MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ NGUYEN THI THO AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE FREQUENCY OF THE USE OF COLLOCATIONS IN STUDENTS’ WRITING AT SOME HIGH SCHOOLS IN QUANG TRI PROVINCE MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Hue University of Foreign Languages HUE, 2016 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ NGUYEN THI THO AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE FREQUENCY OF THE USE OF COLLOCATIONS IN STUDENTS’ WRITING AT SOME HIGH SCHOOLS IN QUANG TRI PROVINCE MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60.11 SUPERVISOR: TRAN QUANG NGOC THUY, Ph. HUE, 2016 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ ------------ NGUYỄN THỊ THƠ ĐIỀU TRA MỨC ĐỘ SỬ DỤNG THƯỜNG XUYÊN CÁC CỤM TỪ CỐ ĐỊNH TRONG BÀI VIẾT CỦA HỌC SINH TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG Ở QUẢNG TRỊ LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 60.11 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: TS. TRẦN QUANG NGỌC THÚY HUẾ, 2016 STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP The work contained in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, my thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself.
Nguyen Thi Tho Date: …………………………. i ABSTRACT When writing in English, some Vietnamese students often translate word-by- word from Vietnamese into English. However, Vietnamese and English have different sets of vocabulary and rules of grammar. In many cases, students use certain expressions without knowing about collocations.
This research investigated the frequency in the use of collocations in students’ writing at some high schools in Quang Tri Province. Sixty paragraphs written by high school students in a writing test were collected for analysis. The test was designed using Oxford Collocation Dictionary, including gap-filling, multiple choices and writing a short paragraph. Also, the students were given a Likert scale questionnaire with 10 statements about how they used collocations.
Besides, the researcher interviewed some students and teachers from the same high schools where the students having taken the questionnaire studied. The findings indicated that the most frequently used collocations in writing belonged to the lexical collocations, which consist of combinations of verb and noun, adjective and noun, adverb and adjective, verb and preposition. These types of collocations were also the most frequent collocation errors. The findings also revealed some main reasons for those errors including the interference of the students’ mother tongue, their limitation of vocabulary and collocational knowledge and the effect of their bad habit in learning vocabulary.
ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT In this research, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Tran Quang Ngoc Thuy, for her enthusiastic help and guidance. The present study would not have been positive without her assistance. In addition, I would like to send my special thanks to the students who participated in my questionnaire survey and interviews.
Their contribution plays an important role in my research. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Pages SUB COVER PAGE STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. Rationale of the study.
Scope and purpose of the study. Significance of the study. Organization of the study. Overview of collocations.
Origin of the term “collocation”. Definition of collocations. Types of collocations. Pedagogical issues on collocations in EFL writing.
The importance of collocations. The difficulties of using collocations for students. The frequency of the use of collocations in writing. The use of collocations in students’ writing.
Teaching EFL writing at Grade 11. Method of the study. Procedure of the study. Examining students’ use of collocations in test papers and paragraphs.
Analyzing data from questionnaires and semi-structured interviewand some paragraphs. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. Frequency of students’ use of collocations in writing. Frequent collocation errors in writing test.
Reasons for students’ collocation errors. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS. Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further research.65 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Tests used for data collection .23 Table 2: Rate of using collocations in writing .26 Table 3: Frequency of use of “Verb + Noun” collocations .29 Table 4: Frequency of use of “Verb+Preposition” collocations .29 Table 5: Frequency of use of “Adjective + Noun” collocations .29 Table 6: Frequency of use of “Adverb + Verb” collocations .30 Table 7: Frequency of use of “Preposition + Noun” and “Verb+ Adjective” collocations.
30 Table 8: Frequency of use of “Quantifier + Noun” collocations .30 Table 9: Frequency of use of “Adverb+Adjective” collocations .30 Table 10: Frequency of use of “Adjective+Preposition” collocations.31 Table 11: Frequency of use of “Noun + Preposition” collocations .31 Table 12: Frequency of use of “Noun+Noun” collocations .31 Table 13: Frequent use of types of collocations in writing .32 Table 14: Frequent collocation error types in writing.35 Table 15: Most frequent verbs in collocations and collocation errors. 11th grade students’ Learning Capacity at Hai Lang high school .39 Table 18: Mark of collocation tests of 11th grade students at Hai Lang high school .40 Table 19: Student’s agreement to statement 2 .41 Table 20: Student’s agreement to statement 3 .42 Table 21: Students’ agreement to statement 4 .42 Table 22: Students’ agreement to statement 7 .43 Table 23: Students’ agreement to statement 10 .43 Table 24: Students’ agreement to statement 5 .45 Table 25: Students’ agreement to statement 8. INTRODUCTION This chapter presents the rationale for the study. Then, the aims of the study are also provided followed by the significance and the scope of the study.
Finally, the structure of the study concludes the chapter. Rationale of the study Moras (2001) stated that the main purpose of teaching and learning a language is to enable learners to use the language in communication. Also, writing is an important factor that helps learners to communicate effectively and exactly. However, writing has always been demanding and difficult for L2 learners.
Celce- Murcia and Olshtain (2000, p. 141) claimed that even skilled L2 learners have problems in writing. One of those problems is the use of collocations (Brashi, 2005; Prastuti, 2008). In most lessons, teachers only teach words by words, which make learners unable to see the language features beyond the word level and the close relationship of the words co-existing in the phrases.
This makes learners fail to properly use the phrases in natural ways in writing as native speakers do. Collocations have significant effects on developing students’ writing ability; however, they give many challenges to not only teachers but also learners to use. Crystal (1992) stated that collocations cause difficulty in mastering L2 languages. Halliday and Hassan (1976) called collocations the most difficult part of lexical learning.
In most classes, learners know the individual words, so in these circumstances, they may need to learn about putting them together according to the standard of collocations. According to Hill (2000), “students with good ideas often lose marks because they do not know the four or five most important collocations of a keyword that is central to what they are writing about” (p. In this particular research, I intend to analyse the frequency of the use of collocations, which made up much of written and spoken corpora. The reasons why I have chosen this particular aspect of the collocation as the focus of this research are various.
Firstly, collocations, which are assumed to make up 70 % of everything 1 we say, hear, read or write in real life (Lewis, 2000, p. 53) allow learners to process and produce language at a much faster rate. Secondly, learners are often not aware of the significance of collocation knowledge. They often focus on memorizing long, decontextualized word lists, and they seldom pay attention to how these words are actually used.
Also, as far as I have observed, collocations have often been a source of student errors. Therefore, to provide students with opportunities where they can understand the idea of collocations, and make use of them to their advantage in building their mental lexicons in a systematic way, the aim here will be to do necessary research into collocations and adapt the findings into the classroom use. Especially, as I have also observed in my own classes, I agree with what Hill (1999) suggests that most learners with “good” vocabulary have problems with fluency because their collocational competence is very limited. I believe we should recognize the frequency of the use of collocations in students’ writing and introduce the idea of collocations to our students at earlier levels, and therefore adopt classroom strategies which constantly remind learners of the importance of collocations and simultaneously try out the challenges of using collocations in their writing.
Scope and purpose of the study The research was implemented to investigate the frequency of the use of collocations in students’ writing at some high schools in my hometown, Quang Tri Province. The students were from well-trained schools in my hometown - Hai Lang High school, Tran Thi Tam High school and Bui Duc Tai High school. The students were in grade 11 and their English was at the low and intermediate levels. This study aimed to investigate the frequency of the use of collocations in students’ writing.
The research sets out to seek the appropriate answer to the following question: How frequent are collocations used in students' writing? From that, we can find out the problems that students encounter in writing so that each teacher may find the most suitable ways to minimize the errors in students' writing development. Research questions The research questions for this study are: 1. How frequently do the 11th grade students in Quang Tri High schools use collocations in writing? 2. What are the frequent collocation errors that the 11th grade students make in English writing? 3.
Why do the students make the collocation errors in writing? 1. Significance of the study Brown says that “the study of writing of learners is largely the study of the errors of learners” (1993, p. The contribution of the study is pedagogical. Although the study is carried out on a small scale, focusing on a particular group of high school students, its results will help teachers have a better understanding of English collocation instruction in relation to writing skill; obtain students’ opinions on ways to further enhance collocation instruction for better writing; understand the frequency of the use of collocations as well as the problems in students' writing; and provide the recommendations for teachers who are interested in using collocation instruction to improve their students’ writing skill in their own teaching context.
Organization of the study This research paper consists of five main chapters, each of which contributes to the completion of the research: Chapter 1: Introduction. This chapter presents a brief overview of the study. In this chapter, the rationale to conduct this action research is discussed on the base of theory and practice. The purposes of the research is specifically explained and then followed by the research questions.
The scope of the research is also included to indicate the limitation of the research in terms of the numbers of participants and blended learning course design. The significance of research is added to give the significance as well as the importance of conducting this study. The last smaller part in introduction part is the overall structure of the research. The research questions are also introduced in this part.
3 Chapter 2: Literature Review. This chapter reviews the previous studies whose focus and findings are relevant to the research topic, that is, the use of collocations in students’ writing. Additionally, in this chapter, the key concepts related to collocations such as the definition of “collocation”, types of collocations, collocations in ESL learning, etc.