Sử dụng CAP (quá trình áp dụng cụm từ kết hợp) để phát triển việc sử dụng cụm từ kết hợp trong các bài viết của 1 nhóm sinh viên năm thứ 2 hệ đào tạo chuẩn

That is why language teachers do not draw students‟ attention to the collocations in a text, thereby causing students not to notice collocations and learn them.. To tackle this problem,

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

M.A Combined Program Thesis

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10

Hanoi - 2013

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

M.A Combined Program Thesis

Field : English Language Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10

Supervisor : Ms Đinh Hải Yến (M.A.)

Hanoi - 2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES vii

LIST OF FIGURES viii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ix

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study 1

2 Research aims and research questions 3

3 Scope of the study 3

4 Methods of the study 4

5 Significance of the study 4

4 Organization of the study 5

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 6

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

1.1 Collocation(s) 6

1.1.1 Definitions of collocation(s) 6

1.1.2 Characteristics of collocations 9

1.1.3 Types of collocations 10

1.1.4 Causes of collocational errors 16

1.1.5 The importance of learning collocations 18

1.1.6 Consideration when teaching collocations 21

1.2 Language awareness 28

1.2.1 What is awareness? 28

1.2.2 What is language awareness? 29

1.2.3 Levels of language awareness 30

1.2.4 The role of language awareness 30

1.2.5 How to increase students‟ language awareness in teaching writing 31

1.3 The CAR Process by Ying and Hendricks (2002) 33

1.4 Related studies 35

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 37

2.1 Rationale for action research design 37

2.1.1 Defintion of action research 37

2 1.2 The action research process 38

2.1.3 The reasons for choosing action research for this study 41

2.2 Participants 41

2.2.1 Background information about the participants 41

2.2.2 Sampling methods 30

2.3 Research design 44

2.3.1 The CAR Process in this study 44

2.3.2 Research design 46

2.4 Data collection instruments 50

2.4.1 Tests 50

2.4.2 Questionnaire 51

2.4.3 Interviews 52

2.5 Data collection procedures 53

2.6 Data analysis 54

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 56

3.1 Results 56

3.1.1 Research question 1 56

3.1.2 Research question 2 70

3.2 Recommendations 75

PART C: CONCLUSION 77

1 Conclusion 77

2 Contributions of the study 78

3 Limitations of the study 79

4 Recommendations for further studies 80

REFERENCES ……… 81 APPENDICES ……… I

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: A summary of the participants‟ demographic features

Table 2: A summary of the interviewees‟ profile

Table 3: The CAR Process in this study and its differences from Ying and Hendricks‟ model

Table 4: Research design

Table 5: Results of the pre-test (production test) – first versions

Table 6: Results of the pre-test (production test) – second versions

Table 7: Pre-test results: Recognition test

Table 8: Post-test results: Recognition test

Table 9: Results of the post-test (production test) – first drafts

Table 10: Results of the post-test (production test) – second versions

Table 11: Results of part A of the questionnaire

Table 12: Difficulties related to knowledge of collocation perceived by participants

Table 13: Difficulties related to collocation awareness perceived by participants

Table 14: Difficulties with collocation-related skills perceived by participants

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Ferrance’s action research process (2000)

Figure 2: Kemmis‟ action research process (1988)

Figure 3: McNiff and Whitehead‟s action research process (2006) Figure 4: Action research in phases of teaching by Stringer et al (2010)

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL: English as a foreign language

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study

Writing is deemed to be difficult because it involves employing a variety

of skills from generating ideas, being grammatically correct to using appropriate language to express opinions in the process of writing (Ross, 1968,

p 253) Students do not seem to have difficulty forming a central idea and using correct grammar What is challenging to them is how to use the target language appropriately to convey a message precisely and add more meaning

to what they express It is difficult to solve this problem, especially for level students, despite teachers‟ search for materials suitable for teaching writing, commitment to correcting students‟ written work, and adoption of many methods to teach vocabulary (Hsueh, 1994, p 1) In his opinion, the utilization of collocations may help to address this difficult problem because it enhances not only accuracy but also fluency Besides, “giving students collocations of words newly or previously met will widen their understanding

low-of what those words mean and, more importantly, how they are used” (Lewis,

2000, pp 13 – 14) The importance of collocation in improving learners‟ writing skills is borne out by Conzett‟s study (2000, quoted in Hsueh, 1994, p 2) More specifically, once familiarized with the concept of collocation, his students are able to produce more accurate language In addition, Sonomura also argues that “writing in English for academic purpose demands access to an infinite store of common collocations, combined in ways that have become stabilized and are the familiar expected, and recognized ways of saying things

in written English” (1997, quoted in Hsueh, 1994, p 13) This view is also shared by McCarthy and O‟Dell (2005, p 6), who believe that using collocations helps “improve your style in writing.”

However, there is a lack of emphasis on teaching collocations to learners

of English as a second language According to Marton (1977) and Briskup (1992) (quoted in Ying and Hendricks, 2002, p 53), the major cause for this phenomenon is that collocations do not create difficulty in comprehending a text as they are mostly made up of familiar and simple words That is why language teachers do not draw students‟ attention to the collocations in a text, thereby causing students not to notice collocations and learn them To tackle this problem, Lewis (2001, quoted in Ying and Hendricks, 2002) proposes that language teachers should increase learners‟ awareness of collocation by helping them to pay more attention to words and their combinations in reading

“This does not mean finding rare words but rather finding relatively common words which intermediate students already know (or half-know) and pointing out the words they occur with.”

Besides, having been a writing teacher of 2nd-year students for two years,

I myself have come to realize that most of the students I have taught during those two years are generally unconscious of the issue of collocation, lack the ability to notice collocations in a text and do not make an effort to learn them

The majority of students in class K45E17 are also confronted with the above-mentioned problems when it comes to collocation According to the findings of the pre-test (the production test), those students made a lot of mistakes about collocation in the first version, which were not corrected in the second one This was particularly true for the two following types of collocation: verb + noun and adjective + noun Besides, they did not score highly in the pre-test (recognition test) and chose the wrong collocate of even

familiar words For example, they chose careful instead of good as a collocate

of care More importantly, after the test was over, they answered that the test

was on vocabulary without being able to specify that its focus was on

collocation and that they had never learned collocations as a way to widen their

vocabulary

For all the aforementioned reasons, I have decided to conduct an action research on raising second-year students‟ awareness of collocation in writing English through the CAR (Collocation Awareness Raising) Process, which is based on the CAR Process originally invented by Ying and Hendricks (2002)

2 Research aims and research questions

Conducting the present study, the researcher aimed to accomplish the following purposes First, the extent to which the CAR process could help to raise the learners‟ awareness of collocation in writing English would be examined Second, on completion, the study would yield insights into the difficulties perceived by the students as they went through the CAR process These aims were formulated into the following research questions:

1 To what extent does the CAR Process help to raise the participants‟ awareness of collocation in writing English?

2 What difficulties are perceived by the participants when they went through the CAR Process?

3 Scope of the study

First, the researcher chose to investigate the effectiveness of one specific process – the CAR process that aims to raise students‟ awareness of collocation

in writing English

Second, the participants of this study were twenty 2nd-year students in class K45E17, which the researcher is teaching writing this semester

4 Methods of the study

Given that the current study was carried out in an attempt to improve the participants‟ awareness of collocation in writing English, the researcher decided to adopt the action research approach because this type of research is aimed at improving a situation In order to achieve this goal, the following instruments were utilized:

A pre-test and post-test (production test) were targeted at investigating the students‟ use of collocations in their writings before and after the CAR Process

Another pre-test and post-test (recognition test) tried to find out the learners‟ ability to recognize correct collocations before and after the CAR Process

Between the pre-tests and the post-tests, the intervention – the CAR Process – was introduced and applied to see whether it helped raise the participants‟ awareness of collocation in writing English

Besides, a survey questionnaire was administered to further explore the participants‟ opinions on the benefits of the CAR Process and find out the difficulties perceived by them as they went through the CAR Process

Finally, semi-structured interviews were conducted face-to-face with eight participants to clarify and supplement the data collected from the questionnaire

5 Significance of the study

As the study is finished, it is expected to benefit the target population, their teachers, and other researchers interested in the topic First, because current research on raising students‟ awareness of collocation in writing English, especially in Vietnam, is limited, this study will partly fill the gap in the literature and serve as a source of reference for other researchers who share

an interest in related issues Second, the researcher hopes that this study can, to some extent, raise the students‟ awareness of collocation in writing English as well as in other English skills Besides, the researcher also hopes that the participants can perceive their own difficulties during the CAR Process and be able to come up with solutions to deal with the difficulties

6 Organization of the study

The rest of the paper includes two other parts as follows:

Part B consists of three following chapters:

Chapter 1 – Literature Review – provides the background of the study, including definitions of key concepts (collocation and language awareness) and review of related studies

Chapter 2 – Methodology – describes the participants and instruments of the study, as well as the procedure employed to conduct the research

Chapter 3 – Results and Recommendations – presents and analyzes the findings according to the two research questions Besides, the participants‟ suggestions on solving the difficulties perceived by them as they went through the CAR Process were mentioned

Part C - Conclusion – summarizes the main issues discussed in the paper, the limitations and contributions of the research, as well as some suggestions for further studies

PART B - DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1 – LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Collocation(s)

According to the Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary (7th

edition), the

term collocation has two meanings First, it is an uncountable noun when used

to refer to the fact of two or more words often being used together Second, it is countable when used to refer to a specific combination of words that are often

used together Therefore, in this chapter, the word collocation will be used if it has the first meaning and the word collocations will be used in case it has the

second meaning

1.1.1 Definitions of collocation(s)

The term “collocation” was first coined by Firth (1957, quoted in Martynska, 2004, p 2) to refer to a combination of words associated with each

other, for example make a decision It derives from the Latin word collocare,

which means “to set in order/ to arrange.” However, since the issue of collocation in second language teaching and learning was brought into focus, a large number of researchers have done studies on it, causing a variety of definitions to be offered Those definitions can be categorized into several groups

First, some common dictionary definitions of this term are as follows According to the Long Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (2002, p 87), collocation is “the way in which words are used together regularly.” As defined in the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2004), it is an “arrangement or juxtaposition of words or

other elements, especially those that commonly co-occur, as rancid butter, bosom buddy or dead serious.” Meanwhile, it is described as “the association between two words that are typically or frequently used together” in Encarta World English Dictionary (2006) Finally, in the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1992), collocation is referred to as “a habitual combination of words that sounds natural.” As can be seen from the above definitions of collocation, despite being differently worded, all of them have those elements in common: combination of words (demonstrated by the

phrases used together, juxtaposition of words, and combination of words) and regular use (demonstrated by the words regularly, commonly and habitual),

which makes them sound natural

Second, collocation is defined by a lot of researchers Below are some

typical ones As Kasuya (2008, p 2) put it, “Collocation can be defined as the restrictions on how words can be used together, for example, which prepositions and verbs are used together, or which nouns appear with particular verbs.” According to McCarthy and O‟Dell (2005, p 3), “A collocation is a pair or group of words that are often used together.” In the words of Manning

& Schutze (1999, p 142), “A collocation is an expression consisting of two or more words that correspond to some conventional way of saying things.” For

instance, it is normal to say broad daylight, but saying bright daylight is considered unconventional From Finegan‟s point of view, collocation refers to

the way words “can be assembled … [in] different, meaningful ways” (2004, p 348) Another noted researcher, Hill (2000, p 51), believes that, “A collocation

is a predictable combination of words: get lost, make up for lost time, speak your mind.” Nattinger and DeCarrio (1997, p 36, quoted in Boonyasaquan,

2009, p 100) defined collocations as “strings of specific lexical items that

co-occur with a mutual expectancy greater than chance, such as rancid butter and curry favor.” For James (1998, p 152, quoted in Boonyasaquan, 2009, p 100), collocations are “the other words any particular word normally keeps company with.” It is apparent that although the above definitions are expressed differently, they all include the following ideas: combination of words

(demonstrated by the phrases two or more words, used together, co-occur and

so on) and/ or conformity to convention (illustrated by the words normally, conventional, predictable, to name but a few)

Third, collocation is defined based on a number of different perspectives

For example, Mitchell (1971, quoted in Li, 2005, p 5) considered each collocation a lexico-grammatical unit, which “brings morphology and syntax back into the center of lexical matters.” From the lexical aspect, Firth (1975, quoted in Li, 2005, p 6) regarded collocations as part of the meaning of a word In light of the discourse perspective, collocation is defined by Halliday and Hasan (1976, quoted in Li, 2005, p 5) as “the co-occurrence of two words, independent of grammatical types and likely to take place over sentence boundaries.” From a cross-linguistic perspective, Finegan (2004, p 354) states that collocation, which refers to words‟ ability to co-occur, is not “simple reflections of conceptual distinctions.” It is obvious that the above definitions are mostly concerned with the grammatical and lexical aspects of collocation to the exclusion of other respects

As can be seen, there are numerous definitions of collocation(s) However, the dictionary ones as well as those given by various researchers are mostly about the ability of words to co-occur in accordance with convention, whereas the perspective-based counterparts typically discuss different aspects,

especially grammar and lexis, related to collocation However, those definitions are not really comprehensive To be more specific, collocation can

“contain some element of grammatical or lexical unpredictability or inflexibility” (Nation, 2001, quoted in Li, 2005, p 15) For example, its

combination can be several words apart like in I made him some tea (the collocation is make tea) In other words, considering a collocation as a

combination of two or more words that often co-occur is sometimes not sufficient Besides, in many cases immediately adjacent words do not

collocate, for instance although he, but if, and so on That means it is necessary

to take both grammar and meaning into consideration in order to produce a correct collocation That is why the researcher hopes to be provided with a definition that covers all the following elements: conventional combination of words, attention to grammar, and a focus on meaning Nevertheless, a

collocation in this research will be used to simply refer to a group of two or three words that frequently occur together to make a meaningful chunk

non-some ideas in their mind about its figurative meaning in that context

Second, collocations are characterized by non-substitutability That means one word in the combination is irreplaceable Obviously, it can be substituted by other collocates having a similar meaning in the same

collocational field For example, both lovely and beautiful can be used with weather However, it is unlikely to replace it with one not being a collocate of

the headword no matter how appropriate it may sound By way of illustration,

even though yellow accurately describes the color of wine, it cannot take the place of white in white wine

Finally, it is typical of collocations to be non-modifiable by means of additional lexical material or through grammatical transformations A case in

point is strong tea More specifically, it is impossible for us to say stronger tea

Given the above-mentioned characteristics of collocations, it is understandable that learning and using collocations create difficulties for learners To make it clearer, as the meaning of a collocation is unpredictable from its parts, it is rather unlikely for students to translate directly from their first language into the target language Additionally, it is impossible to replace

a collocate with one not being a collocate of the headword no matter how appropriate it may sound Therefore, students may easily make mistakes when using a word that is not a collocate of a word but sounds reasonable In short, it

is important for learners to understand clearly the characteristics of collocations

in order to pay attention to learning them and using them correctly

1.1.3 Types of collocations

The concept collocation is defined in a variety of ways by different

researchers This in turn makes it hard to provide an accurate categorization of collocations

First, collocations are divided into two types: lexical collocations and grammatical collocations by many researchers According to Le (2010, p 5), the former refers to the “recurrent combinations of two lexical content words/ open class words commonly found together.” Lexical content words/ open class words are often nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs Some examples of the first type are:

 verb-noun combinations (commit a crime)

 adjective-noun combinations (an acquired taste)

 noun-verb combinations (disaster strikes)

Meanwhile, the latter refers to the “recurrent combinations of one lexical content word/open class word and a grammar function word/ closed class word” (Le, 2010, p 5) A grammar function word/ closed class word in this case is often a preposition Therefore, collocations of the second type usually consist of combinations like:

 a noun + preposition (advisor to)

 a preposition + noun (in advance)

 adjective + preposition (proud of)

The classification of Benson, Benson and Ilson (1997) and Mahmoud (2004) is the same as Le‟s despite their use of different wording to express their ideas To be more specific, in their words, “grammatical collocation is a phrase consisting of a dominant word (noun, adjective, and verb) and a preposition or grammatical structure such as an infinitive or clause” (quoted in Parastuti, 2009, p 1) Meanwhile, lexical collocations are combinations of

words which belong to two or three word classes

Based on the examples given by McCarthy and O‟Dell (2005, p 12) of the types of collocation, it can be inferred that their classification also includes the two above-mentioned big groups even though they do not explicitly identify them In fact, they regard each way in which words are combined as a type of collocations Therefore, they state that there are many types of collocation and the most typical ones are the following:

 adjective + noun (key issue)

 noun + verb (economy boomed)

 noun + noun (a sense of humor)

 verb + adverb (smile proudly)

 adverb + adjective (fully aware)

Like McCarthy and O‟Dell, Hill (2000, p 51) only lists all the ways in which words can collocate, regarding each combination as a type of

collocation Some of the most common combinations are noun + verb (lightning flashes or disasters strike), adjective + noun (key moments or sensible decisions), verb + adverb (walk quickly or breathe heavily), verb + noun (reach agreement or provide information) and so on However, what

distinguishes Hill from McCarthy and O‟Dell is that he stresses that a collocation may be a three-word combination For instance, it can be a

combination of verb + adjective + noun as in learn a foreign language or noun + verb + adverb as in rain fell steadily It may even be a longer combination of adverb + verb + article + adjective + noun + preposition + noun as in seriously affect the political situation in Bosnia

Sinclair (1991, quoted in Martynska, 2004, p 2) divides them into two categories: “upward” and “downward” collocations The first type is composed

of words that often co-occur with “words more frequently used in English than

they are themselves ” For instance, back is a collocate of down, at, and from, all of which are more frequent words than back In contrast, the second group

is comprised of words which typically collocate with “words that are less

frequent than they are” By way of illustration, arrive is a less frequently occurring collocate of back Apparently, despite carrying different names,

“upward” collocations are actually grammatical ones, and “downward” collocations are lexical ones as defined by the aforementioned scholars

The second way in which collocations are categorized is based on the degree of fixedness and restriction, which is used by the following researchers:

Cowie and Mackin (1975, quoted in Li, 2005, p 11) grouped collocations into four types: pure idioms, figurative idioms, restricted collocations, and open collocations Of these, pure idioms are the most fixed

As a matter of fact, the degree of fixedness decreases gradually towards the last type According to Wood (1981, quoted in Li, 2005, p 11), these types of collocations are best shown in the below spectrum:

Pure idioms Figurative idioms … Restricted collocations … Open collocations

On the same basis, Hill (2000, p 63) lists the following types of collocations First, unique collocations refer to words that can collocate with

only one word For example, it is only possible to say foot the bill, not foot the charge or foot the fare Similarly, shoulders is the only word related to body parts that can co-occur with shrug Second, strong collocations are those that

can be used in combination with a limited number of words, for example two

or three of them By way of illustration, the phrases with tears are limited to

moved to tears/ reduced to tears Third, weak collocations comprise words that

can be combined with a large number of other words For example, we can

replace lovely with many different adjectives having a similar meaning to

describe the weather The final type is medium-strength collocations, which lie

in the middle of the spectrum with regard to a word‟s ability to collocate

A detailed classification of verb-noun collocations alone on the basis of two criteria, namely the number of elements restricted and the degree of restriction is introduced by Howarth (quoted in Nesselhauf, 2005, p 23), as follows:

 The noun is freely substituted, but there is some restriction on the choice

of verb from a small number of synonymous ones A case in point is

adopt/accept/agree to a proposal/suggestion/recommendation/plan

More specifically, the nouns in the example can be replaced with many other nouns, whereas the verbs can only be substituted by some others

having the same meaning

 There is some substitution in both elements That means a small number

of nouns can be used with the verb in that sense and there are several synonymous verbs to choose from A typical example is

introduce/table/bring forward a bill/an amendment It can be seen that in this example, the choice of noun is not as wide as in the first one

 There is some substitution in the verb but complete restriction on the choice of the noun In other words, no other noun can be used with the verb in that sense and the number of synonymous verbs is small, for

instance pay/take heed More specifically, apart from heed, no other noun can be used with take to refer to the act of paying attention Besides, only pay can replace take to convey the same meaning

 There is complete restriction on the choice of the verb, but some substitution of the noun That is to say, only one verb can co-occur with

several nouns in that sense, like in give the appearance/impression

 There is complete restriction on the choice of both elements This means

no other noun can be used with the verb in the given sense and there are

no verbs synonymous with the one provided A classic example is curry favor

The third way in which collocations are classified is based on several criteria:

Lewis (1997, quoted in Li, 2005, p 11) identified four types of collocations, which are strong, weak, frequent and infrequent collocations The criteria based on which the first two types are classified are fixedness and restriction More specifically, strong collocations are usually non-substitutable

to some extent, thereby being restricted in terms of meaning This stands in contrast to weak ones, a component of which can be replaced easily by another word The criterion according to which the last two types are categorized are how frequently they can co-occur in a corpus This means frequent collocations refer to words that collocate with high frequency, whereas infrequent ones are those used together with low frequency

Wei (1995, quoted in Boonyasaquan, 2009, p 100) classified collocations into three types, namely lexical collocations, grammatical collocations and idiomatic expressions Explanations about the first two types can be said to be the same as those in the classification of Le (2010) The last type actually refers to idioms which are utterly characteristic of collocations as discussed in the previous part To be more specific, they are entirely non-

compositional, non-substitutable and non-modifiable A classic example is the

idiom have butterflies in one’s stomach

All things considered, collocations are classified by different scholars in various ways However, three trends are noticeable First, they are categorized into lexical and grammatical ones Second, they are grouped on the basis of fixedness and restriction into different types Third, they are classified in accordance with a combination of different criteria However, within the scope

of this study, participants were required to record and learn only collocations of two types: verb + noun and adjective + noun

1.1.4 Causes of collocational errors

Several researcher have discussed the causes of collocational errors However, so far the most comprehensive list is based on the synthesis of Liu‟s studies (quoted in Hsueh, 1994, pp 16-19) According to him, there are twelve main causes of collocational errors, which are as follows:

 Lack of collocational concept: Some students understand only the basic meaning of a word, without knowing its collocates Therefore, they are not able to produce correct collocations

 Direct translation: Some learners take it for granted that there is an equivalent in their mother tongue to every English word/ phrase Consequently, they often translate the first language into the target one directly to produce collocations This results in collocational errors being unavoidable

 Ignorance of rule restrictions: Some students fail to pay attention to grammar rules while writing due to focusing on expressing their ideas

That is the reason why they sometimes produce grammatically wrong

collocations like few knowledge or much hours

 Lack of knowledge of collocational properties: Many students do not have an understanding of the collocational properties of a word To make it clearer, they do not know which words it can co-occur with

Take the word lovely for example A lot of students have no trouble using it with girl but may be unsure whether it can collocate with weather or garden

 False conception: Students‟ misconceptions about such verbs as make,

do, and take cause them to replace one with another freely By way of illustration, they are likely to say do a plan instead of make a plan

 Overgeneralization: Students may create “one deviant structure in place

of two regular [ones] on the basis of [their] experience of the target

language.” For instance, they may construct am used to take as a combination of am used to something and used to take

 Use of synonyms: Learners might substitute the right collocate with its synonym, which results in their producing the wrong collocation For

example, knowing that get and receive are synonymous, some students are likely to say receive a job instead of get a job even though only the

latter is acceptable

 Word coinage: Students try to make up a new word so as to convey their

idea precisely by paraphrasing For example, they formulate see sun-up instead of see the sunrise Nevertheless, given the arbitrariness and

unpredictability of collocations, there is a strong possibility that they will make mistakes in their attempt to do so

 Approximation: Learners use an incorrect vocabulary item or structure, which has some “semantic features in common with the desired item to

satisfy the speakers.” For example, the word midterm is substituted by middle in the phrase midterm exam

 Retrieval: A lot of students do not take memorizing collocations seriously As a result, they are often unsuccessful in retrieving the suitable collocation when necessary

 Appeal to authority: In case of being unable to find the right collocation,

it is typical of students to ask a native speaker or consult a dictionary for the correct answer However, the chances are that these two sources sometimes cannot give them a satisfactory answer This is because the former often relies on his/ her instinct, which is not necessarily right at all times Meanwhile, the latter does not always include entries on collocations

 Appeal for assistance: Learners tend to ask others, usually their peers, for guidance However, they are likely to ask for advice from the wrong source as their friends‟ knowledge of collocation is not necessarily broader than theirs Even if they ask their teachers, the answer is not always correct given the difficulty to memorize all collocations due to their enormous number

All things considered, it is important for teachers to know those causes

of errors about collocation However, it is more important to them to identify the causes that are true for their students in order to find a feasible solution to each problem

1.1.5 The importance of learning collocations

Without doubt, not enough emphasis is put on learning collocation in actual teaching and learning of second languages as previously discussed

Nevertheless, its importance cannot be denied considering its following benefits to students of any level when it comes to improving both their receptive skills and their productive skills because the majority of mistakes made by students are collocation related

First, collocations are necessary for students that hope to acquire language knowledge because they account for 70% of “everything we say, hear, read, or write,” according to Hill (2000, quoted in Le, 2010) This viewpoint is also shared by Finegan (2004, p 447), who believes that “a competent language user … needs to be knowledgeable about what the structures of the language mean.” As a matter of fact, “the structures of the language” refer to prefabricated chunks

Second, learning collocations helps learners to use the target language more precisely (Lewis, 2000, p 16) In the first place, with regard to grammar, the more collocations students are capable of using, the less they have to employ longer expressions, which in turn limits the chance of making grammatical errors because they do not have to follow a lot of grammar rules

By way of illustration, a student that does not know the expression give priority

to learning may be obliged to say something like spend a lot of time studying and consider learning the most important thing Obviously, the length of this

expression is much greater than the aforementioned prefabricated unit, and it involves paying attention to a lot of grammar rules Besides, regarding language use, utilizing collocations allows students to “express often complex ideas very simply and yet precisely” (Lewis, 2000, p 16) This is because collocations also have a pragmatic element For example, if someone says: This is a house, we may find it almost impossible to know the context in which

it is said However, if the sentence is: This is a haunted house, it may instantly evoke the image of two people standing fearfully in front of a vacant, run-down house in which ghosts often appear at night This ability to conjure up vivid pictures in writing is crucial

Furthermore, vast knowledge of collocations enhances students‟ more fluent use of their second language Proof for this is found in Sung‟s study of international students in the USA, which reveals that knowledge of lexical collocations and the participants‟ speaking proficiency were closely interrelated There is also psycholinguistic evidence for this: “the human brain

is much better equipped for memorizing than for processing, and that the availability of large numbers of [collocations] reduces the processing effort and thus makes fluent language possible” (Partington, 1996, quoted in Nesselhauf,

2005, p 2) This viewpoint is also taken by Hill (2000, p 54), who believes that “Collocation allows us to think more quickly and communicate more efficiently” because their ability to understand and use “multi-word units” makes it possible for them to “process and produce language at a faster rate.”

Finally, one major reason for learning collocation is that it helps

“improve your style in writing,” according to McCarthy and O‟Dell (2005, p 6) Here is the example provided by these two authors: instead of saying

poverty causes crime, it is possible to say poverty breeds crime, which sounds

better and gives the text more variety

In conclusion, the number of collocations is enormous Besides, according to Hill (2000, p 53), one feature of collocation is arbitrary and

unpredictable For example, it is possible to say turn on the light but

impossible to replace turn on with open to form open the light even though the word open sounds appropriate with regard to meaning In other words, the

word that we think, based on our conception, collocates with another one is not necessarily the correct one For example, it is difficult to know what verbs

apart from turn on, an extremely common collocate of light, co-occur with it if

students do not make a serious effort to learn about that That is to say, internalizing collocations is not an automatic process, but a conscious one Meanwhile, learning collocations is proved to be highly beneficial to developing learners‟ language competence, including sharpening their writing skills All things considered, making a deliberate attempt to learn and teach collocations, especially in writing, should be a priority for both teachers and students

1.1.6 Consideration when teaching collocations

Given the arbitrary, unpredictable nature of collocations, their substantial number and their importance in second language learning, it is vital that serious and special consideration is given to this issue for the sake of effectiveness, as follows:

According to Mitchell (1971, quoted in Kasuya, 2008, p 3), teaching collocations will be insufficient if it is not combined with teaching grammar because “lexical particularities seem to derive their formal meaning not only from contextual extension of lexis but also from grammatical generalizations within which they occur.” To make it clearer, language competence “is a matter of possessing a stock of pre-constructed units, formulative frameworks and a kit of rules and being able to apply the rules to make whatever adjustments are needed according to contextual requirements” (Finegan, 2004,

p 331) Meanwhile, it seems that second language learners acquire knowledge

of grammar “without any special training and on the basis of unstructured and impoverished data” (Finegan, 2004, p 324) Therefore, his conclusion is

“making grammatical generalizations, such as generalizations about typical inflexional or syntactic forms concerning collocations, is the most meaningful approach.” Greenbaum (1970, quoted in Kasuya, 2008, p 3) also expresses his approval of this integrated approach by providing the following example

There is no point in teaching students that like collocates with much while ignoring the fact that I do not like him much and I like him very much are acceptable, whereas I like him much is unacceptable Hill (2000, p 52) also

argued in favor of incorporating grammar in teaching collocations In his words, collocations “cannot be divorced from the grammatical context in which they occur.” Besides, as can be seen in part 1.1.4, ignorance of rule restrictions is the reason why students produce grammatically wrong collocations Therefore, teachers should not focus on teaching collocations at the expense of grammar In order to help teachers combine teaching collocations with teaching grammar rules, Woolard (2000) suggests an approach called “word grammar”, in which top priority is given to the headword in a sentence instead of broad syntactic patterns For example, with

the sentence The government has received heavy criticism for increasing taxes, teachers may draw students‟ attention to the right co-text of the word criticism

so that they notice the pattern receive criticism for V-ing They should also give

more examples to help students “uncover the particular syntactic patterns associated” with the word In this way, learners may acquire knowledge of both grammar and several collocations at the same time To sum up, given the importance of grammar in teaching and learning collocations, teachers should know how to integrate teaching grammatical rules with equipping students with patterns of lexical co-occurrence

The second thing to be taken into account is that “the meaning of a [word] can vary systematically with structural context” (Finegan, 2004, p

351) For instance, the word treat in the two following sentences means differently First, in The orphan was treated humanely by his foster parents, it refers to “handling somebody in a particular way” Meanwhile, in The disease has been treated successfully, it means “giving somebody medical treatment”

In each context, it requires suitable collocates, which are usually not similar This emphasis on the context is also approved of by Lewis (2000, p 19) He believes in the importance of leaving “as much language as possible in the form in which we find it.” That means we should “avoid breaking it up; keep something of the context and keep the chunks which are recorded as large as

possible.” By way of illustration, it is advisable to tell students to record have genuine sympathy for instead of sympathy for In conclusion, when teaching

the collocates of a word to students, the teacher needs to draw their attention to the context in which it is used, emphasize its meaning in that particular context and remind them to determine its correct significance in other contexts so that

they can produce suitable collocations

From Lewis‟s point of view (2000, p 18), it is noticeable that the words

in collocations are often not new or difficult As a consequence, students usually do not pay careful attention to them This in turn results in a multitude

of valuable collocations being unnoticed and unavailable for storage and re-use

by learners That is to say, it is necessary for teachers to draw students‟ attention to the collocations in a text However, given the familiarity of the words in collocations, it would be of virtually no use if students are asked

whether they find anything unclear For example, when the sentence The government received heavy criticism for raising taxes is being worked on, there

is no point in requiring learners to decipher the meaning of criticism or received heavy criticism since they will have no difficulty working it out

Instead, teachers should elicit in a way that helps them notice the combination

verb + adjective + noun + preposition + Ving All things considered, it is

advisable for teachers to elicit answers about useful word combinations in a text from students first Then, they should point out certain collocations for them only if it is absolutely necessary and tell them to note down the collocations in full Nevertheless, this teacher-centered approach should only

be adopted for students at lower levels because they lack the ability to sense which phrase is a collocation As for more advanced learners, reminding them

to look out for useful collocations in a text and record them for re-use may be sufficient as they are capable of detecting collocations themselves

Another important consideration is that keeping a record of collocations

is essential, but it is just not enough for students to remember them and may not serve to produce any real improvements in the collocational quality of learners‟ speech or written work In order for those collocations to be useful later, they must be recycled That can be done with the help of a variety of activities such as filling in gapped collocations with a suitable word, reconstructing a short text from which some collocations are taken and so on (Hill, Lewis and Lewis, 2000, pp 90 – 91) In conclusion, teachers should design suitable activities that enable students to recycle the newly acquired collocations

Lewis (2000, p 22) believes that even though improving students‟ performance is an integral part of the teacher‟s job, it may cause a loss of motivation if every single collocational error is pointed out and corrected That

is to say, teachers need to develop an instinct for when and how to rectify students‟ mistakes about collocations

Biskup (1992, quoted in Ying and Hendricks, 2002, p 69) thinks it is vital that raising students‟ awareness of the importance of learning and using collocations should be given top priority before great emphasis is laid on teaching them The reason is being aware of this issue may encourage students

to make a conscious attempt to learn collocations and put them into practice Meanwhile, there is a strong possibility that even second language learners at intermediate level may not have full awareness of this at all

Like Biskup, Woolard (2000, p 30) suggests that before teaching collocations, teachers should raise students‟ awareness of this concept To this end, a record of their collocation errors should be kept in the process of correcting their writings Afterwards, at suitable times, those examples should

be brought to the classroom to “improve and extend vocabulary teaching” However, for learners who have no prior knowledge of collocation, limiting the

selection of collocation mistakes to familiar noun-verb and adjective-noun

combinations should be prioritized because dealing with too many types of collocations at the same time may be counter-productive as a result of students‟ being inundated with information For example, a good starting point is to

teach them simple verb-noun combinations including make and do Besides, it

is essential to remind them that there is no point in questioning why this word, not that word, collocates with another one, thereby emphasizing the reason why they should make a serious effort to learn correct collocations

Additionally, according to Hill (2000, p 64), even though there are four types of collocations, namely unique, weak, strong and medium-strength collocations as previously mentioned, the focus of teaching is on the last type because it accounts for a large part of what we say and write

Woolard (2000, pp 32-33) is also concerned with which types of collocations should be focused on In his opinion, there are two types of nouns that teachers should take into consideration in the process of teaching

collocations First, high-content words like penicillin have few common collocates, whereas less lexicalized items such as drug have a much greater

collocational field Regarding how to teach the former, “decontextualized learning of individual words such as translation may be adequate.” However, teaching the latter does involve contextualization That is to say:

Teachers must develop their awareness of the differing degrees of lexicalisation of words and recognize that different types of vocabulary may need differing degrees of co-textual reference, and therefore, different teaching techniques

At the same time, they “also need to develop their students' sensitivity to this spectrum of lexicalisation, and provide practice in separating nouns into high-content items and less lexicalised items.” This is because it may help “students focus their co-textual searches on the more common and useful items in the

texts they meet, for example, words like drug rather than penicillin.”

Furthermore, Lewis (2000, p 35) thinks that teachers do not play a central role in students‟ learning collocations apart from pointing them out Besides, collocation is mostly related to noticing and keeping a record In other words, it is particularly suitable for independent learning Therefore, teachers

should only take on the responsibility for instructing students to explore a text for themselves, for this will be highly beneficial in the long run

In addition, Mackin (quoted in Bahns, 1993) estimates that advanced learners of English should know tens of thousands of collocations The questions arising are:

 Is there a way to reduce these enormous learning and teaching loads?

 Does the learner really have to learn all of these collocations?

According to Bahns (1993), there is no need to do so According to the findings

of his research, there is direct translational equivalence for a large number of English verb-noun collocations compared with German This may be applicable to other second languages Consequently, the implication is to make

an effort to select and pay particular attention to teaching and learning collocations with no direct translational equivalence in the mother tongue

As Woolard (2000, p 32) puts it, teachers are likely to make use of their EFL coursebooks for teaching collocations This can be done by highlighting the collocations in them and “adding exercises which focus explicitly on co-text.” For example, when working with a text that contains the two sentences

She holds very strong views on marriage She thinks everybody should be married in a church, teachers may design a follow-up vocabulary task that requires students to fill in the gapped text with a verb and adjective collocating

with view Hill (2000, p 59) also believes that popular EFL coursebooks

contain interesting texts that include a large number of useful collocational expressions However, teachers should take into careful consideration how they exploit the texts to teach collocations effectively

Finally, Lewis (2000, p 186) is concerned with choosing the right texts when teaching collocations In his opinion, collocations are present in texts of all types; however, “different kinds of text have radically different collocational profiles” For instance, it is typical of academic writing or a newspaper article to contain “collocations of a small number of key nouns”, whereas there is not a high density of collocations in novels or readers In other words, teachers should take into account selecting the right type of text for particular learners

In conclusion, all of the issues raised above are practical guidelines for teachers as a second language in the process of teaching collocations They should refer to them to be better informed about how to change their teaching

of collocations for the better

1.2 Language awareness

1.2.1 What is awareness?

According to the Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary (7th

edition), awareness means “knowing something; knowing that something exists and is important; being interested in something.”

In the opinion of Cardenas (2010), awareness refers to the “ability to perceive, to feel, or to be conscious of events, objects or sensory patterns …”

In biological psychology, awareness is defined as “a human‟s or an animal‟s perception and cognitive reaction to a condition or event.”

1.2.2 What is language awareness?

According to Little (1997), language awareness can be understood in two senses First, it refers to “a person‟s sensitivity to and conscious awareness of the nature of language and its role in human life” (Donmall, 1985, p 7) In this sense, language awareness is “knowledge about language that is imparted to learners through schooling” Second, in psycholinguistics, language awareness

means “the awareness that learners have of language, independently of conscious reflection on language” (Nicholas, 1991, p 78) In other words,

language awareness is “part of our innate capacity for acquiring and processing language” In Little‟s opinion, it must not be assumed that one kind of language awareness is “easily convertible into the other” However, it is obvious that both of them “exist in our heads, so that in principle both may be implicated in language learning and language use” (1997)

Based on his above-mentioned definition of awareness in general, Cardenas (2010) defined language awareness as “explicit knowledge about language, and conscious perception and sensitivity in language learning, language teaching and language use.” It is also means having “good knowledge about language, a conscious understanding of how languages work, of how people learn them and use them.”

From the viewpoint of Bolitho et al (2003):

Language awareness is a mental attribute which develops through paying motivated attention to language in use, and which enables language learners to gradually gain insights into how languages work

1.2.3 Levels of language awareness

There are three levels of language awareness, according to Cardenas

(2010) The first level is attention More specifically, students at this level of

language awareness pay attention to and are curious about particular features of

the target language The second level is noticing, which means learners are able

to register consciously the occurrence of some event Students are at this level when they notice the gaps between what they produce and what is regarded as acceptable in the target language Finally, learners reach the highest level of

language awareness – understanding – if they recognize general rules,

principles or patterns about a language phenomenon In fact, there is no awareness of something without having an understanding of it

1.2.4 The role of language awareness

According to Cardenas (2010), language awareness is of major importance because it is necessary for restructuring “the learner‟s mental representation of the language.” To make it clearer, if students have some degree of conscious awareness, their better understanding of a language phenomenon may be developed, thereby enabling them to correct their previous mistakes about that language phenomenon

According to Little (1997, quoted in Ying and Hendricks, 2002), language awareness also involves “the development of a psychological relation to one‟s learning content and process.” That means “once learners are more aware of a process through which something is learned, they are more likely to apply this process again” As a result, “a higher level of awareness may help learners to develop independence in learning in the long run.”

Among the levels of language awareness discussed above, one important level is “noticing”, which is regarded as a major step in learning According to Schmidt and Frota (1986, quoted in Ying and Hendricks, 2002), “those who notice most learn most” In addition, associating “what learners pay attention to

in reception with their target production may perform a „noticing‟ function” In other words, if students are encouraged to apply what they have noticed, they may become aware of their own linguistic gaps, for example the difference

“between what they produce and what is regarded as acceptable in the target language” This in turn may urge students to find solutions to those gaps

Pienemann and Tomlinson (quoted in Bolitho et al., 2003) also have the same opinion when saying that “noticing” may make a feature more important,

“so that it becomes more noticeable in future input, and thereby contributes to the learner‟s psychological readiness to acquire that feature.”

1.2.5 How to increase students’ language awareness in teaching writing

Given the importance of language awareness as discussed above, it is necessary that increasing students‟ language awareness should be a priority to teachers, who can do so by taking into consideration the following things: According to Bio, one method teachers can adopt to increase students‟ language awareness is to help them “learn concepts in the second language through an examination of their own language‟s structure and use, either due to similarities or differences between them.” This may be of use in enabling students to notice gaps in their knowledge For example, in order to help students be aware of collocation in writing, teachers can draw their attention to their mistakes about collocations and provide them with the correct ones Second, learners‟ language awareness can be increased by helping them have a

positive attitude toward the target language through being conscious of effective learning strategies This is because being aware of those strategies may help students “become more active in and more responsible for their own learning.” In writing, for instance, teachers can introduce students to practical methods of learning collocations Finally, students‟ language awareness may

be heightened if what they have learned is integrated in other classes, in other words, is applied to other courses By way of illustration, the collocations students learn in their writing class can be applied to their speaking class

In Tomlinson‟s opinion (1994, quoted in Bolitho et al., 2003), in order for students‟ language awareness to be heightened, the main thing teachers should

do is to “help learners notice for themselves how language is typically used so that they will note the gaps and achieve learning readiness.” As can be seen, this strategy is similar to the first one proposed by Bio above

Furthermore, another method to increase students‟ language awareness in writing is to encourage students to read widely since “the person who writes well is usually the one who has read widely” (Ross, 1968, p 253) This is because one may observe through reading “what the patterns of the language are” This means through observing while reading, one may gradually build awareness of those patterns, then by conscious awareness and “conscious manipulation of these patterns in writing, he can develop control over their use” (Ross, 1968, p 253)

In conclusion, the above-mentioned may be considered as guidelines for teachers to increase students‟ language awareness in general and in writing in particular However, how this can be done depends a lot on the activities or