VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÁCH KẾT HỢP TỪ TRONG KỸ NĂNG VIẾT IELTS ĐỐI VỚI SINH VIÊN NĂM TƯ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

Collocational knowledge is at the heart of vocabulary learning and enables language learners to produce flawless language. Nevertheless, the use of collocation is more problematic on productive language skills, especially in writing because written contexts require precision in the use of words. This research has aimed at examining the 4th year students’ usage of collocations in IELTS-based writing quantitatively and qualitatively, hoping to give suggestions to help the last year students at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education (FELTE, ULIS) effectively work on collocations. Data for the study were collected from 200 last year students at FELTE by using questionnaires, in-class IELTS-based essays and writing portfolio. The results show that students considered collocations significantly important and useful in English academic success but knotty to deal with. Because of its thorny feature, a large number of students are of low frequency of learning collocation. Statistical analysis indicates that the number of collocations, correct collocations and infrequent collocations produced by the last year students was not sufficiently large. Students mainly produced the type of Adj+N collocations and used vastly frequent ones in their writing. Unacceptable collocations were resulted from different causes but mainly due to their misuse of verb. Finally, pedagogical implications and suggestions for further research are provided on the basis of the research findings.

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

THE USE OF ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS IN IELTS-ORIENTED WRITING: A CASE STUDY OF

Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Linh Yên, PHD Student: Nguyễn Thị Trang

Course: QH2010.F1.E13

HÀ NỘI - 2014

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÁCH KẾT HỢP TỪ TRONG KỸ NĂNG VIẾT IELTS ĐỐI VỚI SINH VIÊN NĂM TƯ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG

I certify that this work contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in my name, in any university or other tertiary institutions and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains

no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text

In addition, I certify that no part of this work will, in the future, be used

in a submission in my name, for any other degree or diploma in any university

or other tertiary institutions without the prior approval of the University of Languages and International Studies

Signature:

Date:

I would like to express my great gratitude to my lecturers, family and friends who inspired and encouraged me in the completion of this thesis First and foremost, thanks are due to all of my lecturers at University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS) who have enthusiastically taught and guided for four years at university Specially, from the bottom of my heart, I would like to thank my supervisors whose rigorous academic coaching, personal support, and inexhaustible enthusiasm have been an invaluable spur Their pioneering views on the units of language acquisition have inspired me to further research on collocations The two supervisors are so open-minded, energetic and extremely patient They carefully read all my writings and spent

a lot of time analyzing and discussing my data and encouraged me to consider

in various point of views Without the help of the two linguistic experts, this thesis would have been far weaker

Next my thanks go to all of the students at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, ULIS Their enthusiasm and cooperation significantly contributed to the data collection I am further thankful to ten participants for their willingness to spending time writing essays for my research I also owe thanks to many other researchers who have made existing researches

Finally, my greatest thanks are reserved for my family who has given me the opportunity to pursue my academic career Especially, I would like to thank my parents for their unconditional and understanding support

in English academic success but knotty to deal with Because of its thorny feature, a large number of students are of low frequency of learning collocation Statistical analysis indicates that the number of collocations, correct collocations and infrequent collocations produced by the last year students was not sufficiently large Students mainly produced the type of Adj+N collocations and used vastly frequent ones in their writing Unacceptable collocations were resulted from different causes but mainly due

to their misuse of verb Finally, pedagogical implications and suggestions for further research are provided on the basis of the research findings

Table of Contents

List of Tables

List of Figures

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1. Statement of the problem

It is widely known that writing has been an essential skill benefiting individuals for the rest of their lives Well-written expression, undoubtedly, is

a key to future success in spite of one’s age, gender or career Writing is more than just putting on paper what has already existed in one’s head By no means is it an exercise in English grammar or vocabulary, but the exercise of thinking critically In school, college, workplace or in society, writing has become a vital tool to assess one's knowledge, and intellectuality One, in other words, is judged by the quality of writing that he/she possesses An effective writing makes vivid impressions on others whereas poor one is likely

to hinder writers from conveying concise and self-explanatory messages Particularly, writing plays an indispensable part in every English degree exams for second language learners and IELTS examination makes no exception It evaluates how well candidates are able to structure and frame their thoughts and how clearly they express them Similarly, IELTS writing section ensures test takers’ competence of English communication, as a second language, in written form Most native speakers, as a matter of fact, crave for writing accurately and effectively even on what they are well aware of, casts

no doubt on the fact that writing, as most foreign language learners shrink from, is the most difficult skill Needless to say, it is not easy at all for a non-native speaker to do something that an average native speaker usually finds a tough job to do An IELTS considerably successful writing is not simply to put chunks of utterance together which many students mistake; in contrast, it is a

type of academic writing attached standards to assess adequate band scores

Of many criteria, collocational competence, the cornerstone of every language, instantly considered leading one to evaluate an advanced foreign language learner Assessors, obviously, make no hesitation to praise candidates for their proficient use of collocations which partly indicates their master of foreign language Nevertheless, students taking IELTS examination, influenced by many factors, fail to write effectively The lack of collocational competence often leads learners to “create longer utterances/ paraphrases because they do not know the collocations which express precisely what they

want to say” (Michael Lewis, 2000) If students use poverty breeds

crimes”instead of writing poverty causes crimes, or excruciating pain, burst into tears instead of painful or cry, they will be highly appreciated It is,

therefore, imperative that students should realize the undeniable significance

of collocation in writing Had students been aware of its outstanding importance, they would have deliberated on it much more meticulously

1.2. Research objectives

This study is, first of all, to examine the 4th year students’ attitude towards collocations and collocation learning in IELTS-based writing, whether learners underestimate or overstate collocations’ significance

Secondly, it directly aims at identifying the real use of collocations by the last year students in IELTS-oriented writing, types of collocations as well

as collocational errors produced in their writing Moreover, the last year students’ use of collocations in IELTS-based writing between year four and previous year is also compared

1.3. Research questions

The study was designed to address the following research questions:

1 What is the attitude of the 4th year students of the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, ULIS to collocations and English collocation learning in IELTS-based writing?

2 How do students at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, ULIS use collocations in IELTS-based writing?

1.4. Significance of the study

First and foremost, the study will be to help students deeply understand the importance of collocations in IELTS writing in particular and in English learning as a second language in general, discover students’ common errors and offer feasible recommendations Once realizing problems, students themselves are able to draw lessons or experience of applying collocations to not only writing but speaking or other skill as well Students’ English competence, hence, is improved and considered more native-like speakers’ which is highly appreciated in nowadays English speaking world On the other hand, it is also useful for students’ future career When interviewing or working in an English environment, students who speak or write more

collocationally or idiomatically may be chosen or accepted as a proficient foreign language speaker.

In addition, to my mind, this study is likely to offer a useful source of materials for teachers Basing on the result of the research, teachers can thoroughly see the weak points of students in writing collocationally Therefore, teachers know how to adapt their teaching properly to best assist students to improve writing skills

1.5. Organization of the study

This research report is divided into five main parts: introduction to the study, literature review, research methodology, results & discussion and conclusions

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, theoretical backgrounds and related literature reviews that are relevant to the present paper would be briefly mentioned The first section gives an explanation of the definition of collocations and approaches to the study of collocations Likewise, classifications as well as characteristics of collocations are of great importance that would be clarified subsequently The next section examines differences of collocations and other combination of words as well as linguists’ perspectives on collocations Also, significance, the use of collocations in native and nonnative writing, common errors are considerably inserted Finally, reviews on general IELTS are briefly presented

that poses problems to most foreign language learners or even native speakers The way of defining collocations, therefore, has not yet come to an agreement among linguists Firth seems to be the pioneer describing the so-called collocations which are “statements of the habitual or customary places of that word” (1957:181) Firth’s landmark, afterwards, was covered in depth by many other linguists In word of McIntosh (2009: v), he defines collocations

as “the way words combine in a language to produce natural-sounding speech

and writing” like thick eyebrows, to commit suicide, to reject a proposal

There are two main views of the phenomenon being identified as the phraseological approach and the frequency-based approach (Nesselhauf, 2005:12) According to the frequency-based definition, a collocation is said to

be the co- occurrence of words at a frequency that is higher than expected if words were combined arbitrarily in a language In the phraseological definition, “collocations are associations of two or more lexemes (or roots) recognized in and defined by their occurrence in a specific range of grammatical constructions (Kjellmer 1990:3169)

To sum up, much as collocations are defined, they share a common viewpoint that collocations are collections of words fitting together In the paper, I trust Lewis’s simple concept that: “A collocation is two or more words that tend to occur together” (Lewis, 2000: 73) as his definition best exposes the phenomenon I have studied

2.1.2 Approaches to the study of collocations

Firth, at the first start, laid the foundation on collocations with the lexical composition approach Later on two more approaches: semantic and structural approaches were enlightened focusing on different aspects of collocations

2.1.2.1 The lexical composition approach

Firth’s study (1957) yielded the results that “meaning by collocation is an abstraction at the syntagmatic level and is not directly concerned with the conceptual or idea approach to the meaning of words” (1957:196) One of the

meanings of night is its collocability with dark, and of dark, of course, collocation with night He noted that words acquire meaning from the words

they co-occur with, entirely isolate from grammar Halliday and Hasan (1976)

took Firth’s theory a further step, emphasized the significance of lexical collocations Words showing similarities in their collocational restrictions are

grouped into lexical sets For example, words bright, shine and light belong to the same lexical set as they frequently collocate with the word moon

2.1.2.2 The semantic approach

In this approach, semanticists assumed that the meaning of a lexical item

is perceived as a combination of the semantic properties of that item They

attempted to explain why we use flawless performance but not unblemished

performance or why butchers, bakers, and grocers have customers, but solicitors and architects have clients

2.1.2.3 The structural approach

Collocations have been considered insufficient when investigating under lexical composition and semantic approach It should be viewed in its structure that implies grammar is indispensably included Greenbaum (1974) proposed that certain instances of collocations require syntactic information

For instance much collocates with prefer when it is in a pre-verb position as in

I much prefer a dry wine, but it does not collocate with prefer in post-object

position as in I prefer a dry wine much.

2.1.3 Classification of collocations

Linguists, in attempt to specify collocations, have indentified fundamental similarities and categorized them into different groups It sounds that classification of collocations has been controversial as semanticists, lexicographers put forward dissimilar criteria when classifying Mackin (1975) grouped collocations into restricted collocations and open collocations

whereas Wood (1981) divided collocations into idioms, colligations and free combinations on the basis of a semantic and a syntactic criterion in a continuum Four years later, Benson’s proposal, the most common and understandable, appeared According to Benson, collocations can be divided into two subtypes: “grammatical collocations and lexical collocations” (1985) Grammatical collocations contain a dominant word (verb, noun, adjective) and

a dependent word (preposition, the dative-movement transformation, clause, or to + infinitival + gerund.) verb + preposition make up a collocation

that-such as put on, take in, account for Similarly, we have afraid of, full of are

collocations created by putting adjective + preposition together or preposition

+ noun (by chance, by mistake…) Lexical collocations, in contrast, are the

combination of equal components such as verb + noun or adjective + noun

(reach a conclusion, rancid butter, cogent argument) The following table

presents classification of collocations and examples introduced by Benson (1985)

Table 1: Classification of collocations

● (to) get at, (to) go for

● different from, curious about, full

of

● fed up with

● for sale, on time

● She sent the book to him/ She sent him the book

● He described the book to me/ *He described me the book

Lexical collocations:

●verb + noun (pronoun,

(to) reach a verdict, (to) launch a missile, (to)

lift a ) blockade, (to) revoke a license

● reckless abandon, sweeping generalization

● adjectives modify, alarms go off

● a bunch of flowers, a piece of advice

● deeply religious, fiercely independent

● (to) apologize humbly, (to) affect deeply

collocation make/take a decision, one element of a collocation is considered to

be restricted in its combinability The verbs are said to “have a rather wide and vague meaning and collocate with many different nouns” (Aisenstadt 1981:57), while the noun is restricted in its combinability, but is not always limited to only one verb (Aisenstadt 1981:56) Under the combinability aspect,

a collocation consists of two parts that are ‘node’, a core word, and

‘collocates’ co-occurring with a node in a corpus For instance, make/take a

decision, make/take are the ‘collocates’ and a decision is the ‘node’ which is

pivotal Therefore, in this collocation, there are two possibilities of collocates,

make and take, to combine with the noun, a decision The present study

focuses on the combinability of the ‘nodes’ of collocation, since the possibilities of combinability in a collocation are more limited than those of the ‘collocates’ Thus, this collocation involves the ‘collocates’ that are able to combine with more than one element and it is not restricted in the possibility

of combining with different words In the case of common sense, deeply

involved, sense and involved are the ‘node’ and common, deeply are the

‘collocates’

2.1.4.2 Transparency

Collocations are transparent in addition to the combinability of one of the two elements in a collocation Transparency is generally deemed to mean whether the elements of the combination and the combination itself have a literal or a non-literal meaning (Nesselhauf 2005) When a collocate of a collocation is ‘literal’, the collocation is [+transparency], and when a collocate

is ‘non-literal’ it is regarded as [-transparency] For example, in the set of “ask

a question”, the literal meaning of the verb “ask” is used to mean to speak or

write to someone in order to get an answer, information, or a solution, it is

literally understood, so “ask a question” is [+transparency] In contrast, “meet

someone’s needs”, the literal meaning of the verb “meet” is not used but the

figurative meaning of “meet” is used, so this set is [-transparency].

2.1.5 Collocations, idioms and other word combinations

Words can be combined in such numerous ways to form meaningful groups that it is not clear-cut to clarify collocations, idioms and other word

combinations In Wood's point of view (1981), he adopted both semantic and syntactic criteria for distinguishing collocations from idioms, colligations, and free combinations Collocations are sequences of words which habitually co-occur and whose meanings can be derived compositionally; they often permit

a limited degree of substitution of their component words such as fully aware,

excruciating pain, ceasefire agreement, burst into tears…whereas idioms,

according to Benson et al (1985), refer to relatively frozen expressions whose

meanings do not reflect the meanings of their component parts like to kill two

birds with one stone, to kick the bucket, to spill the beans are examples of

idioms And a free combination is a combination of words following only the general rules of syntax: the elements are not bound specifically to each other

and they can be substituted with other lexical items freely (read a book, read a

newspaper, read a magazine, write a book, borrow a book) (Benson et al.,

1985) Furthermore, one point to distinguish collocation and idiom is that we can relatively guess the meaning through component words in one collocation

In the example of commit murder through the word commit which means carry

out and murder, the unlawful killing of one human being by another, we may guess the whole meaning of the collocation Idiom, nevertheless, cannot be acquired its meaning by adding all meaning of words within an idiom For

instance, take the bull by the horns which means face and tackle a difficulty

without shirking can be translated literally Nonetheless, there is sometimes a fragile string among collocations, idioms and word combinations; some

linguists regard “kick the bucket” as collocations whereas others consider it an

idiom

2.1.6 Overview

Related works on collocations and the use of collocations in foreign language learning providing underlying knowledge are briefly presented in this section It is Firth (1957) who is widely regarded as the father of collocations and the developer of a lexical and the most traditional approach to this phenomenon Since then, collocations have been documented and became

a fascinating subject to researchers Halliday and Hasan (1976) are Firth’s followers According to Halliday (1976), language is organized in terms of lexico-grammatical features, rather than independent lexis or grammar Benson, Ilson (1985) and Lewis (1993) have gradually covered the phenomenon in depth by characterizing its classification, features and differences as comparing with other word combinations Aisenstadt (1981)

also expressed his viewpoint through the study “Restricted Collocations in

English Lexicology and Lexicography” (1981) For the sake of English users,

Kjellmer, G (1995) offered “A dictionary of English collocations”

enumerating various collocations Bonk (2000), with regard to perceiving the

use of collocations among learners, carried out the research “Testing ESL

learners’ knowledge of collocations”.

In conclusion, collocations are one of the most problematic areas in second language learning that has been growing concerns among linguists On account of the variety of previous studies, this paper has no intention of covering all theories What the researcher has tried is to acknowledge basic but essential information associated with the research

2.2 Collocations in English writing

2.2.1 Significance of learning collocations

Collocations are particularly important since they make written language stimulating and interesting Nevertheless, the acquisition of collocations is not

as simple for foreign learners as it might be for native speakers of English Halliday and Hasan (1976) called collocation “the most problematic part of lexical cohesion” (1976:288) Collocations are very often language-specific and, therefore, will cause frequent language (production) mistakes and communication breakdown That is, they may present a problem to learners when the native language meaning equivalent uses different collocations There is, in fact, evidence that even native speakers have difficulty collocating certain words in increasingly formal written contexts depending on education and writing experience

It is likely not single words that are always thorny problem for learners, but multi-word units such as collocations Therefore, common combinations

of words should be learnt, not just the individual words For example, Faerch, Haastrup and Philipson (1984) emphasized the importance of learning new words through common collocations They proposed that when a new word is introduced to learners, it may be very helpful to also introduce the most common collocates of that word: “having a word in one’s vocabulary includes knowing the most frequent collocations of that word” (1984: 95)

On the other hand, some linguists argue that some language learners themselves are not aware of the importance of collocations in language learning and, as a result, they pay no attention to learn collocations It is also reported that some collocations may still be difficult to be produced correctly

even by some of the best language learners (Bonk, 2000) That is, even some

of the best language learners may make mistakes in producing L2 collocations

or sometimes are not sure whether a certain word combination is possible or not Collocations, as analyzed, should be taught and learnt adequately because

of its obvious advantages Similarly, English test takers had better spend time learning collocations to make their writing section more concise and attractive

2.2.2 The use of collocations in native and non-native writing

It is supposed that second language learners can acquire collocational associations from exposure to the L2 However, the learning demonstrated in a lab setting may not be found under more normal conditions It is also not clear that memory for collocations will be retained over sufficient lengths of time for stable associations to form Kjellmer (1990) has claimed that even quite advanced learners tend not to use much formulaic language, and that this is a major reason why otherwise competent non-natives can sound unidiomatic Rather than constructing their language phrasally, as native speakers often do, non-natives piece their language together word-by-word, in ways that they can only hope to prove acceptable; as Kjellmer puts it, their “building material is individual bricks, rather than prefabricated sections” (1990: 124) Moreover, from Jiang’s point of view, L2 learners tend to underuse some collocations and seem to overuse other collocations compared to L1 learners (2009), using the same collocations repeatedly in their production instead of choosing between diverse options In line with Jiang, Howarth (1996) presented three main findings Firstly, native writers use more low-frequency combinations than non-natives This trend appears to be fairly consistent across texts, even though it was statistically significant only in the comparison of longer texts

Secondly, non-native writers make at least as much use of collocations with very high t-scores as do natives Since non-natives also tend to repeat certain favoured collocations, if we consider collocation tokens, rather than types, they show a sharp overuse of these strong collocations in comparison to native norms Thirdly, non-native writers significantly underuse collocations with high mutual information scores in comparison with native ones.

2.2.3 The causes of collocational errors

Recent studies have pointed out several factors that may influence learners' performance on making correct collocations The researchers discovered that the collocational errors resulted from analogy, overgeneralization, paraphrase and shortage of collocational knowledge (Bahns, 1993) For instance, Bahns (1993) proclaimed that many English foreign language students’ collocational errors were caused by their L1 interference Some students only understood the basic meaning of the word but did not know which word it would go with Thus, they were not competent

to produce any collocations Others remembered only the translation of the word Therefore, they relied on direct translation to produce collocations like

learn knowledge instead of gain knowledge or absorb knowledge Students,

moreover, did not know that some collocational restrictions were based wholly

on the meaning of the word and range; others did not take grammar into consideration As a result, they produced grammatically unacceptable collocations It is sometimes said that students used overgeneralization when the items did not carry any obvious contrast to them It was the creation of one deviant structure in place of two regular structures on the basis of students’

experience of the target language For example, instead of using am used to

taking, students had used the collocation am used to take, which was a

combination of am used to something and used to take Some learners tend to employ synonyms to combine words such as receive other people's opinion instead of accept other people's opinions These above things are considered

to be causes that learners often make mistakes in writing collocationally correct

2.3 Reviews on IELTS

The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is the joint production of the British Council, the International Development Program of Australian Universities and Colleges (IDP) and the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES) (IELTS Handbook, 2006) It is a specific test officially beginning in 1989 which claims to measure test-takers’ level of language proficiency The test format exists in two versions: “general” and “academic” Listening and speaking modules are the same for general and academic candidates However, reading and writing modules are different in academic and general versions of the test Based on the IELTS administrators, the examination begins with a listening subtest followed by a reading and then writing subtests These three modules are to be taken respectively on one day without any interval Speaking subtest, nevertheless, can be taken before or after these three in a seven day period It can be said that there is no pass or fail mark in the IELTS It ranks from band 0 to 9; band 0 means candidates do not attempt the test, from band 1 to 3 is non-user or extremely limited user; between band 4 and 5, candidates are limited or modest users Band 6 is considered for a competent user From band 7 to 8, candidates are regarded as good English speaking And the last and highest one is band 9 that is supposed for an expert user of English To get high mark in IELTS, candidates have to meet specific criteria Particularly, in terms of speaking and writing,

candidates are expected to satisfy task requirements, use attractive cohesion and a wide range of vocabulary as well as structure correctly and naturally On account of strict criteria, many of candidate all, over the world, continuously make an attempt to sit for IELTS test with high mark.

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research methods including participants, data collection instruments, data collection procedure and data analysis would be clarified in this chapter

3.1 Participants

In order to make statistics accurate and practical, the subjects of study are officially the 4th year students at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education of University of Languages and International Studies (FELTE, ULIS, VNU) This study only involves the last year students due to the fact that the 4th year students are required to take IELTS-based examination as graduation requirement so they are well-fitting for the topic of the research In detail, the survey was conducted among students from QH2010F1E1 to E13 at FELTE 200 participants were employed to respond to questionnaire and 10 students at different levels among these 200 subjects were chosen to write an in-class essay in 45 minutes

3.2 Data collection instruments

For the purpose of this research, and in order to achieve the objectives, both primary and secondary data were extensively employed The secondary data were contributed toward the formation of background information It,

scientifically, provided underlying knowledge of collocation, the field that the study has mentioned In addition, primary data which played crucial role in the research were gathered by using questionnaire, writing portfolio and in-class essay The questionnaire survey was to obtain subjective opinions; students themselves assessed their awareness; whereas students’ writing portfolio and in-class essay were to focus on objective judgments

Questionnaire

Questionnaires were delivered to collect students’ subjective attitude towards collocations and collocation learning as well as their common ways of learning collocations Questionnaire was chosen as one of the research methods since it is effective for the large scale of participants and it is also easy to analyze, data entry and tabulation for nearly all surveys can be easily done with many computer software packages Moreover, it is familiar to most people, especially with FELTE students who have studied research methodology course Three major types of question were used in the questionnaire:

Multiple-choice questions required the respondent to choose an answer

from a list provided with the question The respondent was asked to choose one or more of the alternatives presented Eight first multiple-choice questions are to obtain participants’ general information, subjective judgments of their IELTS score and importance of collocations in writing

Questions for agreement that provided with a list of statements for

students to decide whether they agree, disagree or are not sure were showed They are more specific statements focusing on significance of collocations

Questions for frequency listing in question number ten aimed at asking

for students’ frequency of practicing collocations and their traditional methods

of learning collocations

In-class essay

10 last year students among 200 participants were invited to write an class IELTS-based essay as data to analyze students’ real use of collocations These essays were more likely to reflect the objective results under time pressure The researcher only employed 10 students because essay is far more difficult to collect than questionnaire and it takes longer time to conduct, the researcher also needs to strictly observe participants to avoid external factors when writing and reminds students about time restriction Students were supposed not to be told the research topic so that they would not be influenced

in-by the expression of “collocations” Their essays, hence, were not purely subjective The topic of the essay was taken from IELTS writing exam in April, 2013 at British Council- a prestigious and reliable organizer of IELTS examinations

Writing portfolio

10 students who wrote in-class essays were also the subjects that were asked for their writing portfolio in year three as data to compare whether their use of collocations improves in the period of one year or not The writing portfolio in year three only includes in-class writings or first version writings without edition of the same 10 students The comparison would not be objective and accurate if writings were edited

3.3 Procedure of data collection

The procedure of collecting data could be divided into three main phases

Phase 1: Management of data collection and designing the data collection

instrument

The initial phase is designing student survey questionnaire In any method applied, personal information of all participants was ensured to be kept confidential and anonymous

Phase 2: Data Processing

After the questionnaire had been adjusted, the official questionnaires were finalized and ready to be distributed The process of data collection occurred

in nearly 1 week Approximately 200 questionnaires were printed out and divided equally among the members Questionnaires were distributed among the last year students from at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education For several days, questionnaires were delivered to classes To meet

as many people as possible, the researcher came in breaks between periods and made sure that everyone was given a questionnaire Next, the researcher asked 10 last year participants who still kept in-class writing or first version writings in years three to write a 45-minute in-class essay held in another day Finally, 10 writing portfolio in year three of 10 last year participants in writing in-class essay were collected

Phase 3: Reporting and analyzing data

The researcher ensured that data were released in a carefully planned and systematic manner that provides for full disclosure while protecting the confidentiality and rights of data providers The data was meticulously analyzed and used to answer the research questions