1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** Collocations in “New Headway Pre - Intermediate” and common errors in English collocations by non English major students at Hanoi University of Science and Technology (Khảo sát kết hợp từ trong giáo trình New Headway Pre – Intermediate và những lỗi sinh viên không chuyên tiếng Anh tại trường Đại học Bách Khoa Hà Nội thường mắc khi kết hợp từ tiếng Anh) Major Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410 Student: ĐỖ THU PHƯƠNG Hanoi - 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** Collocations in “New Headway Pre - Intermediate” and common errors in English collocations by non English major students at Hanoi University of Science and Technology (Khảo sát kết hợp từ trong giáo trình New Headway Pre – Intermediate và những lỗi sinh viên không chuyên tiếng Anh tại trường Đại học Bách Khoa Hà Nội thường mắc khi kết hợp từ tiếng Anh) Major Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410 Student: ĐỖ THU PHƯƠNG Supervisor : HOÀNG THỊ XUÂN HOA Hanoi - 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 5 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS FoFL: Faculty of Foreign Languages HUST: Hanoi University of Science and Technology Adj: Adjective Adv: Adverb N: Noun Prep: Preposition Quant: Quantifier V: Verb MT: mother tongue TL: target language TOEIC: Test of English for International Communication. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 7 LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Chart 1 The percentage of lexical collocations in the course book 30 Chart 2 The percentage of grammatical collocations in the course book 32 Chart 3 A comparison of lexical, grammatical and long collocations in the 34 course book Chart 4 The percentage of more fixed and less fixed collocations in the course 36 book Table 1 The result of multiple choice task 39 Table 2 The result of collocation identification and error correction task 41 Table 3 The result of gap-filling task 44 Table 4 The result of translation task 46 Chart 5 A comparison of the wrong lexical, grammatical and long collocations 48 in the test Chart 6 The percentage of wrong collocations in terms of the strength 49 Table 5 Teachers' attitudes towards the role of collocation in vocabulary 52 teaching and their frequency of teaching collocation Table 6 The collocation in the course book that teachers usually teach. 53 Table 7 The suitable stages for teaching collocations 54 Table 8 Reasons for teaching collocation 55 Table 9 Methods for presenting collocations 56 Table 10 The language skills involved in teaching collocation 57 Table 11 Causes for students' collocational errors 58 Table 12 The methods to improve students‟s knowledge of collocation. 59 Table 13 The types of supplementary exercises to improve students‟ knowledge 61 of collocation.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 8 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Submission of the final thesis i Aknowledgements ii List of abbreviations iii Abstract iv List of tables and charts v Table of contents vi PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 1. Aims of the study 2 3. Scope of the study 3 4. The research questions 3 5.
Method of the study 3 6. Design of the study 3 PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5 CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW 5 1. An overview of collocation 5 1.The notion of collocation 5 1.Classification of collocation 6 1. In terms of the structure 7 1.
In terms of the strength 8 1. Properties of collocation 9 1. Collocations are arbitrary 9 1. Collocations are language specific 10 1.
Collocations are not nescessarily adjacent 10 1. Collocations are non-reciprocal 11 1. The distinction among free word combination, idiomatic expression and 11 collocations 1.1 Free word combinations 12 1.3 Collocation versus free word combination and idiom 12 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. The importance of collocation for learners of English 13 1.
Teaching and learning collocations 14 1. An overview of errors and error analysis 19 2. The concept of errors in English Language Teaching 19 2. The significance of errors and error analysis 19 2.
Classification of errors 20 2. The sources or possible causes of errors 21 2. Collocational errors and their possible causes 22 CHAPTER 2: THE METHODOLOGY 27 1. Context of the research 27 3.
Subjects of the research 28 4. Data collection methods 28 4. Course book analysis 28 4. Questionnaire survey 29 CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 30 1.
Course book analysis 30 1. Aims of the analysis 30 1. The course book under study 30 1. In terms of the struture 30 1.
A comparison of the number of lexical, grammatical and long collocations 34 1. In terms of the strength 37 1. Summary of the findings 38 2. Collocational test 38 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Aims of the test 38 2. The target population of the test 39 2. Description of the test 39 2. Test result analysis 40 2.
An analysis of the results of each task 40 2. A comparison of the percentage of wrong answers among different types of 47 collocations 2.1 In terms of the structure 49 2.2 In terms of the strength 49 2. Summary of the findings 50 3. Survey questionnaire analysis 51 3.
Aims of the survey 51 3. The target population of the survey 51 3. Discription of the survey questionnaires 51 3. Summary of the findings 61 CHAPTER FOUR: SUGGESTIONS 63 1.1 What to teach 63 1.2 When to teach 64 1.3 How to teach 65 1.1 Teaching collocations of new individual words 65 1.2 Presenting the meaning of a collocation 67 1.3 Integrating teaching collocations in teaching language skills 68 1.4 Giving exercises on collocations 70 2.1 Forming the habit of learning words in collocations 73 2.2 Using a good dictionary to look up collocational information 73 2.3 Doing exercise on collocations 74 2.4 Keep a record of common collocations 74 2.5 Making comparison between English collocations and their Vietnamese 75 equivalents LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 11 PART C: CONCLUSION 77 1.
Limitations and suggestions for further research 78 REFERENCES APPENDIX Appendix A: The frequency of collocations in the course book in terms of the structure I and the strength Appendix B: Test for students II Appendix C: Key to the test IV Appendix D: The number of wrong answers in the test in terms of the structure and V the strength Appendix E: Survey questionnaire VII Appendix F: List of collocations in the course book X LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 12 PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Vocabulary plays an important role in learning a foreign language. It is an element that links the four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing together. Indeed, many researchers argue that vocabulary is one of the most important, if not the most important, components in learning a foreign language (Keith S.
Learning, as a language based activity, is fundamentally and profoundly dependent on vocabulary knowledge. According to McCathy (1990), the single, biggest component of any language course is vocabulary. In vocabulary knowledge, there is a dimension that should be considered, which is how far a learner knows the possible combinations of words. As a matter of fact, words are never used alone but they go with each other and depend on each other.
No matter how well the learners master the grammar, how many words they can acquire, their communication cannot be in a meaningful way without the knowledge on the possible combinations of words or the collocation competence. For example, in terms of meaning, it is actually possible for non-native speakers to use the combination weak listening skill but the native speakers are much more likely to say poor listening skill. Furthermore, if the students do not know the collocation that expresses precisely what they want to convey, they may resort to wordy or unnatural ways of expressions like He took a course in which he was trained for three years to become a pilot instead of saying He took a three-year training course for a pilot. Obviously, apart from grammar and lexical meaning, a right sentence must have the agreement between words; otherwise, it sounds unnatural or even makes no sense.
The importance of the agreement between words or collocation in language learning has been stated by a number of linguists. According to Hammer (1992), collocation belongs to vocabulary and is an essential aspect of vocabulary. Nunan (1991) also considers collocation an aspect of word use. In assessing the position of collocations in vocabulary, McCathy (1990:12) states that “Collocation is an important organizing principle in vocabulary”.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 13 Collocation can be explored by applying corpus-based approach, which is analyzing collocation in a collection of given material and the material chosen for the study is “New Headway Pre-Intermediate, the third edition” by John and Liz Soars (2007). It has been chosen the main course book for non English major students at several universities in Vietnam, including Ha Noi University of Science and Technology. The book is comprised of 12 units that cover the four skills, reading, listening, speaking and writing as well as separate sections for grammar, vocabulary, and everyday English. All these skills have been combined together so they represent the real way language is used.
Like many other course books, the knowledge of collocation in New Headway Pre- Intermediate is vast and confusing because English words are collocated almost arbitrarily and the collocations are so diverse and even mistaken from idioms and multiword units. Due to the vast knowledge of collocation, several teachers find it rather confusing and difficult to introduce it to the non English major students at Hanoi University of Science Technology, who are used to learning separate words but not in combination with others. Therefore, they are confused and even embarrassed when they do not understand the meaning of a sentence of very simple words or fail to choose the right words to express their ideas and feelings. To overcome these problems, it is essential to conduct a research on English collocations in “New Headway pre-Intermediate” the third edition by John and Liz Soars (2007).
Based on the result analysis of the study, it is possible to suggest valuable solutions for learning and teaching collocations to non English major students at Hanoi University of Science and Technology. Aims of the study The study aims at : Identifying the types and frequency of collocations in “New Headway Pre-Intermediate” the third edition by John and Liz Soars (2007) in terms of their structure and strength; Finding out common errors in collocations by non English major students at Hanoi University of Science and Technology; LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 14 Identifying possible causes of the collocational errors made by non English major students at Hanoi University of Science and Technology; 3. Scope of the study Due to the limitation of time, knowledge and resources, the research only deals with an aspect of vocabulary, which is the collocation in the course book “New Headway Pre- Intermediate” the third edition by John and Liz Soars (2007). It is conducted within Hanoi University of Science and Technology and the participants are its teachers and non English major students.
The author will not try to provide all possible ways for learning and teaching collocation but only give out some suggestions based on the findings from the course book analysis, the collocational errors and the questionnaires. The research questions What are the different types of collocation and their frequency in “New Headway Pre-Intermediate” the third edition by John and Liz Soars (2007)? What are the common errors in collocations made by non English major students at Hanoi University of Science and Technology?