Reinforcing Students’ Collocational Competence in EFL Classrooms

Abstract

Relevant research studies show an outstanding effect of the collocational competence on reinforcing the language proficiency of students learning a foreign or second language (Ellis, 2001). Students' awareness of word combinations enables them to produce language with native-like accuracy and increases their ability to use different levels of formulaic language, idioms, and fixed expressions. The argument of Firth (1957) that "a word is known by the company it keeps" implies that knowing how words are combined facilitates using them efficiently. This entails dedicating more time and effort to increase students' awareness and acquisition of collocations. However, as argued by Chan and Liou (2005), explicit teaching of collocations is not given the deserved attention in language classes possibly because of the difficulty of teaching them in a way that facilitates their storage and retrieval. It is also due to the shortage of user-friendly materials that could be utilised for teaching collocates. In addition, it could be rendered to native language interference and the nature of interlanguage. This study explores how apt undergraduate Arab students are in using collocation in written works. It also analyses the very common errors they make in written activities. This study concludes that students' ill-formed expressions are a shared responsibility between them and language teachers. It proposes a tri-polar model for enhancing students' use of collocation. They are elicitation, fixation, and creation. This study eventually provides pedagogical implications that facilitate addressing collocation in language classes.

Collocational Competence as a measure of ESL / EFL Competency: A Scoping Review

“…Researchers have also studied other possible treatments and methodologies that may help improve the collocational competence of ESL and EFL learners. These treatments include using flipped classrooms (Suranakkharin, 2017), instruction of noticing (Dokchandra, 2015) and templates (Al Ghazali, 2015), humour (Nagy, 2020) and mobile applications (Özcan & Kert, 2020).…”

Effects of task-based instructions on second-language learners' comprehension of collocations to improve writing skills: A pedagogical perspective

“…Being aware of collocations usually comes effortlessly to native English speakers because they are familiar with the word combinations, but it could be challenging for second language learners. As a result, by learning word combinations, students may be better able to produce accurate language and employ more idioms and a formulaic language (Al Ghazali, 2015).…”

“…Therefore, if learners have no exposure to a bigger pool of vocabulary, they will not be able to use language accurately in an educational setting. The study by Fan (2009) determined that L2 users are prone to use relatively of word combinations lets the users use language with native like accuracy and it may increase their ability to use many types of formulaic language (Al Ghazali, 2015). This also shows that collocational competence supports the learners to produce fluent and accurate language (Ünver, 2018).…”

“…Yusoff, Gurmani, Sanif, and Noor (2022) discussed that a good command of lexical items is effective to succeed educationally, proving it to be an important tool in positive language learning. Heikkilä (2005) cited by Al Ghazali (2015) has described that collocational competence is a skill to properly formed word combinations that allows a user to produce fluent, and accurate language. Traditional methods to learn vocabulary focus on learning individual words or vocabulary lists, which is not adequate.…”

A Study on English Collocation Errors of Thai EFL Students

“…There are pedagogical suggestions for EFL/ESL teachers and students, including collocation awareness. EFL students should be systematically taught to be aware of and recognize collocations in use on a regular basis (Ghazali, 2015). In this regard, teachers have a significant role to play in educating students to notice collocations in actual English on a regular basis.…”