The effects of using collocations in teaching english vocabulary for 11th – grade students at son tay high school

ABSTRACT This paper reports a quasi - experimental research that aimed to address the impacts of collocation teaching on grade 11 students‟ vocabulary improvements.. In this study, 46 st

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



HOÀNG THỊ DUNG

THE EFFECTS OF USING COLLOCATIONS IN TEACHING

SON TAY HIGH SCHOOL

Ảnh hưởng của việc sử dụng kết hợp từ tiếng Anh đến việc học từ

vựng của học sinh lớp 11 trường THPT Sơn Tây

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

HANOI - 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



HOÀNG THỊ DUNG

THE EFFECTS OF USING COLLOCATIONS IN TEACHING

SON TAY HIGH SCHOOL

Ảnh hưởng của việc sử dụng kết hợp từ tiếng Anh đến việc học từ

vựng của học sinh lớp 11 trường THPT Sơn Tây

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Prof Dr Nguyễn Quang

HANOI - 2016

Signed:

Date submitted: Hanoi, …./……/2016

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To accomplish this study, I am indebted to many people for their thoughtful help First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge and thank my supervisor, Prof Dr Nguyen Quang for his valuable guidance, critical feedback and enormous encouragement, without which my thesis would be far from completion

I am also grateful to all the lectures of the Graduate Department, University of Languages and International Studies for their guidance and enthusiasm during my course

My sincere thanks go to all English teachers and 11th – grade students at Son Tay High school

Finally, I would like to express my thanks to my friends who are willing to help me during the course In particular, I find myself indebted to my family, especially my husband, for their love, care and tolerance when I was in the process of conducting and writing this thesis

ABSTRACT

This paper reports a quasi - experimental research that aimed to address the impacts of collocation teaching on grade 11 students‟ vocabulary improvements Data for the study including two proficiency tests and a follow-up questionnaire were collected from 92 students at Son Tay High school

In this study, 46 students who followed the conventional vocabulary teaching methods belong to control group, and 46 others participated in experimental group in which they are exposed to different strategies related to collocation learning The scores taken from the two tests were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for Windows version 20.0 software package The results show that English collocation teaching has improved the students‟ vocabulary learning The findings from the questionnaire indicate that students also have positive attitude towards the new vocabulary teaching method They have become well aware of the collocations‟ importance in language learning And they have also developed the habit

of learning collocations independently outside the classroom The findings from the tests and the questionnaire support each other to affirm the undeniable positive effects

of the collocation teaching Recommendations for students‟ English vocabulary improvements and suggestions for further studies are provided on the basis of the research findings as well

TABLES OF CONTENTS

Statement of authorship………i

Acknowledgements……….….ii

Abstract……….…… iii

Tables of contents……… iv

Lists of Abbreviations………vii

Lists of Tables, Figures……… ……… viii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale……… ………1

2 Aims of the study……… 3

3 Research questions………3

4 Scope of the study……… ……… 4

5 Significance of the study ……… 4

6 Organization of the study……… 5

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 The role and the importance of vocabulary in ELT……… …… …6

1.2 Collocation ……… 7

1.2.1 Definition of collocation……… ………7

1.2.2 Classification of collocation……… ……….… 9

1.3 Collocation in teaching vocabulary……….13

1.3.1 The importance of using collocation in ELT ……….…13

1.3.2 Directions for teaching collocations in English vocabulary ……… 14

1.3.2.1 Raising the students‟ awareness of the importance of collocations ……….14

1.3.2.2 Making students be well aware of collocations ………14

1.3.2.3 Teaching collocations through exercises ……… 16

1.3.2.4 Teaching collocations through context ……….16

1.3.2.5 Storing collocations ……… 16

1.4 Previous studies……… 17

1.5 Summary ……… 18

CHAPTER 2: THE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 2.1 Research method……….19

2.2 Context of the research……… ……….20

2.3 The study……… ……… 20

2.3.1 Participants……… ………20

2.3.2 Data collection instruments……….…….22

2.3.2.1 Pretest and Posttest………22

2.3.2.2 Survey questionnaire……… ……… 23

2.4 Procedure ……… ………24

2.4.1 The pre implementation phase……….25

2.4.2 The implementation phase……… ………26

2.4.3 The post implementation phase……… ……….30

2.5 Summary……… ……… 30

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Results……… ……… 31

3.1.1 Results of Pre-tests……… ………31

3.1.2 Results of the effects of collocation teaching on students‟ English vocabulary learning……… ………32

3.1.3 Results of questionnaire (Students‟ attitude towards collocation teaching)………… ……… ……….… 36

3.2 Discussion……… ………39

3.2.1 Vocabulary gains as resulting from collocation teaching………39

3.2.2 Students‟ attitude towards collocation teaching……… …40

3.3 Summary……… ……… 42

PART C: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 1 Recapitulation……… ……….43

2 Recommendations ………….……… ……….44

3 Limitations of the research……… ……….……….45

4 Suggestions for further study……… ……….…….46

REFERENCES

APPENDIX 1: Test scores

APPENDIX 2: Vocabulary Pre-test

APPENDIX 3: Vocabulary Post-test

APPENDIX 4: Key to the vocabulary Pre-test

APPENDIX 5: Key to the vocabulary Post-test

APPENDIX 6: Survey Questionnaire

APPENDIX 7: Survey Questionnaire (Vietnamese version)

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

L1 Mother tongue

L2 Foreign language

EFL English as Foreign Language

ESL English as Second Language

N Number of Cases or Subjects of the study

p Probability of chance (indicator of significance) Std Deviation Standard Deviation

SPSS Statistic Package for Social Science

t Obtained Value

df Degree of Freedom

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1.1 Lexical Collocations Adopted from Benson et al (1986a) Table 1.2 Grammatical Collocations Adopted from Benson et al (1986a) Table 1.3 Grammatical collocations in G8 group Adopted from Benson

et al (1986a) Table 2.1 The main tasks for three implementation phases

Table 3.1 Descriptive statistics for pretest of the Experimental group and

Control group Table 3.2 Independent Samples T-test of pre-tests

Table 3.3 Results of descriptive statistics of the CG and EG in Pre-test

and Post-test Table 3.4 Result of independent samples t-test of mean gains of the

Experimental group and Control group after the treatment Table 3.5 Results of questionnaire on the students „attitude towards

collocation teaching

Figure 3.1

Allocation of gains by Control group and Experimental group after the treatment

PART A: INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides the background to the study and statement of the problem, the aims and research questions, the scope as well the significance of the study It also outlines the organization of the thesis

1 Rationale

In recent years, language teachers and researchers have witnessed a number of changes

in language teaching and learning The latest developments have tried to get learners involved in the most effective methods so as to enhance their proficiency in the target language

Learning a second language involves the manipulation of four main skills including speaking, writing, listening and reading, which leads to effective communication One key factor in this process is the amount of vocabulary one possesses as vocabulary forms the integral part of the meaning of any language (McCarthy, 1988) As a result, vocabulary acquisition is currently receiving special attention in L2 pedagogy and research, and how learners acquire vocabulary effectively and efficiently and how it can best be taught are contentious issues in applied linguistics (Lewis, 2006)

Many English learners, despite their quite proficient ability in grammar, reading and some other L2 skills, are experiencing difficulties in remembering and proficiently using words that they have learnt Their lack on vocabulary learning skills can be taken into account for this obstacle As can be observed in a certain number of EFL classes, vocabulary teaching is generally given by classical techniques Nowadays, linguists all over the world are studying a variety of effective approaches in vocabulary teaching and presenting

New words can be approached from checking their meanings in the dictionary; or example sentences containing the vocabulary items can be another considering method Apart from those, learners can also relate the new vocabularies with the words they

have leant to figure out the meaning; or teachers may give verbal explanation of new vocabulary items mainly in English; and providing synonyms or antonyms of the new vocabularies is another choice as well Also, teachers can use pictures, realia, group work, etc to convey the words‟ meaning to their students However, it is evident that some of these techniques cannot bring about a great deal of vocabulary retention for learners are not able to make use of presented words in performing academic tasks and communicative activities (Hedge, 2008)

Collocation is also among these techniques Within the lexical approach, particular attention is intended for collocations and expressions that embrace institutionalized utterances and sentence frames and heads As Lewis affirms, we attempt to think of collocations, and to use these collocations in our expressions instead of individual words It means, rather than trying to split things into even smaller pieces, we have a cognizant attempt to see things in larger, more holistic manners (Lewis, 1997) Therefore, teachers of English should be encouraged to attach more importance to vocabulary teaching through collocation rather than only the acquisition of grammar and the use of traditional vocabulary teaching strategies in their classes

As a foreign language teacher at Son Tay high school, the researcher of the current study also tries her best to support her students in acquiring accurate and native-like competence effectively In her teaching process, she observes and finds out that her students, who are at grade 11, have to deal with countless difficulties in productive skills Examining learners' writing, the researcher could quickly notice the “mis-collocations” that are widespread in their written assignments The similar situation can also be found out in speaking skill when students know the meaning of each separate word, but they are still unable to connect these words together naturally and correctly and use them fluently and constantly This may be due to their ignorance

of collocations and the interference of the mother tongue which reflect their lack of proficiency in the target language In order to overcome these problems, a number of

methods can be taken into consider; among them is using collocations Therefore, it is crucial to conduct research on the effects of teaching English collocations to enhance students‟ vocabulary ability The results gained from this study at Son Tay High school are expected to contribute to changing Vietnamese EFL teachers and learners‟ traditional perspectives so as to constitute one of the most important parts of vocabulary teaching

2 Aims of the study

This paper aims to find out whether and how teaching vocabulary through collocations will result in better vocabulary learning than those using conventional techniques The research also focuses on investigating the students‟ attitudes towards teaching collocations My purpose is to show the contribution of collocations to vocabulary learning of students in English Foreign Language (EFL) classes at Son Tay high school

in Hanoi It is hypothesized that learning vocabulary through collocations is an effective strategy that positively contributes to the development of vocabulary learning; and students have positive attitudes with regard to learning vocabulary in collocations rather than that in other vocabulary teaching methods

3 Research questions

To satisfy this aim, the current study intended to find answers to the following

questions:

students’ learning of new words at grade 11 at Son Tay high school?

(2) What are students' attitudes towards teaching collocations?

4 Scope of the study

Though the use of collocation can be applied in different aspects in language teaching including the macro skills, grammar, vocabulary, etc., the researcher has chosen to focus only on vocabulary teaching for the fact that collocation is so central to teaching new words If a student wants to master a new word completely, it cannot be denied that he/she has to proficiently use that word in combining with other words or phrases

A large number of studies prove that presenting new words through collocations result

in a better learning of the words than presenting them using traditional techniques Therefore, this research investigates the use of collocation in teaching vocabulary

In the research conducted, the subject was a small group of grade 11 students who were non-randomly assigned to a control group and an experimental group The material scope used for teaching students during 10 weeks of the investigation is restricted to English textbook for grade 11

5 Significance of the study

Although it is widely acknowledged that collocations are not only indispensable but also challenging for English language learners, and that they therefore should play an integral part in L2 teaching at any level, learners' difficulties with collocations have not been investigated in much detail so far

The current study primarily focuses on finding out the feasibility of applying collocations as effectively as possible to L2 teaching in the effort of improving students‟ method of learning vocabulary Therefore, it is much to the author‟s expectation that the results of the current research will help teachers of language become well aware of what they should do to improve their teaching performance in class, and students gain more insight into the importance of collocations

6 Organization of the study

The thesis consists of five chapters, organized as follows:

Part A: Introduction presents the background to the study, the aims of research, the

significance, the scope, and the structure of the thesis

Part B: Development is organized around three chapters as follows

Chapter 1: Literature Review discusses relevant theoretical points of view

concerning what can be done and how to develop foreign language learners‟ oral communication skills Furthermore, the review of the previous studies related to the thesis is also provided

Chapter 2: Research Methodology describes the research method, the data

collection instruments and the information of the participants in the study as well as the steps to conduct the study

Chapter 3: Results and Discussion consists of an analysis of the data and a

discussion of the findings

Part C: Conclusion and recommendations offers a summary of the findings,

recommendations; limitations of the study and suggestions for further study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, the author will present some theoretical background that proves necessary in the realization of this research and helps provide related literature to the study First, the studies related to the L2 teaching and learning of vocabulary, especially the application of collocation use in teaching English vocabularies that some prominent researchers all over the world have conducted and what they have found out will be reviewed systematically with the purpose of providing the basis of the investigating issue

1.1 The role and the importance of vocabulary in ELT

Learning any foreign language involves the proficient manipulation of all macro skills including speaking, writing, listening and reading, which leads to effective communication One capital factor in this process is the amount of vocabulary one possesses as vocabulary forms the biggest part of the meaning of any language (McCarthy, 1988) Indeed, vocabulary acquisition is currently receiving much attention

in second language pedagogical field and research, therefore how learners acquire vocabulary effectively and efficiently and how it can best be taught are contentious issues in applied linguistics (Lewis, 2006)

There have been a great number of different approaches related to language learning, each with different perspectives on vocabulary (Richards & Rodgers, 2001) It is the fact that learning a language should not be reduced to only learning vocabulary, but it

is also true that “no matter how well the student learns grammar, no matter how successfully the sounds of L2 are mastered, without words to express a wide range of meanings, communication in an L2 just cannot happen in any meaningful way” (McCarthy, 1990) Language teaching methodologies sometimes have attached great

importance to vocabulary learning, and sometimes it has been neglected (Schmitt, 2000) In practice, grammar and pronunciation are at the core of language learning, while vocabulary is ignored in most foreign language classes (Fernández, Prahlad, Rubtsova, & Sabitov, 2009) Nowadays it is widely accepted that vocabulary learning

is one of the essential elements of both acquiring native language and learning a foreign language (Morra & Camba, 2009) Learning vocabulary is considered as a crucial element to help learners obtain a high level of proficiency in the target language

by a large number of theoreticians (Boers & Lindstromberg, 2008) In addition, special attention has been paid to foreign language vocabulary acquisition by those involved in foreign language learning (Zu, 2009) It is also believed that those possessing a large and varied range of vocabulary are competencies in terms of foreign language communication, which is one of the important aspects of language learning (McCrostie, 2007)

For all intents and purposes, vocabulary should be considered as an integral part of learning a foreign language since it leads the way to communication Such as writing and reading, vocabulary knowledge is one of the components of language skills (Nation & Waring, 1997) And of course, not only teachers, but also students need to

be made well aware of the significance of vocabulary to fulfill their English language competence

1.2 Collocation

1.2.1 Definition of collocation

Although collocation has become the subject of linguistics only recently, there have been a number of ideas what “collocation” is by different linguists According to Bahns (1993), “collocation is a term which is used and understood in many different ways” First, a look at some typical ones among the varied definitions that researchers and linguists have brought out is taken Many scholars believe that the term is first used in

1981 by Palmer, an English linguist and teacher, who defines “collocation” as “a succession of two or more words that must be learned as an integral whole and not pieced together from its component parts” Some others, however, regard Firth, a British linguist, as the one who sets the foundation of collocation and develops a lexical and the most traditional approach to this phenomenon He introduces the term meaning by collocation as a new mode of meaning of words and distinguishes it from both the “conceptual or idea approach to the meaning of words” and “contextual meaning” One of Firth‟s revolutionary concepts is to perceive lexical relations as

syntagmatic rather than paradigmatic ones He takes “dark night” as an example His

analysis is that one of the meanings of night is its collocability with dark, and one of the meanings of dark is its collocability with night Thus, a complete analysis of the meaning of a word would have to include all its collocations According to Firth (1957), “collocations of a given word” are defined as “statements of the habitual or customary places of that word.”

Halliday (1966), one of Firth‟s followers, considers collocations as examples of word

combinations By the examples for his argument: “he argued strongly” and “the

strength of his argument”, which are grammatical transformations of the initial

collocation “strong argument”, he states that collocation cuts across grammar

boundaries

According to Moon (1997), collocations can be defined in many ways, and some

of these definitions are as follows: collocations are words that occur together with high frequency and refer to the combination of words that have a certain mutual expectancy “The combination is not a fixed expression but there is a greater than chance likelihood that the words will co-occur” (Jackson, 1988:96) Also, McCarten (2007) states that the way in which two or more words are typically used is generally called collocation As cited from Oxford Collocations Dictionary (2002), “collocation is the way words combine in a language to produce natural-

sounding speech and writing” Richards et al (1992) suggests a more specific way to define: “Collocation is the way in which words are used together regularly Collocation refers to restrictions on how words can be used together, for instance, which prepositions are used with the particular verbs of which verbs and nouns are used together”

1.2.2 Classification of collocation

Based on the core characteristics of collocations, a wide variety of ways to classify collocations have been put forward by different linguists and lexicographers In fact, there is much effort to categorize the individual collocations as part of a general scheme since the nature of collocations make it challenging to make a thorough distinction among various kinds of collocations

Benson et al (1986a), mostly the pioneers as for the classification of collocations,

categorize collocations systematically into two major groups: lexical collocations and grammatical collocations Lexical collocation could be made up of nouns, adjectives,

verbs, or adverbs, like “warmest regards”, “strictly accurate”, etc There are seven

subgroups of lexical collocations whose structures and examples are given below:

Table 1.1 Lexical Collocations Adopted from Benson et al (1986a)

A verb (meaning creation or activation)+ noun (pronoun or prep phrase) make an impression compose music;

B verb (meaning eradication or nullification)+ noun demolish a house revoke a license;

C adjective + noun strong tea; a rough estimate

D noun + verb bees buzz; bombs explode

E noun1 of noun2 a pack of dogs; a herd of

buffalo; a herd of buffalo

F adjective + adverb/ adverb + adjective hopelessly addicted sound asleep;

G verb + adverb anchor firmly; argue heatedly

The other group, grammatical collocation, consists of a dominant word, such as a noun,

an adjective, or a verb, and a preposition or grammatical structure like an infinitive or a clause Benson et al (1986a) further categorized the grammatical collocations into eight small groups, labeled as G1 to G8, as being illustrated clearly in the following table:

Table 1.2 Grammatical Collocations Adopted from Benson et al (1986a)

G1 noun + preposition love for

G2 noun + to inf They made an attempt to do it G3 noun + that clause An agreement that she would represent us in court

G4 preposition + noun; By accident, to somebody‟s advantage

G5 adjective + preposition Fond of; angry at;

G6 predicate adjective +to inf She is easy to please

G7 adjective + that clause She was afraid that she would fail the examination

G8 19 verbal patterns of English

Table 1.3 Grammatical collocations in G8 group Adopted from Benson et al

(1986a)

G8 (1) S + V + Od to Oi S + V + Oi + Od He sent a book to his brother He sent his brother a book

G8 (2) (do not allow the dative S + V + Od to Oi

movement transformation)

They returned the book to her

G8 (3) S + V + Od for Oi S + V + Oi + Od She bought a shirt for her husband She bought her husband a shirt

G8 (4) S + V + O + Prep + O S + V + Prep + O We invited them to the meeting He came by train

G8 (5) S + V to V They began to speak

G8 (6) S + modal V + V He had better go He must go

G8 (7) S + V + Ving They enjoy watching television G8 (8) S + V + O to V She asks me to come

G8 (9) S + V + O + bare V She heard them leave

G8 (10) S + V + O + Ving I caught them stealing apples G8 (11) S + V possessive Adj + Ving We noticed his leaving early G8 (12) S + V (+ O) + that clause They admitted that they were wrong G8 (13) S + V + O to be C We consider her to be very capable G8 (14) S + V + O + C She dyed her hair red

G8 (15) S + V + O + O We bet her ten pounds

G8 (16) S + V (+ O) + Adverb He carried himself well

G8 (17) S + V (+ O) + wh-word He wants what I want

G8 (18) It + V + O + that clause It + V + O to V It surprised me to learn of her decision It surprised me that our offer was rejected

G8 (19) S + V + C (adjective or noun) She was enthusiastic The flowers smell nice

In terms of structure, Bahn (1993) shares the same classification with Benson et al.,

apart from adding another type namely long collocations which consist of more than

two components This way of classification is of many linguistic researchers‟ and teachers‟ interest

That is a quite special type of collocation, as can be seen in the instances get access to,

take good care of, etc Flexible word pairs include collocations between subject and

verb, or verb and object, any of the intervening words may occur between the words of collocations

Hill (as cited in Michael Lewis, 2000: 63) produces another classification of

collocations according to strength into four categories: unique collocations, strong collocations, weak collocations and medium-strength collocations First, there are

unique collocations which are fixed and cannot make way for any other items As

examples, he gives the two collocations “foot the bill” and “shrug your shoulders” The two collocations are unique because the verbs “foot” and “shrug” are not used with any other nouns In the second place, there are strong collocations like “trenchant

criticism” and “rancid butter” These are not unique but not many possible collocates

can be used to substitute it Thirdly, weak collocations relates to collocations with a

wide variety of collocates, as adjectives “long”, “short”, “cheap”, “expensive”,

“good” or “bad” can combine with many different nouns, for instance an expensive

shirt, a long shirt, etc These combinations are “more predictable” and easy to the

majority of students Finally, the fourth type is medium-strength collocations; for

example “holds a conversation” and “a major operation” Hill thinks that students are

concerned with this type which is neither strong nor weak

Distinctions are made between grammatical collocations and semantic collocations

by Kathleen and Dragomir in their paper named Collocations They affirm that

grammatical collocations often contain prepositions, including paired syntactic

categories such as verb+preposition (e.g come to, put on), adjective+preposition (e.g

afraid that, fond of), and noun+preposition (e.g by accident, witness to) In these cases,

the open-class word is called the base and determines the words it can collocate with, the collocators Semantic collocations are lexically restricted word pairs, where only a subset of the synonyms of the collocator can be used in the same lexical context

1.3 Collocation in teaching vocabulary

1.3.1 The importance of using collocations in ELT

In ELT, many English language teachers prefer emphasizing grammar to vocabulary in their class because grammar is a finite system, whereas vocabulary is not (Sheehan, 2004) And when the teaching of vocabulary items is taken into account, most teachers only prefer to use classical vocabulary teaching techniques such as synonyms, antonyms, mother tongue translation and definition As a result, students do not make any effort to reach the word meaning and it is inevitable that they probably will not remember the meaning of the new words, or even worse, they will not be able to use the new words they have learned even if they remember the meaning because they do not know the suitable collocates Therefore, it is not surprising when Hill (1999, cited

in Richard & Rodgers, 2001) states that most learners with “good vocabularies” have problems with fluency because their collocational competence is very limited And what is more, in his research in 1981, Channel claims that learners may fail to realize the potential of words they know well because they only use them in a limited number

of collocations of which they are sure For those facts, it is a widely accepted idea among linguists that collocation is an indispensable part of knowledge of second language acquisition and they are essential to non-native speakers of English in order

to speak or write fluently and accurately (Jaén, 2007)

It is easy to realize how complicated the area of collocation is, and also, how crucial it

is due to its frequent use in daily life‟s communication in general and in linguistics in particular Collocations are advantageous in helping English learners enhance their accuracy, fluency, and naturalness

1.3.2 Directions for teaching collocations in English vocabulary

1.3.2.1 Raising the students’ awareness of the importance of collocations

Collocations require to be taught so that the learners would be aware of them because they would help learners not only to understand vocabulary but also to link ideas more effectively when they write or speak Numerous linguists and language teachers have underscored the remarkable significance of collocation consciousness-raising in ELT Teaching collocations would provide learners with a helpful device in producing language It could facilitate the productive tasks by making it easier, more precise and more natural and native-like Conzett (2000) underlines that students should be taught the word Collocation itself This is because students have already formed in their mind the collocations in their mother tongue without consciousness Thus it is not challenging for them to understand what collocation means, and it helps save much time by using this term in class Actually, some people may argue that if students do not know the concept, they can still learn and use collocations, however when they have knowledge of what collocations are, students would be more aware of the existence and significance of collocations, and of course, they can learn how to develop their knowledge of collocations independently (Woolard, 2000)

1.3.2.2 Making students be well aware of collocations

Teaching collocations and avoiding the interference of the mother tongue

Foreign language learners tend to transfer negatively already-known words and group

of words from L1 into the target language because of interference They do translate expressions either consciously or unconsciously from L1 into L2 due to

"interlanguage" or first language translation, as stated by many researchers such as Selinker (1969), which is a considerable problem that disrupts learners‟ performance in the target language Therefore, for the reason that a common collocation in students‟ native language is not necessarily the same in English and vice versa, it is indispensible for teachers to make their learners notice the difference between collocations of each language and think in the target language as far as possible in order to avoid translating the L1 collocations into the L2, since these translations would lead to errors in writing

or speaking

Highlighting and noticing

The vocabulary acquisition could benefit from developing the learners‟ noticing in teaching collocations by drawing their attention towards some words or elements that

are always found together One way of making students do so is highlighting, which

could be achieved by underlining the collocation, coloring it, writing it in italics or in bold These are effective ways to draw the learners‟ attention to collocations in order to notice them In Morgan‟s perspectives (cited in Lewis, 2000), the learners will not make progress unless they are trained to notice words that go together This training, he affirms, will increase their fluency in speaking and writing

Another way to develop among students is noticing As noticing is an interesting

factor in memorizing knowledge in long-term memory, there are several factors that make it stronger According to Lewis (2000: 117), noticing should be reinforced

by homework, cooperation, involvement, and motivation Other important factors that foster noticing are repetition and “meaningful contexts” as claimed by Kennedy (2003)

“the provision of systematic, repeated exposure to collocations in meaningful contexts lies at the heart of the teaching enterprise.” As a general comment, noticing collocations facilitates their acquisition but it is “a complex process” in which teachers should be attentive enough to give the guidance to draw students‟ attention

1.3.2.3 Teaching collocations through exercises

In Lewis‟ book, M named Teaching Collocation (2000), countless exercises have been

introduced to develop students‟ collocational knowledge McCarthy and O‟Dell (2005) also provide a wealthy source of exercises on collocation Teachers can consider carefully which kind of exercises should be applied in class basing on different factors such as students‟ level, teaching time allocation, teachers‟ creativity, course book, etc

1.3.2.4 Teaching collocations through context

It is remarked that the acquisition of collocations becomes much easier if the most common collocates of a word are taught in context Indeed, Hoey (cited in Michael Lewis, 2000) supports that “learning items in context may be easier than learning them out of context” This means that students can base on their knowledge of the surrounding words/ phrases in the texts to work out the meaning of some certain collocations However, for the reason that students do not have adequate stock of vocabulary to guess the words from context, teachers have to give students the specific instructions in terms of the meaning of word “chunks” in context

1.3.2.5 Storing collocations

Students need to have an organized vocabulary journal to record collocations They can organize their journals in different ways: grammatically, by common key word, by topic, etc They can also make use of tables or spider-grams, which work well with visual learners For example, students can record certain collocations under headings

such as have/ take/ get/ do or make An instance of spider – gram is taken from English

Collocation in use by McCarthy and O‟Dell, as follow:

Storing collocations: The spider – grams

The results of the data obtained from the experimental research by Elahe and Hamid (2013) on the effects of teaching lexical collocations on speaking ability of students also reveal that teaching lexical collocation is a useful mean to maximize collocation knowledge, having positive effects on EFL learners‟ speaking ability It appears that through the use of collocation knowledge, L2 learners can manage to have more control over speaking ability in English and comprehend the ideas within the dialogues and conversations Concurrently, Hue (2012) did an action research on the effects of collocation using on the writing skill of her students After 14 weeks of the intervention, she had come up with the result that collocation instruction brought positive influences to improve the writing ability of students

From the above review of literature, the researcher recognized that there is still no research on vocabulary, the aspect that needs to be taken so much notice of; moreover,

it is essential to find out whether the collocation method is suitable to the Vietnamese context Therefore, she decided to fill in the gap by studying on the effects of using collocation in teaching vocabulary for students at a school in Vietnam

1.5 Summary

This chapter reviews the literature on vocabulary, the common knowledge of collocation in general and the use of collocations in L2 vocabulary teaching and learning in particular The chapter, thus, reviews the benefits of collocation in vocabulary exercises as well as how these exercises can be developed and used in the classroom Next chapter, Chapter II, will describe the study including the context and the design of the study

CHAPTER II: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The present research is conducted in a specific context with regard to filling certain gaps in the literature to date, including:

students’ learning of new words at grade 11 at Son Tay high school?

(2) What are students' attitudes towards teaching collocations?

Based on that, in the following part, the researcher provides a detailed description of the research methodology

2.1 Research method:

The objectives of the study are:

(1) to explore the relationship between collocation teaching and grade 11 students‟ improvements in their English vocabulary

(2) to investigate students‟ attitudes towards collocation teaching, i.e how effective they think collocation teaching method is towards their English vocabulary learning

As regards the first purpose, two types of variables are identified for the study: the dependent variable and the independent variable The former in this study is the students‟ scores in their vocabulary tests whereas the latter is using collocation in teaching vocabulary

Despite the advantage of the experimental method in the study which sets out to investigate the correlation between the intervention and its outcome, it is not always feasible to carry out a true experiment Indeed, it is impossible to randomly assign the subjects to either the control or experimental group in an educational context because the classroom groups are already in place and have to be intact

Instead, a quasi-experiment is employed naturally in the studying process with the

subjects for both the experimental group and the control group being the intact groups

of students In order to have a strong quasi-experimental design, the researcher tries to control the internal threats to validity by making use of pretesting To be confident that there is no significant difference among the participants of the Experimental Group and Control Group regarding the variables under exploration, both groups were pre-tested

at the commencement of the study One group is the control group in which the new vocabulary is instructed merely via traditional techniques (definitions, synonyms, antonyms, first language translations) The second group is the experimental group who is taught the same vocabulary via collocations

In order to look for the solution for the second aim, a written questionnaire is carried out to ensure that the problem is answered effectively

2.2 Context of the research

The research is conducted at Son Tay High school, a school founded in 1959 at Son Tay Town, Ha Noi Currently there are roughly 1000 students attending different classes of grade 10, 11 and 12 The school offers two types of classes namely classes for gifted students and standard classes This study focuses only on participants in standard classes

The particular site is chosen for two main reasons The first one is that the researcher has nearly two years of teaching experience at Son Tay High school, so she can easily get access to the participants of the research, and be accustomed to the teaching and learning environment there Secondly, the researcher is supported enthusiastically from the leader and the teachers of English in her research

2.3 The study

2.3.1 Participants

92 students from two non-major English classes 11A3 and 11A4 including 46 students each are chosen to participate in the current research The selecting of standard classes

for this study is because the number of period of different subjects is allocated more equally than that for specialized classes They spend three English periods a week, each period lasts forty-five minutes The participants all live inside Son Tay town and its surrounding outskirts Despite the fact that they have been learning English from grade

3 due to the general curriculum of the Ministry of Education and Training, their English level is quite limited and they are not really motivated in learning English This

is partly because they are science subject oriented students who are not going to have English as one of the subjects in their university entrance exam Nearly half of them have attempted to learn English for graduating purpose which do not require a high level of English competency However, throughout the process of teaching them, the researcher realizes that her students have not approached the suitable method with regard to learning English There is no change in the number of students in each class during the whole process of the research

92 students in the two classes are chosen as the participants for the study for three reasons: (1) they all have got one year of grade 10 at Son Tay high school to get used

to the study environment there, especially to English subject, without approaching suitable methods to upgrade their level of English; (2) the researcher herself is assigned

to cover mainly 11th-grade students, and she is teaching both two classes during the treatment; and (3) after the researcher explains the purposes of the study for them, they are willing to take part in it

The two classes study the same textbook of English 11 with three periods a week As can be seen, the textbook is theme-based, including 16 units and 6 review lessons

which are presented in the format of a Test yourself for students to check their own

knowledge Each unit corresponds with a topic and consists of 5 parts (Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing, and Language Focus) There is no separate part for Vocabulary Vocabulary is indirectly taught and learnt (i.e., learning vocabulary as a

by-product of doing other things such as reading or listening, etc.) It is taught integrated with skills such as reading, speaking, listening, and writing

2.3.2 Data collection instruments

For the purpose of ensuring the validity of the research, a number of instruments are carried out in chronological order First and foremost, two tests including Pre-Test and Post-Test (see Appendix 2 and 3) are applied to the participants to measure the effects

of teaching collocations on 11th form students‟ English vocabulary acquirement

2.3.2.1 Pre-test and Post-test

The first test (Pre-Test) is to check in advance how much students know and in what way they have manipulated English collocations before the intervention The second test (Post-Test) is the tool to measure how much students get improved after the application of 10 weeks learning collocation intensively in their studying process

To select the appropriate words for the tests and in order to ensure that the selected words are entirely and officially suitable to the participants‟ level, the tests are designed based on language inputs of the seven-year-system English textbook 11 by Vietnamese Educational Publishing House; and the book English Collocation In Use

by McCarthy and O‟ Dell is also used for reference in terms of collocation exercise types

Both tests are designed in the same form including 40 collocation items which are

divided into five types of exercises Part 1 consists of 10 multiple choice questions in

which students are required to choose the correct answer among four given choices The second part asks test-takers to match the words in the left column to the words or phrases in the right to build five correct items of collocation In the third part of the test, students have to identify whether the given collocations are correct or incorrect in certain contexts, and then correct the wrong ones Part 4 is gap-filling exercise in which 10 collocations are omitted from its contexts Students in this task have to choose from the given items the most suitable one to fill in each blank The last part

involves in students translating 10 collocation phrases from Vietnamese into English in context

Each correct answer will receive one point; therefore, the maximum score that a student is able to get is 40 The time allowance for each test is 45 minutes excluding the time of delivering the test paper

Before the experiment, the Pre-Test is given to both groups at the same time on the same day After the experimental period, the Post-Test, the version of the Pre-Test in which some changes are made to avoid the similarity in the question order of both tests, is used again to measure the two groups‟ English vocabulary gains for four months The steps of administering the Post-Test are the same as the Pre-Test Descriptive statistics such as means, and standard deviations were computed using SPSS T-test is calculated to compare the similarities and differences between pre-test and post-test

Subsequently, the post-experiment questionnaire is employed to the participants as the supplementary instrument to collect the data for eliciting the students‟ attitudes towards using collocations to learn new vocabularies after the conduction of the research

2.3.2.2 Follow-up questionnaire

Questionnaire seems to be very popular among educational research in general and ELT research in particular It is a useful device for the researcher to gather information about people‟s opinions According to Hannan (2007) by using questionnaires, the researcher can pursue their aim strictly, as the researcher can make a list of the things they want to question On the other hand, it is very easy to ask students or other teachers to tick the statements or options provided in the question items, to indicate the ones with which they agree and how strongly they agree or disagree with a statement given Finally, questionnaires provide data amenable to quantification, either through the simple counting of boxes or through the content analysis of written responses In

the current study, a written questionnaire is conducted in the research with the fulfillment of all the students in the experimental group at the same time

Before students complete the questionnaires, the researcher explains what the items meant Students are encouraged to raise any queries they have They do not need to provide their name in the questionnaires to secure confidentiality issue

10 questions are carefully designed for students who are in the experimental group for their vocabulary improvements to draw their evaluative opinions of collocation teaching All the questions are related to students‟ feedback and attitude to the relationship between collocation using in teaching English vocabulary and the students‟ improvements The first question asks students to give their opinion on whether the provision of collocation general knowledge is useful The four following questions focus on collocation learning effects In question 6 and 7, students are required to take a stand on the collocation activities applied during the experiment Question 8 and 9 are about students‟ viewpoint on the effects of collocation teaching to their self-learning The last one, question 10, investigates if students want further collocation teaching or not

The type of question items in the questionnaire is all five point Likert scale (See Appendix 6) Students are asked to tick in the blanks that are suitable to their opinion Students were given 20 minutes to respond to the questionnaire The questionnaire is written in English and then translated into Vietnamese to assure that respondents do not have any language problems in fully understanding every inside question

The data collected from the questionnaire are then analyzed in details in the following sections The results of the questionnaire would help the researcher draw out supplemental statements on the issue discussed

2.4 Procedure

The researcher completes the experimental study in ten weeks, dividing into three main phases: the pre-implementation phase, implementation phase, and the post-

implementation phase, with the suitable utility of collocation strategies and materials to the students The strategies applied in the process include:

(1) giving an orientation to the students about the concept and the importance of collocation knowledge in their language skills

(2) introducing different methods, materials to learn collocations as well as the means to which students can approach (computer, technology, online database, authentic materials, etc.)

(3) teaching collocation through activities and exercises

(4) showing students ways to learn, revise and store collocations independently

The research is carried out over ten weeks, starting from the second week of the first semester of the academic year 2015-2016 at Son Tay High school, Ha Noi Different strategies in teaching collocations are stuck closely to the syllabus and the contents of the textbook are made the most of in order to ensure that the research intervention does not affect the studying of general English subject assigned by the Ministry of Education and Training Thus, the application of collocation teaching is integrated into the teaching of different skills regarding to the lessons‟ content

In the first week of the study, all of 92 students in control and experimental groups are fallen through pre-tests which helps the researcher delve into the current collocation knowledge of her students From week 2 onwards, only students in the experimental group are engaged in the application of collocation teaching which is 9-week length

2.4.1 The pre-implementation phase

The pre-implementation phase aims to give an orientation to the students about the definition and importance of collocation knowledge in their language skills In week 2, the researcher explains to her experimental students the main types of collocation which are all listed in a handout for them to revise at home Furthermore, the introduction of the general materials and the means from which students can be

facilitated in learning collocations is also given In this phase, teacher, also researcher, stresses the significance of online database, collocation dictionary, and authentic materials She uses projector to show the link to download the electronic version of

Oxford Collocations dictionary for students of English, and of course, the paperback

version was also brought to the class to illustrate Besides, the teacher introduces the book English Collocations in Use Intermediate by McCarthy and O‟ Dell to students More than that, some authentic sources from magazines, newspapers, and internet are recommended in front of the whole class so as to support students in looking for and understanding collocations in context

2.4.2 The implementation phase

The implementation phase continues from week 3 on, including:

 Teacher applying activities to help students acquire collocations

 Teacher instructing students how to learn, revise, and store collocations individually

The teacher of the experimental group attaches numerous kinds of activity inside the classroom for her students‟ acquirement of collocation, especially in reading, speaking and writing periods

In terms of teaching reading skills, the teacher tries to direct students‟ attention to the collocations in each reading text in the textbook She firstly underlines or highlights the collocation items appearing in a model reading Then she elicits by giving students guided questions so that they can learn the way to identify the collocation in the

readings For example, in unit 4 of the textbook for grade 11 named “volunteer work”,

the guided questions are:

 The word “volunteer” appears in the passage in different parts of speech

What are they?

 Then, if it is a noun, which preposition/ adjective/adverb/verb does it

collocate with?

 If it is an adjective, which words does it go with?

These questions are given one by one, right after the students reading the whole text After that, the teacher helps students work out which collocation patterns these phrases belong to Only by that way can students improve their awareness and have deeper perception of collocations As a result, they do form the habits of identifying collocations and learning words in chunks whenever they acquire any reading text instead of individual words as before

Being well aware that collocations can make speaking more natural, the researcher combines collocation in teaching speaking skills in class The teacher uses a variety of ways to apply collocation in teaching speaking For the reason that speaking period always comes after the reading skill, one of the approaches is that after teaching collocations in reading texts, the teacher skillfully makes use of these chunks to design

a speaking task Taking the following as an example for speaking exercise 1 of Unit 4

“volunteer work” in the textbook

Decide which of the following activities are volunteer work:

In the above activity, collocations are integrated into each phrase Then, students are asked to use these phrases including collocations to apply in context for speaking which is produced by teacher For example:

Work in groups Talk about the voluntary work you have ever done to help people Remember using the above phrases

By giving such instructions one by one, the teacher gradually shifts her students into using collocations rather than individual words

Regarding another productive skill, namely writing, the teacher lets students brainstorm the group of collocational items related to the writing topic before asking them to write Or to make it clearer, the teacher researcher has students fill in the spider chart with the collocates of the key word related to the main topic As for correcting students‟ writing products, teacher presents the collocation errors to the class without mentioning students‟ names This can make students more aware of the mistakes in writing and from that, they avoid making mistakes in language use

Apart from applying different activities concerning collocations, the teacher shows students ways to acquire, revise and store collocations on their own both inside and outside classroom

Firstly, the techniques to search for collocations through some sources such as dictionary or corpora are delivered to students The corpora are the collections of written and spoken sources produced by native speakers of English, which are stored electrically and can be accessed using search software The teacher uses projector and internet to access some corpora sources such as the British National Corpus (http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/) or Corpus of Contemporary American English (http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/) Similarly, the teacher also illustrates the ways to look for collocates from the electronic and paperback versions of Collocations Dictionary After that, the teacher tries asking students to work in groups to share knowledge and discuss which methods of searching for collocations that they find most suitable to them Secondly, in week 9, the teacher designs some small games in order to help students revise collocations they have learnt One of the games is that she allows students to work in group as well, and give each group a certain word Each student has to give

one collocating phrase that they have learnt in the previous lessons For example, the

teacher assigns the verb “take” to a group of four students They one by one work out a list of chunks using “take” as follows:

Meanwhile, the researcher still keeps using traditional techniques to teach vocabulary such as teaching individual words, giving explanation, definition, and translating the words out of the context by referring to the list of words in the form of marginal glosses available in reading passages of the textbook in the control group