correct paraphrases, many of which are non-native like” (p 191) Pawley and Syder; moreover, claim that to the native ears, most of non-natives‟ productions are unidiomatic The sentences that non-natives produce may be strictly grammatical but “the trouble is that native speakers just do not say things that way” (p 195) Conklin & Schmitt (2008) supports Pawley and Syder‟s statement and affirms that the control of formulaic sequences is an important factor to distinguish between natives and even relatively advanced non-natives (p 84)

Native-like fluency, as Pawley and Syder (1983) claim, is “the native speaker‟s ability to produce fluent stretches of spontaneous connected discourse” (p 191) Hill (2000) indicates that native speakers can speak at a much faster rate because they are “calling on a vast repertoire of ready-made language, immediately available from their mental lexicons” (p 54) In other words, native speakers can speak at the speed that they do because they can predict unconsciously what is going to be said based on their own use of pre-fabricated phrases

It can be inferred from the above reviewed literature that if a non-native speaker or writer uses uncommon phrasing patterns, a native English speaker may find him or her harder to understand As it is generally agreed that collocations make up a significant part of a typical native speaker‟s communication in both speech and writing (Howarth, 1998b; Nesselhauf, 2003), it is inevitable that the mastery of collocations will enable English language learners to communicate more accurately and fluently, or in other words, more native-like Howarth (1998b) emphasizes the use of collocations as a sign of being toward native-like:

“Conforming to the native stylistic norms for a particular register entails not only making appropriate grammatical and lexical choices but also selecting conventional collocations to

an appropriate extent… they are essential for effective communication, and their use by non-native writers is a clear sign that these learners have make an essential adjustment to the academic culture they are entering.” (Howarth, 1998b, p 186)

To summarize the role of collocations in helping L2 learners‟ language become more native-like, the researcher would like to refer to Nation‟s viewpoint

(2001): “all fluent and appropriate language requires collocational knowledge” (p 318)

2.2.2 Choosing which collocations to teach

The importance of teaching collocations has been emphasized for decades However, the unlimited number of English collocations has cause great trouble for teachers to decide which collocations to teach Researchers and teachers have different positions about choosing which collocations to teach, and which ones to ignore

According to Bahns (1993), collocations which have no direct translational equivalents in English and in the learners‟ mother tongue deserve more attention (p 56) Hill (2000) suggests that teachers should concentrate on medium-strength collocations which is “the main learning load for language users” and not only new collocations but the extension of learned words (p 64)

2.2.3 Directions for teaching collocations

Over the decades, there have been numerous suggestions and recommendations about how to teach collocations to L2 learners In this part, the researcher only attempts to review the most common strategies and activities for collocation instruction

Raising learners‟ awareness of collocations

The importance of making students aware of collocations has been emphasized by a number of teachers and researchers In fact, raising students‟ awareness of collocations plays a crucial role in collocation instruction as well as language learning (Woolard, 2000; Hill, 2000; Conzett, 2000; Ying & O‟Neill, 2009)

It is noted that the concept “consciousness” is commonly equated with

“awareness” (Battista, 1978 & Rotner, 1987; as cited in Schmidt, 1990, p 131) In

this research, the two terms are used interchangeably According to Ellis (1993), consciousness-raising refers to “a deliberate attempt on the part of the teacher to make the learners‟ aware of specific features of the L2” (pp 108-109) Many linguists and teachers share the view that consciousness-raising is clearly essential

in language teaching and learning because learners need conscious understanding of the target language system to produce correct forms and use them appropriately (Schmidt, 1990, p 129)

In teaching collocations, Woolard (2000), Hill (2000) and Conzett (2000) propose some activities to raise students‟ awareness of collocations According to Woolard (2000), one of the best ways to make students aware of collocations is to point out their mis-collocations in writing He suggests that teachers should keep a record of students‟ mis-collocations and bring them into the classroom at appropriate times to extend vocabulary teaching (p 30) Another activity that Woolard advocates is highlighting collocations in a reading text and asking students

to make sentences with the highlighted collocations or asking students to find out collocations in the text themselves He adds that Verb-Noun, Adjective-Noun, Verb-Adverb collocations should receive more attention (pp 31-32)

Hill (2000) mentions two activities to raise students‟ awareness of collocations The first activity is, similar to Woolard, to ask students to underline collocations in a text The second activity is to take a common word and ask students to find as many collocates as they can For example, students will not be

considered as “really know the verb speak” if they do not know at least the

following collocations: speak a foreign language, speaker your mind, speak in public, speak (French), speak clearly, speak openly, speak fluently, speak with a (Welsh) accent, speak volumes

Conzett (2000) gives a long list of activities to teach collocations among which the researcher finds two activities useful for raising students‟ awareness Conzett shares the same view with Woolard and Hill in maintaining that training

students to observe and note collocations in reading is an essential activity to raise their awareness However, she suggests another follow-up activity to reinforce the collocations that students have identified in the reading text The activity is to ask students to complete a writing assignment in which they have to use the collocations that they have found in the reading text Another thing is to teach students the word

“collocation” Conzett believes that collocations exist in students‟ L1, thus, it is not difficult for them to understand this concept and this saves a great deal of time by using the term in class In the researcher‟s point of view, teaching students the concept “collocation” is vital in order to make them aware of collocations Obviously, students can still learn and use collocations without knowing this concept However, if they know what collocation is, they will be more aware of the existence of collocation and its significance

Ying and O‟Neill, in their research in 2009, develop the AWARE approach

to teach collocations AWARE stands for the following steps:

A: Awareness-raising of important language features, in particular collocations (helping

learners notice collocation in the weekly theme-based readings or any other sources of input)

W: Why should we learn collocations? (helping learners see the rationale for/meaning of

learning what they learn)

A: Acquiring noticed collocations using various strategies (learners making selective use

of a repertoire of learning strategies that suit their individual learning style to promote effective learning of collocations)

R: Reflection on learning processes and content (learners thinking about their learning

processes and making necessary adjustments for better learning)

E: Exhibiting what has been learned (learners making a weekly oral report in class on the

theme under focus by using as many as possible of the collocations they have noticed and learned)

(Ying & O‟Neill, 2009, p 183)

Encouraging independent collocation learning

Language teachers concur with the necessity to equip learners with skills for them to develop their knowledge of collocations independently (Woolard, 2000;

Ying & O‟Neill, 2009) Woolard (2000) asserts that the amount of language covered in the classroom will almost always be less than students‟ need Thus, it is crucial that teachers should help students acquire the skills to discover significant collocations for their own learning, both in and outside the classroom Teachers may encourage independent learners by teaching them techniques for searching collocations in a dictionary, corpus or computer concordance When students know how to search for the collocations they need, they will expand their mental lexicon without the presence of a teacher (p 28)

Ying and O‟Neill (2009) find that, with the adoption of the AWARE approach, the majority of the students were able to manage their collocation learning independently They sought the strategies that suited themselves, made meaningful reflection on the learning content and process and made adjustments to their learning Ying and O‟Neill believe if teachers use the AWARE approach appropriately, they may help their students learn collocations more independently and effectively

Teaching collocations through exercises

Teachers may use a variety of exercises in the classroom to help students

learn collocations In the book Teaching collocations: Further developments in the lexical approach, language teachers (Conzett, 2000; Hill, 2000; Lewis, 2000;

Woolard, 2000) introduce 30 types of exercises to teach collocations and teachers can vary the exercises according to their students‟ needs

Recording collocations in lexical notebooks

Storing collocations for future use and revision should be an indispensible part of the collocation learning process (Woolard, 2000; Hill, 2000; Conzett, 2000) Woolard (2000) insists that students should not only notice common collocations in the texts they meet but also select and record the collocations that are crucial to their particular needs (p 35) Hill (2000) supports Woolard and states that all students

need an organized lexical notebook where they write items down and rehearse them

so that they can memorize those collocations more easily This is the constant revisiting step in the process of learning a language (p 62) Conzett (2000), moreover, adds that teachers should model how to record collocations to help students know how to organize their own notebook She suggests a model for recording collocations as follows: (pp 76-77)

Figure 4: Conzett’s model for recording collocations

2.2.4 Teacher’s role in collocation instruction

Woolard (2000) underscores that in language development the learning of collocations is “ideally suited to independent language learning” (p 35) It can be inferred from Woolard‟s statement that teachers, in this case, shift from teaching to building autonomy in learning so that learners can develop collocational competence themselves Teachers should train learners the skills to recognize collocations in texts, select and store the collocations to their specific needs They also need to support learners with the skills to use a collocation dictionary to search for collocations so that learners can maximize their learning of collocations outside

the classroom (p 28)

According to Conzett (2000), teachers are responsible for directing learners‟ attention to the most useful collocations instead of recording all the collocations

they meet Teachers, in this case, should select, incorporate and recycle priority vocabulary into classroom materials and activities (pp 74-75)

high-Lewis (2000) highly recommends that the most important task of teachers in collocation instruction is to ensure that learners notice collocations in the input language The reason is noticing is a crucial factor for input being retained as long-term intake (pp 116-117)

2.2.5 Materials for teaching collocations

Authentic materials

Using authentic materials is essential in a language classroom Authentic materials, as Nunan (2004) puts it, refer to spoken and written materials that have been produced for the purposes of communication, not for the purposes of language teaching Examples of authentic texts include articles from newspapers, magazines, stories or newsletters, and so on The reason for exposing learners to authentic input

is to prepare them for the challenge of coping with the language they hear and read

in the real world outside the classroom Nunan advocates that teachers should select authentic texts to the needs, interests and proficiency levels of their students (pp 48-51)

In teaching collocations, choosing authentic materials plays an important role (Lewis, 1993, p 186; Coxhead, 2008, p 156; Michiko, 2008, p 7; Alsakran, 2011,

p 49; Farrokh, 2012, p 68) Authentic materials give students more chances to be exposed to naturally occurring language; therefore, students will learn collocations which are used in the real world Lewis (2000) remarks that “when choosing texts for learner-input, it is important to choose not from an interest point of view, but also for linguistics, and specifically collocational reasons” (p 187)

Dictionaries

Dictionaries are always an important and beneficial resource for language learners In teaching and learning collocations, various types of dictionaries may be

used Traditional dictionaries tend to focus on helping learners find the meaning of unknown words They give relatively little information about collocations However, nowadays, in most updated and standard EFL dictionaries, collocations sometimes appear as part of the definition, and more frequently, as part of the examples (Lewis, 2000, p 200) Teachers can utilize these examples to demonstrate the use of a word and explore collocations though only a few and most frequent collocates are given

Collocation dictionaries are a valuable source of input Today there have been various collocation dictionaries for language teachers and learners to choose

Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English, Macmillan Collocations Dictionary for Students of English and The BBI Combinatory Dictionary of English:

A Guide to Word Combinations are among the examples Language teachers

generally agree that if learners are equipped with the skills to use collocation dictionaries effectively, they will be able to explore collocations and develop their collocational knowledge independently outside the classroom (Woolard, 2000; Farrokh, 2012)

Corpora and Concordancers

With the recent development in the field of information technology, an extremely large amount of texts are stored on computers and the internet Woolard (2000) affirms that most of the major English Language Teaching publishing houses and universities have established extensive English corpora These corpora are large collections of both written and spoken texts (newspapers, magazines, transcribed speech, etc.), produced by native speakers of English, which are stored electronically and can be accessed using search software The corpora are used as a basis for modern dictionaries as well as research into the use of English Some of the corpora can be accessed by individuals such as the British National Corpus (BNC) (http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/) or the COBUILD Concordance and Collocations Sampler (http://www.collins.co.uk/Corpus/CorpusSearch.aspx)

To make use of a corpus, it is suggested that a concordancer should be employed A concordancer, as defined by Woolard (2000), is “a relatively simple piece of computer software which allows a constructive search of large amounts of text for examples of a particular word or phrase” (p 39) When a word needs to be examined, the program will scan the stored texts and display the word within its contexts on the screen in the form of a list of examples This list of examples is called a concordance A concordance can be utilized to find instances of authentic usage to demonstrate features of vocabulary, collocations, grammar points or the structure of a text (Johns, 1990, as cited in Çelik, 2011, p 274)

Many researchers and language teachers advocate the use of corpora and concordancers in teaching collocations (Woolard, 2000; Conzett, 2000; Lewis, 2000; Hoey, 2000; Çelik, 2011, Farrokh, 2012) According to Farrokh (2012), concordances would be extremely helpful for students to recognize the collocation

in different contexts and realize how it is used by native speakers Willis (1998, as cited in Farrokh, 2012) adds that concordances help students to speak and write fluently and naturally especially these days when most students have access to the electronic database (p 68)

2.3 Collocations in ESL writing

2.3.1 The need for collocation instruction in L2 writing process

It is generally agreed that collocations are more problematic in L2 productive language than receptive language (Hill, 1999; Ozaki, 2011) Because of their relatively transparency in meaning, collocations do not cause much comprehension problems in reading or listening However, when they are used in productive skills such as writing and speaking, L2 learners may not be able to use them properly in reproducing the language Hill (1999) further explains the problem of collocations

in writing:

Students with good ideas often lose marks because they don‟t know the four or five most important collocates of a key word that is central to what they are writing about When

students do not know the collocations which express precisely what they want to say, they create longer utterances which increase the likelihood of further errors (Hill, 1999, p 5)

Conzett (2000) expresses her frustration about the fact that her students often use their new vocabulary incorrectly when they move from receptive to productive language despite her careful and contextualized vocabulary instruction (pp 70-71)

It is, therefore, necessary for teachers to raise students‟ awareness of collocations and teach them how to use collocations correctly in L2 writing so that they can produce language with near-native accuracy

2.3.2 How to incorporate collocation instruction in teaching writing skills

Language teachers have proposed some ways to incorporate collocation instruction in teaching writing skills In essay preparation, the first activity to teach collocation is that teachers may brainstorm the words connected with the topic in class before they give their students home writing assignment and then useful collocates should be added to the words (Lewis, 2000; Conzett, 2000) Lewis (2000) suggests that the nouns which will be central to the content of the essay need to be introduced After that verbs and adverbs which collocate with the nouns should be added, and finally adverbs which collocate with the verbs For example, with an

“education” topic, nouns like school, education, qualification, teacher, etc may be introduced and for the word school, it may go with drop out of, leave, skip, go to, single-sex, mixed, state or private This activity helps learners to generate more

ideas, increase vocabulary gain as well as enhance collocational competence Another activity to help learners improve their use of collocations in writing is to find a text on the topic of the essay and use it to introduce useful collocations (Lewis, 2000; Conzett, 2000) Teachers may download a text from the internet and create a cloze-type exercise by deleting Verb-Noun collocations and ask learners to think as many words as they can to fill in the gaps The purpose of this activity is not to recreate the original text, but to encourage learners to acquire new combinations of words and to introduce lexis which they may need for their own essays

In the post-writing stage, Lewis (2000, p 95) proposes a process to give essay feedback with an emphasis on collocations The process can be summarized

as follows:

Step 1: The teacher read students‟ first draft, focusing on meaning alone If

there is a collocation to replace the learners‟ clumsy phrase and the teacher thinks the learners know that collocation, he may add a symbol meaning “Do you know a collocation to replace the underlined words?” For a more difficult collocation, he may add another symbol which means “Simplify with collocations including…” and gives the stronger member of the collocation

Step 2: The teacher returns the first draft and students reformulate it

Step 3: The teacher reads the reformulated version for meaning and textual

coherence The teacher should provide in full any collocations which students are unable to produce correctly

Step 4: Students get the second version with correction and write the third

and final version

Lewis (2000) claims that with this process of giving essay feedback, students become more aware of collocation as an essential carrier of meaning and improve their ability to recognize chunks in reading

2.3.3 Studies on the correlation between collocations and L2 writing proficiency

To date there have been limited empirical studies on the use of collocations

in L2 writing Zhang (1993) is the first researcher on this topic Zhang (1993) tested

60 college freshmen (30 native and 30 non-native speakers of English) in a public university in Pennsylvania in the U.S by using a collocation test and a writing test The collocation test was used to measure the participants‟ collocational knowledge and the writing test was administered to collect data on their use of collocations and writing proficiency Based on the results of the writing test, Zhang divided each

group into two sub-groups: good writers and poor writers He then compared the correlation between the subjects‟ knowledge of collocations and their writing quality; the use of collocations in the subjects‟ essays and the writing quality With the collocational test results, he found that native speakers performed significantly better than non-native speakers and good writers within each group performed significantly better than poor writers With regard to the use of collocations in the writing test, native speakers surpassed non-native speakers and good writers within each group surpassed poor writers in the quality of collocations For the non-native group, the quantity of collocations of good writers outnumbered that of poor writers Based on the findings, Zhang draw two major conclusions: (1) collocational knowledge is a source of fluency in written communication among college freshmen and (2) quality of collocations in terms of variety and accuracy is indicative of the quality of college freshmen writing

In a later study, Hsu (2007) investigated the use of English lexical collocations and their relation to the online writing of English-major and non-English major college students in Taiwan Participants were 41 English majors and

21 non-English majors at a national university Hsu used a web-based writing program Criterion Version 7.1 to administer the 45-minute online writing test The test was used to elicit information on the participants‟ use of lexical collocations and to measure writing fluency of the two groups Hsu came to two conclusions: (1) there seemed to be a positive correlation between Taiwanese college EFL learners‟ frequency of lexical collocations use and their online writing scores; and (2) there seemed to be a significantly positive correlation between the subjects‟ variety of lexical collocations and their online writing scores

In summary, both Zhang (1993) and Hsu (2007) came to the consensus that learners‟ knowledge and use of collocations correlated with L2 writing proficiency

2.3.4 Studies on the effects of collocation instruction on L2 writing

As can be inferred from the previous studies, it is necessary for English teachers to incorporate English collocation instruction in teaching writing skills to ESL learners and the effects of collocation instruction on ESL writing need to be examined However, to date, there have been few published articles about this issue Ying & Hendricks (2004) are the pioneers in this area

In 2004, Ying and Hendricks carried out a classroom-based study that investigated the effects of the CAR (Collocation Awareness Raising) process on the writing of 46 Chinese postgraduate students in the National University of Singapore The CAR process consisted of six steps as summarized below:

Step 1: Students were introduced to a variety of collocation resources

including dictionaries, relevant readings and concordances

Step 2: Students were assigned the writing task: a summary-analysis essay in

Step 5: Students were encouraged to search for key words and collocations in

the online concordance and collocation dictionary and recorded what they found

Step 6: Students started writing in the provided worksheet until the class

finished Their summary analysis essays were completed outside the class In their essays, students were told to highlight the collocations they used from what they found

The data for analysis were the worksheets (recorded collocations and essays) and a questionnaire administered one month after the writing session Ying and Hendricks found that (1) the process did raise learners‟ collocation awareness

throughout and after the writing process; (2) the quality of student work increased with the use of collocation tokens; (3) the process often produced “islands” of language sophistication in student writing; and (4) students naturally found and use appropriate collocations in their writing without being directed to do so

Conclusion

The above literature review shows that collocations deserve the attention of language researchers and teachers The importance and methods of teaching collocations have been discussed extensively Several studies have been carried out focusing on the relationship between collocations and L2 productive language skills, especially writing Although the relationship between collocation instruction and L2 writing proficiency has caught attention of language educators to some extent, to the best of the researcher‟s knowledge, there has been only one study examining the effects of the process of collocation awareness-raising on ESL writing It can be inferred from the reviewed literature that English collocation instruction needs to be incorporated in the writing program to help learners develop their writing skills which is the very aim of the current study

In the next chapters, details of the practical work, including the setting, design, participants and findings of the study will be presented

CHAPTER 3: THE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The present research was carried out with its own special features in a specific context and filled certain gaps that exist in the literature to date, that is:

Could English collocation instruction help improve the writing skill of first year non-native English-major students at Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST)?

This chapter will now report the details of this implementation including a brief presentation of the research type, the setting of the study, the selection of the participants, the description of the intervention, the data collection instruments and the data analysis procedures

3.1 Type of research: Action research

According to Nunan (1992) an action research “is initiated by the practitioner and is derived from a real problem in the classroom which needs to be confronted” (p 18) Field (1997) asserts that:

“Action research is envisaged as conferring two important benefits Firstly, it encourages teachers to reflect on their practice, and therefore leads to potential change It plays an important part in reflective teaching, where personal and professional development occurs when teachers review their experience in a systematic way Secondly, it is said to empower teachers, releasing them from dependence upon precepts handed down by trainers and inspectors By testing for themselves the methods and materials they use in the classroom, they can establish which are the most effective for them.” (Field, 1997, p 192)

It is essential for a teacher-researcher to know that action research is an going cycle for improvements An action research should consist of a cycle of phases beginning from identifying a problem, planning an action, taking action, observation and evaluation The given phases are illustrated in the following diagrams:

on-Figure 5: Simple Action Research Model (MacIsaac, 1995; as cited in O‟Brien, 2001)

Gerald Susman (1983; cited in O‟Brien, 2001) distinguished five phases to be conducted within each research cycle as follows:

Figure 6: Gerald Susman’s action research cycle with five phases

This study featured all the characteristics of an action research:

(1) The researcher was the teacher of the participants, she, therefore, easily identified a problem in her teaching English writing: the lack of both explicit/implicit collocation instruction

(2) The research ideas stemmed from the researcher‟s observation in her classroom that English collocations caused great trouble for her students in English writing

(3) Through the action research, the solution (collocation instruction) to the problem (collocational errors in students‟ writing) was tested

(4) This study was a chance for the researcher to review her experience in teaching collocations to EFL students and to report the effects of collocation instruction

on the participants‟ writing skill

(5) From the findings, potential changes may take place Because collocation instruction is beneficial in improving students‟ writing skill, the researcher will continue with teaching her students how to use collocation in writing in the future

However, the fact that the students in the two classes were not of the same (or roughly the same) level in English proficiency resulted in the impossibility to assign one group as “experimental” and the other as “control” group Due to these problems in sampling and the time constrain to complete the M.A thesis, the researcher decided to carry out a pre- and post-test single group design, although she was aware that this design was a weak experimental research design with many threats to internal validity The researcher was also aware that she should make attempts to minimize these threats

According to Tan & Cheng (2008, p 31), there are six threats to single-group design, as indicated below:

History: The increase in the post-test mean is attributed to something else other than

the intervention

Maturation: The increase in the post-test mean is caused by the normal growth or

maturation of the respondents

Testing: When the same test is used in the pre-test and post-test, students become

more experienced, therefore, they do better in the post-test

Instrumentation: Because the pre-test and post-test are marked at different times,

they may not be marked in the same way when the rater gets tired

Mortality: Some low scorers in the pre-test may drop out from the research project

The post-test is taken without these low scorers, therefore, the mean is higher

Regression: The project involves students from the extremes and the pre-test and

post-test are not perfectly correlated

To minimize these threats, the researcher did the following things:

(1) To confirm that the intervention (collocation instruction) really helped the students to improve their writing skill but not something else, the researcher interviewed students after the intervention to get their opinions about the effectiveness of collocation instruction

(2) The pre-test and the post-test were of the same format and both were typical assignments at the research site However, the topics for essay writing in the two tests were different

(3) The pre-test and post-test were marked by the same teachers First, two experienced teachers marked the tests independently Then the researcher compared the results If there was any discrepancy of greater than 10 points (out of 100) for the writing score and 6 points for the language use score, the two teachers had to work together until a consensus or near consensus was reached This was to increase the objectiveness in assessing writing

(4) The researcher obtained students/participants‟ consent to follow through the research so that the participants in the pre-test and post-test were the same No one dropped out from the research project

3.3 Setting of the study

The study was conducted at the School of Foreign Languages, Hanoi University of Sciences and Technology The School of Foreign Languages was originally founded in 1956, and took the current official name in 2012 It is one of the leading educational institutions which provide full-time undergraduate programs

of English for science and technology In the first three semesters, English-major students work mostly on language skills including reading, writing, listening and speaking In the following semesters, students study translation and interpreting skills and take some ESP courses such as English for information technology, English for environmental science, etc

This particular site was chosen for two main reasons First, the researcher could get approved access to the school, where she had worked for nearly two years

as a teacher Secondly, the researcher received support from the leader as well as the teachers in the English writing skill group in her research