Review of previous studies related to the research- 123docz.net

1.1.1. Related research 1

- Title of the research: Applying semantic theory into vocabulary teaching

- Issue raised: The researcher carried out the study to examine collocational knowledge of eight advanced EFL learners of English.

- Contribution: The results showed that these students did not succeed in completing a collocational grid that included adjective-noun collocations although vocabulary was not a problematic matter. The researcher emphazised that presenting highly frequent collocates for learners when they start is really important.

1.1.2. Related research 2

- Title of the research: The acquisition of basic collocations by Japanese learners of English

- Issues raised: The findings were based on two types of analyses; a corpus-based analysis to identify basic collocations and an empirical analysis to examine how Japanese learners develop knowledge of collocation.

- Contribution: The researcher came to such a conclusion that there was a significant positive relationship between learners‟ general knowledge of vocabulary and their knowledge of collocations. The knowledge of the learners‟ on receptive collocation tasks of was better than their productive ones, and the learner had difficulty with some collocation categories, such as adjective-noun collocations in comparison with others

1.1.3. Related research 3

- Title of the research: Research methods in education and psychology: Integrating diversity with quantitative & qualitative approaches

(LUAN.VAN.THAC.SI).A.study.on.common.errors.related.to.the.usage.of.DO.and.MAKE.collocations.by.English.non.major.students.at.Thai.Nguyen.University.of.Economics.and.Business.Administration.(TUEBA)(LUAN.VAN.THAC.SI).A.study.on.common.errors.related.to.the.usage.of.DO.and.MAKE.collocations.by.English.non.major.students.at.Thai.Nguyen.University.of.Economics.and.Business.Administration.(TUEBA)(LUAN.VAN.THAC.SI).A.study.on.common.errors.related.to.the.usage.of.DO.and.MAKE.collocations.by.English.non.major.students.at.Thai.Nguyen.University.of.Economics.and.Business.Administration.(TUEBA)(LUAN.VAN.THAC.SI).A.study.on.common.errors.related.to.the.usage.of.DO.and.MAKE.collocations.by.English.non.major.students.at.Thai.Nguyen.University.of.Economics.and.Business.Administration.(TUEBA)

- Issues raised: By using two instruments: pretreatment and post-treatment translation tests, Marton investigated Polish learners‟ knowledge of collocations and their abilities to use them.

- Contribution: The researcher found that there were no significant differences in the participants‟ scores on the two translation tests, which confirmed learners‟ poor productive knowledge of collocations. Marton, therefore, concluded that learners‟

limited exposure to collocation could not improve their productive knowledge of those structures.

1.1.4. Related research 4

- Title of the research: The Acquisition of Basic Collocations by Japanese Learners of English

-Issues raised: In Matsuno and Sugiura‟s study, the researcher probed the question of whether the collocational expressions of L1 Japanese learners of English resemble those of native speakers. Two types of corpora were used to compare the performance of the two groups. The Japanese learners were asked to write about a certain topic as fast as possible and they were allowed to use dictionaries.

- Contribution: The researcher‟s conclusions also confirmed that Japanese learners of English were poor at collocational knowledge.

1.1.5. Related research 5

- Title of the research: Should we teach EFL students collocations

- Issues raised: The pretreatment and post-treatment translation tests, consisting of a translation task and a gap-filling task were conducted among advanced learners of English with German as a native language

- Contribution: The study showed that the students‟ knowledge of collocations had not developed at the same rate as their knowledge of vocabulary in general.

1.1.6. Related research 6

- Title of the research: Prefabricated patterns in Advanced EFL writing:

collocations and formulae in A. P. Cowie (ed.): Phraeology. Theory, analysis and applications

- Issues raised: The researcher investigated the role of the first language and acquisition of collocations among French learners of English

- Contribution: Granger‟s study confirmed the important role that learners‟ L1 plays in the use and acquisition of collocations. In this study, the researcher studied the difference between native speakers of English and French learners of English in producing English collocations, in particular adjective amplifiers, such as totally and highly. It was found that amplifiers with direct translation equivalents in French were the most frequent ones. She attributed that finding to the L1 positive transfer that facilitated learners‟ acquisition of the similar amplifiers to their L1 (French).

1.1.7. Related research 7

- Title of the research: Do English language learners know collocations?

- Issues raised: Martynska conducted the study of English collocation competencies among intermediate high school Polish students. To collect data, the researcher used different types of tests, for example, matching, a completion, circling the correct option, and identifying and correcting errors in underlined parts of sentences.

- Contribution: The findings showed that the students performed poorly on all tasks.

One important result was that their collocation competence did not depend on the length of time of learning English because the student studying English for a short time performed better on the English tests than those who studied English for longer time. Moreover, in comparison between two types of task, it was found that some students got higher scores on the multiple-choice tasks but lower scores on the completion tasks. This confirmed that the production of collocation among the students was much lower than their receptive skills. Therefore, more attention to collocations when teaching English should be paid in the teaching and learning process.

1.1.8. Related research 8

- Title of the research: The acquisition of collocation by Turkish EFL learners.

- Issues raised: Elyildirm examined the comprehension and production of the target collocations of the first language (L1) Turkish learners of English. By using three

collocation tests: correct or incorrect test, translation test and a gap-filling test including two collocation categories, i.e. verb-noun collocations and adjective-noun collocations,

- Contribution: The researcher found that the negative influence of L1 on the production of collocations was quite clear. In fact, participants tended to generalize unfamiliar combinations in reference to the familiar ones that learners frequently encountered in the textbook. Learners also have a tendency to incorrectly overgeneralize their L1 collocational knowledge with unknown collocations, which resulted in L1 negative transfer. The researcher also confirmed that acquiring collocations that have L1 equivalent was easier than that of acquiring collocations that have no L1 equivalents. Additionally, comparing two types of test it was observed that the participants performed better on the adjective-noun collocation test than verb-noun-collocation test, which they found to be more difficult. The researcher recommended the teaching of common collocations and suggested learners to spend much time reading and listening to improve their knowledge of collocations instead of avoiding them.

1.1.9. Related research 9

- Title of the research: The use of collocations by advanced learners of English and some implications for teaching

- Issues raised: Nesslhauf carried out an exploratory study about the use of verb- noun collocations by advanced learners of English and some implications for teaching The researcher pointed out the types of mistakes that learners make and the influence of the degree of restriction of a combination and the influence of the learners‟ L1 on the production of collocations.

- Contribution: The research showed that the highest rate of mistakes occurs in combination with a medium degree of restriction in combination where the verb only takes a few nouns, they are less aware of restrictions in combination where the verb takes a wider range of nouns. And, in free combinations and idioms, only a few minor types of mistakes that were not observed in the analysis of collocation

were identified. The findings pointed out that the major types of mistakes that occurred were the same as in collocation. The degree of restriction does not have a major influence on the types and amount of mistakes learners make, except that collocations with a low degree of restriction are the most difficult kind of combination for the learners. In short, the results showed that almost a quarter of the combinations contained one or several mistakes with non-lexical elements like the articles and prepositions belonging to a combination, not only verb-noun mismatches. However, the most common type of mistake was the wrong choice of verbs. Therefore, the researcher recommended that teachers should focus on the verb in the teaching of verb-noun collocations.

1.1.10. Related research 10

- Title of the research: A study of collocation behaviors on lexical pragmatics

- Issues raised: The study described how collocation behaviors of near synonyms can be recognized from contextual usage data in corpora to improve L2 lexical meaning. Concordance and computational techniques were used to analyze collocates in corpora. Three transitive verb; cause, promote and commit in students‟

corpus were analyzed to explore the potential of lexical collocation information, and to observe their collocation behaviors and pragmatic implications.

- Contribution: The study showed that the use of collocation profile as an effective instrument in recognizing and learning semantic meaning and pragmatic implications of lexical items was necessary. The findings suggested that it could be beneficial for L2 learners to observe the collocates of near synonyms so that recognition of pragmatic characteristics could help improve their lexical usage.

Taken together, these studies focused on studying collocations in use, and examined learners‟ competence of using English collocations. The instruments used to collect results were mainly the application of different tests. It could be said that the use of tests was effective for researchers to evaluate learners‟ errors on using collocations.

Most of the researchers reached conclusions that collocation knowledge of learners studying English as foreign language was insufficient and teaching or learning

collocations should be paid more attention due to the assumption that collocation teaching and learners‟ development of their collocation competence are necessary and important in order to achieve the globalized standards of English.

My research differs from these previous studies in the following ways;

- First, its scale was much narrower and more specific and limited in a small piece of language use, but directly relevant to students‟ collocation learning.

- Second, the research was carried out in the real EFL classroom where Vietnamese is the learners‟ native language.

- Finally, the study investigated errors related to the usage of collocations by examining the use of each element.

Review of previous studies related to the research area of the thesis

Collocations, free compounds, and idioms