Teaching collocation - Further development in lexical approach

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Contents

Contents

3.7

INTRODUCTION

... . 8

PART 1 - IN THE CLASSROOM Chapter 1: 1.1 I.2 I.3 I.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 1.10

Introduction Learnersdon'tleamwhatteachersteach Knowingawordiscomplicated... Theintermediateplateau The grammar-vocabularydichotomyisinvalid AdvancedEnglish Leave'used'languagealone. Someclassroomactivities Actionresearch Cdnclusion

Chapter 2: 2.I 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 2.10 2.lI

.... 10 ....... 11 ....I2 .......14 . . . . . . . . 15 .....17 ...18 .....20 .......27 .....21

Collocation- encouraging learner independence. . . . . 28 GeorgeWoolard

Introduction Collocation Raisingawarenessofcollocation... Highlightingandteachingcollocation Choosingkey words The independentlearnerandleamerstrategies R e s o u r c edsi:c t i o n a r i e s Resources:corporaandconcordancers Lexicalnotebooks Wordgrammar... Summary

Chapter 3:

3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4, 3.5 3.6

There is nothing as practical as a good theory. . . . . . . . 10 Morgan Lewis

....28 .....28 ...30 ........31 . . . .32 . . . . . . . . 33 ........36 ........39 .....43 .....44 ."....46

Revising priorities: from grammatical failure to collocationalsuccess Jimmie Hill

Languageandlexis Languageandlearning Whatiscollocation? Collocationalcompetence... Collocations,idiomsandphrasalverbs. Collocationsandsrammar...

\\ tr

J.6

Lol

3.9 3.10 3.1i 3.12

Tea Chc Ped Sun

Chapter.l 4.1 ^ +.2

Bac

4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9

Etp The The \Iak Reri Con Con

I ne

Chapter 5: 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.1

Intro Gene Actil Actii Exeri Your Sumr

Chapter 6:

PART 2 Chapter 7:

...47

.....47 ........48 ....48 ...49 .......50 ........52

7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7

Descr Intuiri Termi From Collor Collig Other

Contents

8

.......10

3.1 3.8 3.9 3.10 3.11 3.12

Whyiscollocationimportant? Collocationintexts Teachingcollocation Choosingwhich collocationsto teach Pedagogicalimplications S u m m a r y - l e s s g r a m m a r , m o r e .l e x i s

Chapter 4:

......10 . . . . . 1. 1 ......t2 ......14 ......15 ......17 ......18 . ... .. 2 0 ......27 . .. . . . 2 1

4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.1 4.8 4.9

e.....28

Chapter 5:

. . .. . . 2 8 ......28 ......30 ......31 -.....32 ......33 ......36 ......39 ......43

5.1 5.2 5.3 5.5 5.6 5.7

........53 ....56 . . .59 . . .63 ......65 ........67

Integrating collocation into a reading & writing courseT0 Jane Conzett

Background The needto build vocabulary Explicitvocabularystudy. Themissinglink:collocation.. The needfor guidancefrom the teacher M a k e s t u d e n t s a w a r e o f c o l l o c a.t.i.o n Reviewandtesting Concordancesforteachersandstudents Conclusion

....70 . . .7I .....72 .......73 . . . . . . .j4 .......-15 .....83 .......85 .....86

Classroom strategies,activities and exercises. . . . . . . . 88 Jimmie Hill, Morgan Lewis and Michael Lewis

Introducingcollocationtoleamers Generalstrategies Activities-exploitingatext. Activities-usingacollocationdictionary Exercises Yourownexercises Summary ......

Chapter6: Calloway'sCode. A short story by O. Henry

.

.....88 ......90 ....98 ......99 ..... 106 ....116 .....116 .....118

LL

......46 )

PART 2 - BACKGROUND THEORY Chapter 7:

4'7

......41 ".....48 ......48 ......49 ......50 ......52

7.1 7.2 1.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7

Language in the lexical approach Michael Lewis

D e s c r i p t i o nosf E n g l i s h Intuitionandevidence... Terminology From idioms to idiomaticity . Collocation Colligation Other multi-word expressions

. . . . .126 ......126 ....126 . . .129 . . 130 ....I32 ....136 . . 138

Contents

7.g 7.9 7.10 1.tI 7.12 1.13 7.14

words T h e c e n t r a l r o l e o f ' o f.' Grammar Lexis. Collocationandtesting Necessityfor change Summary Learning in the lexical approach Michael Lewis

. . . . . . i55

Introduction Twokindsofknowledge.... Acquisitionandnoticing Noticing Theimporlanceofexamples... Acquisitionisnon-linear Which is fundamental- lexis or structure? Thelexicalchallengetomethodology'. '1eve1'? What do we meanby Teachingparadigms The Lexical Approach and the Natural Approach Towardsaleamingtheory Summary

...155 ..156 .....158 ......161 .-----163 ....'.168 ' . . .I7I ... ' '.173 . .I14 . . .177 . . . . . 181 .'...182 .'.'.184

Chapter 8: g.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 8.8 8.9 8.10 8.11 8.12 8.13

. .142 .....I45 .....147 .......I49 .'..."150 . . . 151 ..'..153

Materials and resources for teaching collocation. . . . . 186 Michael Lewis ......186 Choosingtexts. ..188 Genre . . . . . . . i89 Subject-specificlanguage.... .....191 Languagecorpora .....198 Concordances... .'.2O0 Referencematerials. -. '203 . . Summary

Chapter 9: 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7

. .205 Chapter L0: Collocation and testing Peter Hargreaves ...205 10.1 Introduction . . . .206 I0.2 How do we define different levels? .......208 10.3 Testingvocabularyknowledge . . . . .215 10.4 Grammatical patterns and collocations in testing . . - '217 and dictionaries. corpora 10.5 Sources native-speaker . . . ZI8 10.6 Sources the learnercorpus(CLC) - - - - -220 10.7 Approachesto testingcollocation .-.'.22I 10.8 Summary.

Chapter 11

11.1 11.1 11.3 ll.+ 11.5 11.5 I1,7

Lear \\ hr The Sem ColU Con Surr

Bibliograpl

Contents

......r42 ....,.145 ......t47 ......t49 ......150 ......151 ......153 ......155 . . . . .. 1 5 5 ......156 ......158 ......161 ......163 ......168 ......flr ......r13 ......174

......r77 ......181 ......182 . . . . . .1 8 4 )n.....186 ......186 ......188 ......189 ,.....191 ......198 ......200 ......203 .......205 ......205 ......206 ......208 ......215 ......2t7 ......2t8 ......220

......z2r

Chapter LL: A world beyond collocation: new perspectiveson Yocabularyteaching ....224 Michael Hoey 11.1 llz 11.3 11.4 11.5 ll.6 ILl

Leaming new words Why word lists are dangerous T h e i m p o r t a n coef c o n t e x t. . . . Semanticprosody Colligation Concordancing.. Summary

Bibliography

. . . 224 . .227 ......230 .....232 ....233 .....238 .....242 . .244

Introduction

Introduction 'Without grammar little can be As David Wilkins observedmany years ago, conveyed; without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.' The single most important task facing language learners is acquiring a sufficiently large 'vocabulary' consists of vocabulary.We now recognisethat much of our prefabricated chunks of different kinds. The single most imporlant kind of chunk is collocation. Self-evidently,then, teachingcollocation should be a top priority in every languagecourse. The centrality of lexis Increasingly, languageteachershave turned to the question of how language is stored in the brain. If native speakersstore large amounts of language in chunks, what strategiesshould language teachers adopt if they are to help learnersbuild mental lexicons which are similarly phrasal? From a teaching point of view, argumentsabout exactly what types of multiword item make up the mental lexicon are unfruitful. It is clear that the learners'taskin acquiringa sufficiently large mental lexicon is considerably greaterthan we previously thought. Although grammar remains an important part of language acquisition, the lexical memory load, even for an intermediate leamer, is enormous. We now recognise that the principal difference between intermediate and advanced leamers is not complex grammar, but the greatly expanded mental lexicon available to advanced learners.Failure by some teachersto recognisethis simple fact can condemn their learnersto a lifetime on the intermediateplateau. A modified role for grammar The centrality of lexis means that the teaching of traditional grammar sffucturesshould play a less important role than in the past. Recognising that every word has its own grammar,however,meansthat any approachbasedon the central role of lexis is in many ways more grammatical than any traditional grammar syllabus. Three themes Three themesre-occurregularly in this book: . The mental lexicon is larger than we previously thought. . The prefabricatedchunks stored in our mental lexicons ready for use are often larger than previously recognised. . Really 'knowing a word'involves knowing its grammar- the patternsin which it is regularly used. The contributors all argue that expanding learners'phrasal lexicons and knowledge of word grammar are the two most important elements of any languagecourse.There is a seriouschallengefor teachersif our new insights

rnto ihe size or-eru'hein-l 'r'ocabuian'

Er en thing ir teachersen,i. Developing I

Tlrc Le:;!tt;i language iru; \\'as. as 1is l1 lin_euistics.T arise not tton are alreadr I radical. inrol chan_ses. ln , Increasing ur

Ser eral conr:i The basic rdr rr ar.s.B ul a gt da-r'r.is quit; most liequen-j: u'ho have a cl to heip leamel teachersder er From pracfic

Books of rhis order. Ihe aur as a result rf Part I descntt lan_eua_ue and I Part 1. and i', ! to Chapters teaching. or ttri first. belore rei

The contrihrLlt ' learirers nrenli ranse oi liti-ct l,Iiclrce! Le.,rr:

Introduction

iittle can be srngle most :iently large consistsof tant kind of ould be a top

orv language languagein are to help pes of multilear that the considerably an important .'ven for an the principal not complex to advanced can condemn

into the size, importance and nature of the mental lexicon are not simply to overwhelm students. Mike Mccarthy once eloquently described the 'vocabulary'part of languagelearningasmastering'the chaosof the lexicon'. Everything in this book is designedto help bring order to that chaosfor both teachersand, more importantly, their learners. Developing the Lexical Approach The Lexical Approach (1993) was a combination of applied linguistics and languageteachingmethodology.Implementingthe Lexical Approach (199j) was, as its title suggests,more practical; methodology,rather than applied linguistics.The first half of this book is even more practical. The chapters arisenot from what teacherscould do in their classrooms,but from what they are already doing. Some of the suggestionsare modest; others are more radical, involving a reversal of traditional priorities. Introducing modest changes,in a climate of action research,is surely the best way forward. Increasing understanding Severalcontributorsstresstheir own increasingunderstandingof collocation. The basic idea is extremely simple - some words co-occur in interesting ways.But a greatdeallies behindthat formulation.Frequentcollocation(nice day), is quite different from strong collocation (wage war); bfi neither the most frequent nor the strongestare the most useful for learners.only teachers who have a clear understandingof different kinds of collocation will be able to help learnersin the bestpossibleway. part 2 of this book is designedto help teachersdevelop this clearer understanding. From practice to theory

nal grammar :ognisingthat rachbasedon cal than any

for use are : pattems in iexicons and lments of any r new insights

Books of this kind tend to go from theory to practice; this book reversesthat order. The authors in Part 1 describe how what they do in class has changed as a result of their developing awarenessof the lexical nature of language. Pafi 2 describes in more detail the present state of our understanding of languageand acquisition.Teacherswho havetried someof the suggestionsin Part l, and want to take their understandingfurlher, should turn particularly to chapters 7 and 8. Teacherswith a lot of experienceof lexically-based teaching,or thoseon in-servicecoursesmay prefer to read thesetwo chapters first, before returning to the more detailed practical suggestionsof part 1. The contributors to this book have one principal objective - to develop learners'mental lexicons, and with that, to give those leamers a far wider rangeof life-choices.It is a worthwhile objective. Michael Lewis, Hove, January 2000

10

There is nothing as practical as a good theorl

Chapter I J

' -

There is nothing as practical as a good theory

-. ' J

Morgan Lewis

-, ..

Morgan Lewis describes how his initial teacher training led him to value grammar and explaining, and to believe both in the importance of a good lesson plan and the close relationship between what he taught and what his students learned. Experience led him to question these ideas and, as a result of more theoretical study of the nature of both language and learning' to change his classroom priorities. A better understanding of language means he gives much more attention to collocation in all his classesl a better understanding of language acquisition means consciously bringing more language into every class, while accepting that the teacher cannot be sure exactly what learners will do with the language which is presented to them. He believes many teachers with a few years experience behind them will recognise the story he tells'

1.1 Introduction Seeing the title of this chapter,you might have assumedthat the chapter was written by an applied linguist who will lemove you from the classroominto the far off land of academia.In fact, I am a regular classroom teacher with about ten years' experienceof teachingmostly multi-lingual classesin the UK. Perhapslike you, after afew yearsin the classroom,I beganto question some of the received wisdom of my initial training. The Present-Practise-Produce paradigm I startedwith seemedsuch a neat, tidy and sensibleway to go about teaching.I increasingly found, however,that leaming did not follow the same tidy model. I seemedto have less control over what studentswere learning than my initial training had led me to expect.I beganasking myself questions - some more explicitly than others- such as: . Why is it that what my studentsleam doesn'tmore closely resemblewhat I teach? . Should I spend so much time trying to achieveaccurateglammar from my students? . Shouldmy lessonplan rule the proceedings? . What is the most efficient way of improving students'performance,given they don't have a lot of time to leam the language? . What can you really do for those 'intermediate plateau' studentswho need a breakthrough and a feeling of progression? . What can you do for advancedstudentsafter they have met the third 'advanced'English anyway? conditional?And what is

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Thereis nothing as practical as a good theory

reory him to value I a good lesson lt his students result of more to change his he gives much Ierstanding of nto every class, rarners will do .eacherswith a

re chapterwas :lassroominto n teacher with ciassesin the questlonsome rctise-Produce /ay to go about r11owthe same u'ere leaming l,self questions 'esemblewhat nmar from my

mance, given entswho need the third

11

I beganan extendedperiod of extra study free from the constraintsof day-today lesson planning and thinking about my particular students.This allowed me to stop being preoccupiedwith my teaching for a while and as a result, I found myself drawn more and more to considering the nature of language itself and the nature of languagelearning - what the processin which I was engagedand for which I was trained was really all about. Surprisingly, my initial training had not included study of this at all. It was concerned exclusively with how the teacher should teach; learners and leaming were hardly discussedat al-.

Tlsr Whatpercentage of thetimein yourtrainingwasspentlookingat teaching and what percentage was devoted to learning? After a lesson now, do you tend to think mostly about what you did, or about the leamers?

I very soon came to two broad conclusions.Firstly, there was no guarantee thai leamers learn what teachersteach. Secondly, the grammar/vocabulary '3ichotomywas spurious, and the central role of grammar, at least as defined ,',,ithin my training, probably neededto be re-evaluated. \faking slight methodologicalchangesin the light of theseconclusionswould not have satisfied me. I neededto get below the surface, explore the theory ,'*,hich lies behind classroom procedures, and decide what the real implicationsfor the classroomcould be. Let me explain in more detail how I rame to these conclusions and show how they relate to the importance of teachingcollocationin the classroom.

1.2 Learners don't learn what teachersteach {lthough it is hard for many teachersto accept,it simply is not true that our srudentsnecessarilylearn what we teach them. Teachingis, on the whole, organised,linear and systematic,but it is a mistake to think that leaming is the same.Leaming is complex and non-linear, and although the result may be a s] stem,its acquisition is far from systematic.We cannotcontrol what students ieam. in what order they will learn and how fast they will learn. As Diana Larsen-Freemanwrites in a disconcertingfootnote to an article in the journal -\pplied Linguistics: 'I am constantly reminding students, audiences and rnr self that teaching does not causeleaming.' This has had an important implication for the way I teach: I no longer expect srudentsto masteran item or items of languagebefore exposingthem to more. Erpecting mastery in the immediate shorl term is an unrealistic expectation. The fact is, they may or may not acquire what you teachthem. If they do, they mav acquire it immediately, later or only partially.

12

There is nothing as practical as a good theory

Tlsr

item or areabefore Shouldlearnersmore or lessmasterone new new points being exposedto more, or are you happy introducing confusing? more this find evenif learnersmay, ln the shortterm,

Whathasthistodowithteachingcollocation?Imagineastudentproduces the student with the t'"19*i He's a strong smoker'You could simply supply ideal opportunity to activate collocate _ heavy - and move on. But an languageontheedgeofthestudent'slexiconhasbeenmissed.Itrequiresvery chain and non as more little extra time or explaining to add: occasional' know whether students will collocates of smoker' Given that you cannot as well give them three more' remember and use heavy smoker, you might or all of them' Adding They might remember none' one' two of them introducing one. or two new collocation to your teaching by consciously in this way increasesthe words and re-activating other half-known words you cannotbe at all sure what the chanceof acquisition titi"g place, though acquisitionencouraged(bu"tnot.caused')bythisparticularbitofteaching willbe. oneofthequestionslposedformyselfafterteachingforanumberofyears wastheextenttowhichmylessonplanshoulddominateproceedings.These the languageaims in my plan and days, I am less concemed about achieving to opportunities like the more concerned about spotting and responding - whether prompted by a heavy/occasional/chain/nin- smoke' scenario to which I can add a handful of studenterror or finding a collocation in a text capturedby Peter wilberg's other useful collocateslThis mindset is perfectly andquoted by Michael Lewis at discussion of responsibility in One to One' thebeginningofTheLexicatApproach:..Theteacher'smainresponsibilityis response-abilitY."

means indi\ have alreadl learner re-ot do not realh simple and t thesediffere isolation frc pafiicular tel it used or n tenses.

The same B 'negative' c alternatives-

can be undet fine until th assesswhat teacherma1the dffircnc training - lr difference bre are at best dictionary d< injury, and t collocationa or rather mor

Tnsx Look at lt'Of

Tlsr what your students How much control do you think you haveover learn? rigidly? Do you still try to follow your lessonplan fairly respondspontaneously How willing areyou to forget your plan and with unpreParedinPut?

L.3 Knowing a word is comPlicated Relatedtothepointthatlearnersdon'tnecessarilylearnwhatweteachisthe step-by-step in nature, whereas fact that teaching tends to be linear and time' This is becausenew input learning is holistic, cyclical and evolves over

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From the cX evolving the lexis, it follor met will wic

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lnt produces the standard to activate requfesvely ,70nas more ;tudentswill Lthree more. rem. Adding or two new increasesthe ;ure what the t of teaching nber of years :dings.These my plan and ities like the impted by a i a handful of :ter Wilberg's hael Lewis at ;ponsibility is

13

means individual learners constantly need to make adjustmentsto what they have already internalised. Learning is not simply additive; it involves the learner re-organisinghis or her previous interlanguage.For example,learners do not really understandthe presentperfect until they understandthe present simple and the past simple too, and the relationshipsthat the meanings of all thesedifferent verb forms have with each other. Tensesare not understoodin isolation from each other and it follows that learners' understanding of a particular tensedevelopsas they encounterdifferent usesofthat tenseand see it used or not used in preference to, and in (implied) contrast with, other tenses. The same principle of meeting new uses, and becoming more aware of 'negative' choices - choosing one item implies rejecting several similar alternati.ves- applies to items of vocabulary.Take the word injury. This word can be understoodby a student from its dictionary definition and all will be fine until the student comes across the word wownd. Sfte) then has to reassesswhat injury means in the light of the new discovery, a discovery the teachermay wish the learner had never made when the leamer asks: What's the dffirence befween'wound'and 'injury' 2 One's instinct - and my initial training - leads you to answer such a question by trying to define the differencebetweenpairs of this kind, but this only leadsto problems and what are at best half-truths. The difference between the two does not lie in dictionary definitions but rather that we say,for example,stab woundnot stab injury, and internal injwries not internal wounds. In other words, it is the collocational frelds of the two words which reveal the difference of meaning, or rather more precisely,the difference betweenthe ways the words are used.

Tlsr Look at these pairs of words: work / job house/ bwilding wnderstand/ realise Can you define the difference between each pair? Can you list a few collocates of each word in each pair? (You may want to look them up in a collocation dictionary or use a computer concordance program.) Which do you think would help your learners more - the definitions or the lists of collocations?

,r'eteach is the rrure, whereas rusenew input

From the classroom point of view, if learners are slowly but continually evolving their understanding of the target language, whether grammar or lexis, it follows that giving studentscollocations of words newly or previously met will widen their understanding of what those words mean and, more

l4

There is nothing as practical as a good theorl

imporlantly, how they are used. Taking a few minutes to supply these collocationsin a lesson shortcutsthe processof building up meaning and therefore acquiring. If you do not actively introduce additional collocations, it may be weeks,monthsor yearsbeforestudentsmeet thosecollocationsand therefore the process of evolving and deepening understandingis delayed. Actively introducing collocations recycles half-known words and, while this doesnot directly causeleaming, it accelerates it.

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Some teachersmight say at this point that there is not enoughtime to explore the collocations of words in this way - there are too many other important things to do, particularly explaining things. A great deal of time is spent in many classroomsexplaining what things mean. For the reasonsabove, I suggestthat ar least some of that time is better spentshowing studentswhat words do - how they are actually used and how they collocate - rather than explaining what they mean. Explaining and exploring is surely better than either alone.

Tlsr Are you happy with the idea of explaining less and giving and discussingmore examples instead?

1.4 The intermediate plateau Referring to my earlier question: what can you reaily do for those 'intermediate plateau' studentswho need a breakthrough?A big part of the answerlies in the strategyjust discussed.The reasonso many studentsarenot making any perceivedprogressis simply becausethey have not been trained to notice which words go with which. They may know quite a lot of individual words which they struggle to use, along with their grammatical knowledge, but they lack the ability to use those words in a range of collocations which pack more meaning into what they say or write. The answer lies in teachers continually bringing useful collocations to students' attention and helping them to remember them, rather than trying to improve their grammar or giving them a lot more new words, which can so easily mean obscure,rarely used words. Most intermediate studentswould improve dramatically if they spentless time trying to perfect their grammar and leam new, rare words, and insteadsimply leamed to use the words they alreadyknow in the huge number of collocations of which thesewords are parts. A shift in approach of this kind will almost certainly need to come initially from the teacher as (s)he trains studentsto re-direct their priorities in ways which are most likely to produce both perceived and genuine progress.

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15

1.5 The gramrnar-vocabulary dichotomy is invalid So much of language teaching over the years has been based on the dichotomy of grammar and vocabulary: master the grammar sysfem, Iearn lots of words and then you will be able to talk about whateveryou want. This view of languagehas meant that studentshave learnedto name a lot of things - an extensivevocabulary,predominantly nouns - and then struggled to use grammar to talk about those things. No wonder students make so many grammarmistakes!They areusing grammarto do what it was nevermeantto do. Grammar enablesus to construct language when we are unable to find what we want ready-made in our mental lexicons. But so much of the language of the effective language user is already in prefabricated chunks, storedin their mental lexiconsjust waiting to be recalledfor use. These chunks of lexis, which include collocations,do more than just name things, they also have a pragmatic element. They enable you to talk about things- to 'do'things. This raisesthe statusof collocationto much more than just 'words which go together'.Many collocationshaveimmediatepragmatic force or are situationally evocative.For example, it is hard to think in which situation someonemight say: This is a corner. But if I say to yotr'. This is ct dangerowscot'rler, it immediately suggeststwo people in a car as they approach a corner where lots of accidents have happened.The collocation dangerowscotrler is immediately evocative of a situation or a speechevent. Notice, it is not simply that an adjective has been added to the word corner. The item dangerowscorner exists as a prefabricatedchunk with its own sanctionedmeaning. Taking it apart would do damageto what it does, even what it is. Therefore, what collocation has put together, let no teacher pull apart! Languageis full of such examples- two (or more) word collocationswhich expresssomething specific in precisely the form in which they typically occur. Tampering with items of this kind in any way meansthey completely lose their communicative power. Although such items may be only two or threewords, a greatdeal of meaningmay be packedinto them, so one of these items can evokea complex situationvery precisely.

Tasx What event, situation or topic does each of these collocations suggest: routine check-up widely available boost employment disperse the crowd catch wp with the news Are they typical of spoken English, newspapers,novels or what?

To me, they suggest:talking about a new product, a visit to the doctor or dentist, a government aim, police action after an incident, and friends who haven't spokenfor a while. In the classroom.items such as thesemust be

t6

There is nothing as practical as a good theory

brought to students' attention and the bigger context they suggest must be shown. Once this has been done, it is safe to translate the item into the leamers' mother tongue. Not word-for-word but whole phrase to whole phrase, bearing in mind that the structure of the expression may be very different in one languagefrom the equivalent expressionin the other. There are two important points here. Firstly, if you do not teach collocations, you are ignoring alarge set of items which expressoften complex ideas very simply and yet precisely.Secondly,the fewer collocations studentsare able to use, the more they have to use longer expressionswith much more grammaticalisationto communicatesomething which a native speakerwould express with a precise lexical phrase and correspondingly little grammar. Notice too, that if native speakersusually express an idea lexically with a collocation,the non-nativespeaker,not knowing the lexical item, has to use grammar to express the idea in a way which they have not heard in that context - they have no model to guide them. They are in unchartedterritory, which further increasesthe chanceof grammatical error. If the teacheris not careful, this can lead to more grammar explanationsand practice when what is really neededis work to expandthe learners'mentallexicons.

It is a majo erTors are a oi these err, in

Students'attempt

set yowrselfa realistic objective

You must know what you want to do but it must not be too much for it to be possible for you to do. make problems which you think have no answers a very important moment when things changed completely a new book which is very similar to the old one but improved and up-to-date

cause insurmountabledfficwlties major tuming point

revisededition

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1.6 Adrr I rel-erb:L;k -r,.rdetii,.u;i: -\dr an'-ec s rt'our id.-as I o n g u e .\ l L r l do not h:lp, inanr, adl arl g;ms as: Itrt ,,irel-itiilcii ; t.'fl1nlUn1iilt

An example may make this clearer. The student who doesn't know the expressionadequate supplies to meet the demand is forced to construct somethingllke: We clon't have things enoughso that evety person who will have one can have one. The messagehas, perhaps, been successfully communicatedin this casebut most teacherswould probably feel obliged to stepin andhelp.Anyone who hasthe collocationsadeqwatesupplies,meetthe demand, as part of their mental lexicon is able to recall them as complete phrases.This meansthe more collocationslearnershave at their disposal,the less they need to grammaticalise. This in turn means more brainspace is available to generateand processcontent. Here are more examplesof natural collocationsand students'attemptsto constructthe sameideas: Collocation

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There is nothing as practical as a good theory

t7

It is a major changeof mindset for teachersto realise that many grammatical effors are causedby lexical deficiencies,and that the best responseto many of theseerrors at intermediateand advancedlevels is to do more lexical work in place of grammatical correction. It may, of course, be necessaryto introduce this idea to learnersand persuadethem of the value of putting more emphasison collocationand other lexical work.

1.6 Advanced English I refer back to anotherof my earlier questions:what can you do for advanced studentsafter the third conditional? And what is 'advanced'English anyway? Advanced studentsbecome fiustrated when they are unable to talk or write about ideas which they can comfortably talk or write about in their mother tongue.More complicated or this-will-challenge-them grammatical structures do not help them to do this. unfortunately, this has been the standarddiet of many advancedmaterials, encouraging learners to produce such convoluted gemsas: wereI richer I would definitelybuy one or Had I not arrived in time, the kitchen wowld have caught fire. The language which helps leamers to communicate more complicated ideas is not convoluted grammar structures like these,but different kinds of multi-word phrases,particularly denselypackednoun phrases(firm but relaxedparental discipline,modern cities in the developed world, the continuing decline of educational standarcls) and adverbial phrases (in marked controst, referring back to my earlier point, later that year, in the late tutentiethcentwry).As the first two adverbial examples show, among the most important phrases are those which create cohesion across written text. The imporlant thing to note is that all these multi-word phrasesare collocationsof differentkinds. I no longer woffy about how to challenge my advancedcrasseswith obscure grammaticalconstructionsor unusual words. I simply keep my eyes open when using a text for collocations which I can bring to their attention and which we can then explore together.

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l . ! , r , i 3 1 .t h e r rn:,-e iq r -r- natUral

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An important point to make is that very often the words in the collocations are not new or difficult at all. For example,the item, a major turning point does not include any individually difficult words for an advancedstudent but this very fact meansthat both teacherand studentcan too easily assumeit is not worth their attention.trnfact, it is often true to say that neither learnersnor the teachereven recogniseit as a new item, so an extremelyuseful collocation slips by unnoticed and is therefore unavailablefor storageand re-use by the leamers. Asking students:Are thereany wordsyou don't understand?is, therefore,not a helpful question. They may indeed understand all the words but fail to notice the combinationsthosewords are in. My questioningof studentsnow soesmore like this:

There is nothing as practical as a good theory

18 T

SS T

Is there anything in the first paragraphyou think you should write in your notebooks?(silence while students scanthe paragraPh)Nothing? No. Are you sure?I don't believeyou. (more silenceand looking) What about the expressionwith risk? In all my time as a teacherI've never heard a student say or write run the risk of. Perhapsmy studentshave never noticed it' Do you use this expression?(generalshakingof heads) Perhapsyou have never noticed it either. OK, write it in your notebooks,then.

Being more proactive in pointing out useful languageand getting leamers to record it is an essentialrole of the teacher.This goes against thinking which encourages a student-centred,exploration approach to language. While I agree that learners should take responsibility for their own learning, they should not be taking responsibility for choosing which language items are more linguistically useful. Interestingly, after a period of teacher-dominated instruction (I prefer to call it learner training) of the kind exemplified above, learnersbegin to notice more of this kind of languagefor themselves,and start asking me about items in text, thus becoming more autonomous in their approach.And the questions they ask are better. Better than me asking Are there any words you don't know?, better than them asking only What does this word mean? Studentsbegin askingIs this a commonexpression?What does this expressionmean?Is this a collocatiorz?Thesequestionsrepresenta real improvement as they mean learners are now asking about language which they hadn't even noticed before. I have found that higher level studentssensevery quickly that they are gaining useful ground when collocations are drawn to their attention in this way. Becausethey are being equipped to say or write more complicated ideas, a new senseof satisfaction,and thereforemotivation, develops.[Deborah Petty makesthe samepoint abouther leamers.Seep 95. Edl

1.7 Leave 'used'languagealone 'IJsed',languageis what David Brazllhas evocativelycalled languagewhich has already been used naturally in speechor writing. Although we call this language'used', that is not to suggestthat it has beenin any way damagedor soiled in the process.Perhapsbecauseof the preoccupationwith grammar over the years, and the determination to find generative systems, used language,particularly speech,has often been thought to need a good clean up 'good'input. Once cleanedup, it has usually beenbroken before it can form dou,n irito individual words. Collocationhas been ignored or at least under,,aluedbecauseof this obsessionwith breakingdown usedlanguage.

Hort i'; noteLro Do r.o: Do r ot-t similar Do rou 1 translar

ln order ibr I enough to si hcln

lea-."

conr.ictionttt *hich rle fit keepthe chu cleanin-eupnot adding.r \ofino

nrrllr

recordingir" at best.on n centralroh.

Belou- are ,r recordedson n^t)ntioll\-

ri

ieamers. thet to be used al can actualli-l processrnstll the lan_euage recorded: '.h; \\-hat actualh \\ ere taken:

Take the hir Foilou'il si Tum a blin,j To rule ourri Stand on ru, On the othet It's not rr-orl I searchednr

Of these eigh I also suggesi eYocatl\ e an,: also be transl

There is nothing as practical as a good theory

t9

Tlsr

!l-11'

-ri-J

IL.

-: I til

.:ii learners to n:niring which i:ge. While I r:arnrng, they Ll.]qeltems are .her-dominated :rpiilled above, ;:1r es. and start ;rn-ious in their ne asking Are ',J'hat does this :'i: | \\/hatdoes iepresent a real trn-euagewhich :he\ are gaining ':'n in this way. rhcated ideas, a !Deborah Petty

languagewhich ush we call this or rl,'a)-damaged n u'ith grammar : s1'stems,used La good cleanup a1lybeen broken rr at least underan_suage.

How do you encourage learners to record language in their notebooks? Do you ask them to record examples exactly as they find them? 'clean Do you the examplesup' so that what learnersrecord is similar to a dictionary entry? Do you encourage them to write (or prevent them from writing) translations?

In order for collocationto assumeits rightful place in the classroom,it is not enough to simply have an understandingof what it is and a sensethat it can help learners increase their communicative power. There needs to be a conviction that we should leave as much languageas possible in the form in which we frnd it. Avoid breaking it up; keep something of the context and keep the chunks which are recorded as large as possible.Avoid grammatical cleaning up, and rememberattempting to generalisemay result in you losing, not adding, relevant information about how the languageis actually used. Noting multi-word vocabulary in exactly the form it is found in text, recording it, and trying to remember it in that form for re-use later has been, at best, on the periphery of language teaching, when in fact it deservesa centralrole. fMichael Hoey cliscusses this point at somelength,p 230. Ed] Below are some examplesof languagewhich my learnersrecorded.They recorded some of them in the form in which they found them, so these are potentially re-usable if remembered.Others, despite my efforts to guide the learners,they recordedin a 'cleanedup' version,which meansthat if they are to be used again, the learners will have to manipulate the items before they can actually use them. It goeswithout saying that manipulation requiresmore processingtime, and gives more opportunity for grammatical error, or using the languagein an unnatural way. The left hand column is what the learners recorded;the right hand column is what I wish they had recorded,which is what actually occurred in the texts and dialogues from which the examples were taken: Take the hint Follow in someone'sfootsteps Turn a blind eye To rule out the possibility of Stand on yow own two feet On the other hand It's not worth it. I searchedhigh and low for it.

OK. I can take a hint. He's following in hisfather's footsteps. I decided to tum a blind eye.

Wecan't nile owt thepossibility of +...ing It's timeyou stoodon your own twofeet. On the other hand It's not worth it. I searchedhigh and low for it.

Of theseeight items, only the last three are recordedin the most useful way. I also suggestthat becausethey havemore context,they are more situationally evocative and they are, therefore, more likely to be remembered.They can also be translatedmore safely.

20

There is nothing as practical as a good theora

The argument has been advanced that leamers can generalise from the traditional to take one's time, or to give somebodya hand but may not be able to generalisefrom the actually used examples:Takeyowr time, Can I give yow a hand? Such an argumentis surely wholly illogical; the cleanedup infinitive versions are themselvesneither more nor less than generalisationsof the used examples. Used examples provide a perfectly adequate basis for other generalisationsand havethe addedadvantagesof being both more memorable and more immediately usable. Related to this idea of respectingused languageis the fact that there are a lot of words in the lexicon that have very little precise meaning until they are actually used.For example,the meaning of get is impossible to pin down until it is used and has co-text. The important point is that it is most commonly used in relatively fixed expressionswith collocations - they're getting married, we got wet, we got thrown owt, I've got a bad cold and so on. Ignoring these expressionsin the forms in which they occur, or taking thern apart in order to establishthe meaning of get is ridiculous, as the leamers will only have to put them together again in order to use the original expressions. Once you have realised that the mental lexicon contains many multi-word chunks, as well as individual words, the teaching of collocations is inevitable if you wish to remain true to the subject matter you are teaching. So, having laid a theoretical basisfor collocation having a central role to play in the classroom,let us considersomepracticalways this can be done.

1.8 Some classroomactivities 1. Don't correct - collect Knowing a noun allows you to name a concept, but this is a long way from being able to talk about the concept. So, a leamer who makes a collocation mistake when trying to talk about somethingprovides the ideal opportunity to expand and organisethe leamer's lexicon in a very efficient way, similar to the strong smokerexamplediscussedearlier.Don't just correct the mistake, give some extra collocations as well - three or four for the price of one. The transcript below showshow this works. I have to make an exam in the summer. (T indicates mistake by facial expression) S I have to make an exam. (Writes 'exam'on the board) T What verb do we usually use with 'exam'? S2 Take. T Yes, that's ight. (Writes 'take'on board) What other verbs do we use with 'exam'? S2 Pass.

T \ e . r

S T

Fai; \-es

rI{-r \Ixd \\tjr

_\o.rIi-r T +al \ {

Sl T

pasi Ea-* \bs, \\h \\hi \o.l

For advance similar to thi

take re-It pass fail scra

With this lan the collocatir

Tasx Youma

these in I ant toc If you ltt opetI v L' Evertbo Which r to elicit

You can exte main word expressionsI smoker exam smoking. Ant Suddenly1'or you elicit od

There is nothing as practical as a good theory

Lsefrom the able L,r'not.be 'an I give you lup ffinitive rs of the used ;is for other ie memorable thereare a lot until they are rin downuntil rst commonly wt're getting fd and so on. rr taking thern e leamerswill I expressions. lr-multi-word rs is inevitable Ig

ral role to piay rc done.

T S T

52 T

2l

Yes.And the opposite? Fail. Yes. (Writes 'pass'and 'fail'on the board) And if you fail an exam sometimesyou can do it again. What's the verb for that? (Waitsfor response) No? OK, re-take.You can re-take an exam. (Writes 're-take'on the board) If you passan exam with no problems,whal can you say?I p a s s e d. . Easily. Yes, or we often say 'comfortably'. I passedcomfortably. What aboutif you get 5l%oand the passmark is 50Vo? What can you say? I . . . (Waitsfor response) No? I just passed.You can alsojust fall. (Writes on the board)

For advancedleamers you may also give them scrape through. I use formats similar to this to organisethe responses: take re-take pass fail scrapethrough

an exam

With this language,studentscan not only name the concept exam, they have the collocations they need to talk about exams with confidence. long way from s a collocation opportunity to lvay, similar to ct the mistake, ice of one.The

Tlsr You may like to think how you would respondif a learnersaid one of thesein your class: I am toofat so I have to makea strongdiet. If you have a problem with yourself it is good to talk abowtit in an openway to a nearfriend. Everybodymustagreewith the law if we want a good society. Which nounsare you going to explore?What questionswill you ask to elicit or teachextra collocations? You can extend this activity further by thinking not only of collocates of the main word in question, but also of other common collocations and expressionslikely to be said or written around the same topic. In the heavy smoker example it is only a very short step to elicit or give the item give up smoking. And from there you could add: I wish I could give up smoking. Suddenly you find yourself with two minutes practice of I wish I could . . . as you elicit other vices from your students. All this from responding to a

22

There is nothing os practical as a gond theory

{t's,il coul,J

collocation effol and thinking aloud and so stimulating the classto ask: What elsedo we say when talking about smokersand smoking?

ICI

2. Make learners be more precise It is obviously demotivating if every time studentscommunicate effectively, the teachernitpicks and asks for perfection. However, at the right time and in the right way, improving students'performance is an imporlant part of the teacher'sjob, and what studentsneed. So, if a studentproduces:I was vetl' disappointed, point out the options: bitterly/deeply disappointed. Ot if a studentwrites: Thereare good possibilitiesfor improvingyowrjob, you may want to write excellentpromotion prospectsin the margin. In other words, it's not just mistakes that are opportunities for teaching but also the kind of circumlocutions we discussed earlier. If you notice the roundabout expressionswhich are the symptom of the lack of the necessarylexis, you will frequently recognise opportunities for helping students be more precise or more concrse. 3. Donot explain - explore When students ask What's the dffirence between. .'. , fot two words of similar meaning such as wownd/injwrydiscussedearlier, rather than spending too much time explaining the difference, give three or four contextualised examples of each word - that is, provide the appropriate collocational language.For example, with make and do you might give: make a mistake, make an enquiry, make the most of the opportunity; do your best, do some overtime, Can yow do me a favour? and so on. The same procedure is particularly useful with those nouns which have very little meaning unless used in collocations,such as effect,position, action, point, way, grownd'(If you look in a collocation dictionarY,You will see that thesenouns have very 'knowing' a word like large collocational fields. The most important part of this is knowing a large number of its collocations.) Consider this classroom scenano: T . . . yes, that's a good Point, Marco. 'point' again.You say it in every S Excuse me but you said 'point' lessonbut it's sometimesdifferent.What does mean? T Point . . . well, we use it in different ways, and it's very common.Here are sometypical ways we use it. (Writes on the board): Why do you want me to do that? I can't seethepoint; I know you want to comebut, thepoint is, you're not old enough. That's a good point. I hadn't thoughtof that' I always make a point of saying thank you to the bus driver

]

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\

'nl

0n-tl.sl - x. I LJ: \. L

aF r g

i,lea-.. 1I \Ou Alrhrrnoh n.r I TIS !

L{11Y

l UUN

.,,har ,,i'otll,c "iet'initlon. {. [f in douh

Dn-' ot rhe r: l:rltrlers he".t i'rnleiirnfi h lhe tert is lt'r

Collocation,< ."rtrlocatirrns I n,licin_ an*nI -]n "ir3 not [o iericons. Petr u similar proil

In rhis ,, the clan channel have'oa

Simple quest nn,-nn-.'^l''

1

let's sar-the r. of. using the c

Instead of as board or ovel I often do thl then have tc collocations. more ven' qr recordin_ethe found that a collocations i

There is nothing as practical as a good theory

I,:,rsk: It?rl/

:

- t

pli.rtntirrclrr ! r r ! ! L r Y v r J r

rt jiime and in 1r part of the '- of treat with

ms suchas this :rd leamers,it :r intermediate frattem.Notice r:, repair itself, ; people,repair

35

Almost always, a list of authenticexamplesmakesyou aware of both patterns and problems which you would have almost certainly overlooked if you had relied only on your intuition. collocation is more varied than we tend to think, and looking at authentic exampleswill nearly always be more revealing than seeking an explanation basedon subtle semanticdifferences.

mostly a matter of noticing and recording, and trained studentsshould be able to explore texts for themselves. Not only should they notice common collocations in the texts they meet, but more importantly, they should select those collocations which are crucial to their particular needs. This is very much in line with modern trends in languageteaching, where there is a shift from simply teaching the languageto helping learnersdevelop their learning skills. How, then,can we encourageand developthe students'abilityto notice the collocations which are significant and useful for them? I believe most studentsneed to spend some time initially in identifying the basic grammar categoriesof noun, verb, adjective,and adverb,as theseare the categorieswhich are the focus of co-textual searchstrategiesfor collocation. This can be done through traditional exercisesin sentenceanalysis.The next stageis to highlight the pivotal role of the noun. The fact that nouns tend to be the focus of information in a text, that we tend to build the information up around the nouns, means that they are the most suitable headwords for collocationsearches. Search strategiesthemselves are relatively simple and straightforward, and reflect the procedures we followed in teaching collocation above. we encouragethe student to follow the steps below, and through practice make them routine and automatic: 1. Isolatekey nounsin the text 2. Look for (unexpected)verb collocates 3. Look for (unexpected)adjective collocates 4. Look for (unexpected)adverb collocates I've added 'unexpected' in brackets as a reminder that the purpose of these searchstrategiesis not to notice all collocates of a word, but for learners to select those combinations that they do not already know or expect. For example, the collocation big disappointmentis not surprising or unexpected whereasbitter disappointment is likely to be, which makes the latter worth noticing and recording. we need,therefore,to actively encouragethe developmentof theseskills and

36

Collocation - encouraging learner independence

give them sufficient focus in the classroom. One useful way of monitoring their developmentis to establishregular slots in the courseprogramme where students report back to the class on interesting collocations they have encounteredand noticed outside the classroom.It is probably true to say that the teacher's role today is becoming more and more one of facilitating leaming, and one issue of importance centres on how we help our students maximise their leaming of collocation outside the classroom.

2.7 Resources:dictionaries A particular word may interest or be important to a student,who will naturally want to explore its collocational field further. However, if encounterswith particular words are left to random or chancemeetings in texts, learning will be extremely haphazardand inefficient. To a certain extent, we can partially resolve this situation by heeding Swan's earlier point that we provide a more concentrated exposure to collocations through careful planning of the vocabulary input to our courses.However, outside the classroomwe need to direct our studentsto concentratedsourcesof this kind of information. 1. Traditional dictionaries One would expect dictionaries to be an obvious source of relevant information. However, dictionaries tend to focus on the decoding process. That is, they provide excellent descriptions of the meaning(s) of words through synonymy and other word relations such as paraphrase and contextualisation. The organisation reflects the students' approach to the dictionary as a resourcefor answeringthe question What does X mean?A major drawback is that most dictionaries give relatively little explicit attention to collocation and other co-textual featuresof words. Dictionaries can, however,be approachedin a different way and prove to be a worthwhile sourceof information on collocation.A good English-English dictionary usually provides one or two expressions or sentences demonstratingthe use of a word, and these will probably contain one or two useful collocates of that word. Teachersshould encouragestudentsto browse theseexamplesfor collocations. This needsto become an automatic habit. By switching the focus to the collocational field of a word, the studentis now using the dictionary as an encoding tool, rather than a decoding one. For most studentsthis is new, and as such, they will need some guidance and training in using the dictionary in this way. An approachwhich I find useful, is to set exercises which actively direct the students to the dictionary to explore a word's collocatesrather than its meaning. Such exercisescan be free-standing or integratedinto a lesson. In one of my classes,the word criticism in the sentenceThe Governmenthas received heavy criticism for increasing taxes became a focus. After dealing with the meaningand highlighting the collocatesreceive and heavy,I asked

the stude homeworl which wor for increa

critic or sol disad for st beett

From the t, to work ou severeand is vital to t own produr

I then aske met, and th has comeit

One obvior languagepr is lookin-eft not provide the task abo wanted to k the opposit growmg sel assume thal old/new wlll 2. Electroni

What is clea studentsu,it greater num solutions ar technology. dictionary'. I ROM, which using a persc the book for former has tr AdvancedI-e configured to word or phras

Collocation - encouraging learner independence

monitodng nme where they have to say that lacilitating ur students

iil naturally runterswith eaming wiil :an partially lr ide a more mng of the n u,e need to nai10n.

of relevant 1in_eprocess. -ri of words rphrase and r:ach to the I rrteon? A r:it aftention i lror,e to be rlish-En,ehsh I

n Oneor two rts to browse a:ir-habit. udentis now ,ne.For most trqinino

rfu1.is to set t r

:r-n

lnra

the studentsto look np criticism in their English-Englishdictionariesfor homework. The idea was to seeif they could find other verbs and adjectives which would completethe sentence, The Governmenthas . . . criticism for increasing taxes.The relevant entry in the coBUILD dictionary is: criticism 1. criticism is the expressionof disapprovalof someone or something,by statingan opinion on their faults, weaknesses, or disadvantagesin speechor writing. EG. The Governmentcame in for severecriticism. somefi.ercepublic criticism of the ptan had beenvoiced. From the two instancesof use given by the dictionary the studentswere able to work out that the phrasal verb come in for could replace receive, and that severeandfierce were appropriatealternativesto heavy.This kind of noticing is vital to encoding and enablesstudentsto transfer their findines rnto their own production. I then asked the class to talk about the criticism that their governmentshad met, and this led to a number of responseswith the pattern, My Government has comein for severecriticismfor . . . one obvious limitation of this approach lies in the rather small amount of languagepresentedby the dictionary.This is certainly a problem if the student is looking for a particular collocation. More often than not, the dictionary will not provide it. [Seealsop 200] For example,someof my studentsattempting the task abovefelt that the criticisms of their governmentsweren't heavy, and wanted to know the contextual opposite of heavy. We had earlier noted that the opposite of heavy cold was slight cord, not light cold. The students' growing sensitivity to collocation had made them aware that one cannot assume that simple oppositions between adjectives such as heaty/light, old/new will work in all contexts. 2. Electronic dictionaries

SCIITCIILCS

rr I

37

q

:ree-standing ,t'tlirnent hAS

\1ter deahng ..r 1. I asked

what is clear is that dictionary entries in their presentformat cannot provide students with a sufficient range of collocates. Ideally, our students need a greater number of examples of use to browse. Fortunately, a number of solutions are becoming available through developments in computer technology. one of the easiestto use and understandis the ,electronic dictionary'. Most of the major ELT dictionariesare now availableon cDRoM, which allows the contentsof the dictionary to be accessedand searched using a personal computer.The main advantageof the electronic format over the book format lies in the powerful and speedy search functions that the former has built into it. For example, the cD-RoM version of the o$ord Advanced Learners Dictionary has a full text searchfunction which can be configured to searchall the examplesof use in the dictionary for a particular word or phrase.when I askedthe dictionary to display all the examplesof use

38

Collocation - encouraging learner independence

which contained criticism,I was presentedwith about a hundred sample phlasesor sentences, all of which could usefully be browsedfor collocations. available is clearly shown by this selection: the information The richnessof The new play has attracted considerablecriticism. The head teachercome under a lot of criticism from the parents. There was growing criticism of the govemment's conduct of the war. I'm sick to deathof your endlesscriticism. She received a lot of unjustified criticism. The power and speedof the electronic medium in providing a larger sample of examplesof use to browse for collocation meansthat, in order to promote and assistthe independentlearning of collocation, we need to make this type ofresource available to our studentsand train them in the constructiveuse of their powerful searchtools. 3. Collocation dictionaries A further lesoulce has appeared recently in the form of dictionaries of collocations. These dictionaries deal exclusively with co-text and provide a much more comprehensiveaccountof a word's collocatesthan the traditional dictionary. Used in tandem with a traditional dictionary they help to provide some of the co-textual information that the former lacks' The LTP Dictionary of Selected Collocations presents a range of common collocates of words in a clear and concise manner. Here is the entry for criticism: CRITICISM V: accept, agree with, answer, arouse, atftact, be discouraged by/exposed to/impervious tolrattled by/subjected tolupset by, blunt, come in for/under/up against, crush, defend oneself against, deflect, deserve,encounter, escape,evoke, express,forestall, give rise to, ignore, invalidate, justify, level - against sb, meet with, offer, overcome,provoke, react to, reject, reply to, rise above,run into' shrink from, silence, soften, stifle, subject sb to, suffer, voice, weather, withstand, yield toV: - centreson sth, comes from sb, died down, grew, hardened,hit home, is relevant, mounted, revolved around ... A: adverse, basic, biased, bitter, blunt, common, constant, destructive, devastating, (un)fair, ferocious, fierce, friendly, fundamental, furious, harsh, helpful, hostile, implicit, incisive, lively, merciless, mild, muted, objective' oblique, open, overt, penetrating, perceptive, personal, savage,searing, severe,sharp, sincere, stinging. stringent, strong, subjective, tough, trenchant, unjust, unprecedented, useful, useless,(thinly) veiled, widespreadP: chorus of, flood of, spateof, tonent of, wave of, whiff of -

The entry usesthe following system: V: V: A: P:

verbs which come before the noun - verbs which usually come after the noun adjectives phraseswhich contain the noun

Intelligent students'I invaluable

It is beco teaching a in languag and senten and teach dictionarie English-Er

2.8 Res

Vast amou English L establishe added to ar and spoken the use of teachingm by individu

The recent increased 1 accessedn Today's sfu longer rest coursebook to explore a of text cont densityof tl on in this ar like to focu to help m1' r

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Collocation - encouraging leanter independence

rmple tlOIlSr t10n:

,ample 'omote rs tlpe use of

ries of r\ ide a Jitional provide olnmon ntn, for

:-, oke. slrirtk - iield ier.ant, itaflng, Iosti1e, m$ng, useful.

39

Intelligent browsing of this kind of resource can both guide and enrich the students' production of language. My students have found this to be an invaluable resourceto have on hand when writing. It is becoming clear that dictionaries are underusedresourcesin language teaching and that they must be given a greater and more central role to play in language leaming. In particular, browsing the exemplifying expressions and sentencesin dictionaries can provide useful information on collocation, and teachers need to encourage and train their students to approach dictionaries in this way. I now encourageall my studentsto invest in a good English-English dictionary and a dictionary of collocations.

2.8 Resources:corpora and concordancers vast amounts of text are now stored on computers and many of the major English Language Teaching publishing houses and universities have establishedextensivebanks ofEnglish or corpora.Theseare being constantly added to and updated. Some contain over 500 million words of both written and spoken text. These huge banks of data provide a basis for researchinto the use of English, and are used as a basis for modem dictionaries and teachingmaterials. some of theselarge banks of English can now be accessed by individuals. The recent developmentof the Internet and the world wide web has greatly increased the amount and diversity of 'electronic' English that can be accessedwith comparative ease by individuals anywhere in the world. Today's students of English in non-English speaking environments are no longer restricted to the limited amount of language provided by the coursebookand classroom.They now have an endlessamount of real English to explore and exploit. The question arisesas to how they can use this wealth of text constructively, without being overwhelmed by the sheer amount or density of the information. A great deal of thought and developmentis going on in this areaat the moment, but with our presentconcernsin mind, I would like to focus on one activity, that of 'concordancing', and how I have used it to help my studentsdevelop their knowledge of collocations. A concordancer is a relatively simple piece of computer software which allows a constructive search of large amounts of text for examples of a particular word or phrase. Below is an edited example of a concordance producedfor the word disappointment.Note how: ' the searchworddisappointmentis placed in the middle of the page where it is easily seen. ' only a single line of text is listed for each example and these are usually not completesentences. ' the list is ordered alphabetically in some way. In the example below the word to the left is the focus of organisation.This makes searchins much easier.

Collocation - encouraging learner independence

40 the

decision

an's n's i:

wiLl

Austrafia.

come as a disappoincmenL

He accepted

a:d hrr

YF:d

ni

r^rad^a narh:nc

ra

ic

had MiLh:i

'l:rrnl.rina ruuYarlrrv IL

ro

Stewart's

Lo

fhar

uI l ri Jc

rho

hinaac'

admic,

I

Ain ! ! Y

l.rrr

contained ^

carhaaha\/

:nA

l:A

he

but

oranl

c^ f

i ^-^-^

j

to

r I tnL- u Lf er ^I I* tt s

,..^d w ds

c:^h^i

ntm6hf

i n

aL

disappointment

at

^i

| ^

nrn6-F

clj s;nnn'n-morf

af

di qannni

^\/cr

secret u'irh

of

her

tnis

nfmorf

the

arose Hic

nim6nl

in

disappointmentand

race

, .a s

went

to

incompetence

Hirnmler

had

Lo

sa

.,'L

",.-en

had del

from

course

not i n

aw

marhnA

the

-..4t

ie

the

r lr ri uc vr Pn Ua l nr r u r , , u

rL

.r,^

own

they

drsappointment

disappointment is

what

fel -low

\)a.

r

tY

.li

his C

Przia

one's

* " "- - i

r h

as

That

h

agenc-Les

rri

c

rha

disappoinumenL

also

a greal

av^^rl

c=nnni

Taif

Spurs

disappointment.

q^PLs>-ev

rufther

da

for

sdppo

that

from

development

:nd

disappointment

od

book is

ooeq

i---

a n r- ^ - -e^ -n- s e c ^- p

i^ | ^^-F^vsrsYaLsD

made f it.trfe I iro

:nnnmnarioul

man's antics, blerq

nrmonf

di sappoincment

nrridinn f:ilr

c:nnai

absence would be a big 'The big said:

New York

lar

di

even rhe

he

e l ect

Chancellor

of

De

pr

ic

Kferk's rurr n r uar rr qr lll lcar rng nc va n

of her

frustration.

husband

This part number o his own r numberol useful col studentca this can ta

Resource should be betweentl extract fro the d

f ief C.

they fha

Concordancesprovide much dcher sources of co-textual information than dictionaries,and they can lead to a more efficient exploration of the collocates of a word. As with the dictionary, studentswill need time and training in how to do this constructively.Simple exerciseswhich familiarise the studentswith the material and format are essential.For example, I presentedmy students with this frame and askedthem to suggestways of completing it: I got grade E for Mathematics. The result was a . . . disappointment.Next"I asked them to explore the concordanceextract above, and they were able to extract big, deep and greot as appropriatecollocates for disappointment. As students work through more and more exercises on collocation, they become more and more sensitive as to whether two words are possible collocates or not. Such sensitivity is particularly important for their own production. For example, one student of mine had written the sentence:I think there's a big possibility of rain today, but expresseddoubt about the collocation big possibility.Ratherthanjust answerhis questionwe ran a concordancefor the phrase big + possibility and found no examples, suggesting that this combinationif not impossible,is at leastunlikely. It is importantto recognise that it is not useful or appropriateto say it is a wrong collocation. We only searcheda corpusof 2 million words,consistingmainly of newspaperarticles, and a searchof a larger and more varied corpus might well reveal an example of big possibility. The purpose of the searchis to uncover probable language,and my role as teacheris to show studentshow to find this for themselves,so that they will have the confidenceto decide on their own, not 'whether somethingexists' or not, but whether it is probable. Decisions about collocation are about degrees of likelihood.not cerlainty.

gc

make

have ran^-

bery but

to

c:

there

c1y stateC ned by

tit€

on today ly

a

exist,

defeat

was --

f ina11y, d that

the:

rofrrcod

---

fUR's

act:

o 15 a pa::

From these and becam work out so to his dictic a contextua

Concordan directing th making altet the followin cost of adt,e that it could student ran found an ah would also a

Collocation - encouraging learner independence agenc a e s ^i uf

^-i vIr!

fa r Lf

f"lfot

-s ren

that

was Cup 'rJent to --d^6f6n-a

.!ad-

to

r-en c

sa when

even

he

efect

:he :e11or

of

i:-erk's

pr

'c-rr'l

I onnad

:er husband :.

This parlicular student then ran a concordancefor possibility and noted a number of examplesof strongpossibility in the readout.As a result, he edited his own writing to I think there's a strong possibility of rain today. A rarge number of occurrenceswere taken as an indication of a common and therefore useful collocation. What is important to recognise in this processis that the studentcan searchthis type of data and make informed decisions,and that all this can take place without a teacheron hand. Resourceswork best when their use is integrated,and concordancescan and should be used intelligently with dictionaries. An example of the interplay betweenthesetwo resourcesis exemplified by the samestudent.Below is an extract from the concordanceoutput for possibilie rhat the studentexplored. the fiefd'

possibility.

The

d make good progress.Anocher

possibility

is

to

they

possibility

of

supporting

possib-Lljty

that

these

possibility

that

learning

be no

possibility

of

an early

breakthrough.

obvious

possibility

is

that

waning

Beta-one

possibility

advanced

the

possibility

of

efimination

possibility

in

England,

even a remote

possibility.

Money fell

is

possibility

that

the

nation than e collocates ning in how udents with n)' students I got grade {ext I asked le to extract

ink there'sa llocationblg lance for the ng that this to recognlse Lon.We onlY raperarticles, ,l an example Ldmy role as that they will dng exists'or rbout degrees

then

have

bery

also

cfy

exist,

defeat finally,

o is

to

The most

are

of

facing

afbeit

was not there Lhere

refused

out

even action

any

Lhe cJear

che further

t.he value

on today

fuR's

of

appeared

stated.

ned by

becomes a

ruled

co consider

but. there

]y

it

recognition

d that

cation, they are possible rr their own

4l

real

as a remote

is to

st.rong

now a stronq discuss

also

a particularly

the

raises

the the

worrying

manager

said

he

yourself

fet

off

a rights

the

of that

possibility

of

is

into

possibility

and r urge

prosecut.ions she might retaliation

taxe

be excep

of

the

ov

as a people it

better his

a cont.agion

possibility

in

and pet.ers

by smith

possibility

issue

increases might

was doing

hands

effect being be

a

wiff brough

separated

by other

everyone,

a

alw

gove

conserv

From theselines the studentnoted a number of instancesof remotepossibility and became interestedin the word remote. After encouraging him ro try to work out some of the word's sensefrom the concordancelines, I referred him to his dictionary, from which he was able to understandremotepossibility as a contextual opposite for strongpossibility. concordancing is a useful tool to employ in correction.There are times when directing the student to a concordancer is more constructive than simply making alterationsto the student'stext. I pointed out to the studentwho wrote the following: we will have to increase our prices becauseof the increasing cost of advertising our products that it contained increase andincreasing and that i1 could be improved by changing one of these words. In response,the student ran a concordanceon cost + of and, from the lines below, quickly found an alternative in growing and rising. Subsequentuse of a dictionary would also allow the studentto seepossibilities in mounting and,spiralling.

Collocation - encouraging learner independence

42

Fhar6 q=rrinos

rPcrs

Lhe

Government (1)

ncludes: ies

shoufder

aeVinn

eao'rrr

if-Lced

Lo

Vl]hit "---nnami

to

of

cost

of

reduc due to the staff

'We are happy to borrowinghedge simple money.

Called

materials

of

high

cost

of

computer

lhe

hioh

cost

of

inventory compuLer memory chips, doubt over cha raised tunneflinq

ehe

high

cost

lLa

hlae

cost

of

the

Eo

the

huge

cost

of

improvingi

water in

cost

of

technology,

the

increasangl -lLe jnicial

cost

of

research

cost

of

the

cosL

of

household

wich

the

rising

cost

of

living,

the

rising

cost

of

the

c

cni

cost

of

both

z:l

1 i no

terms

and enable bills. officiaf

loan the

he

took

tunnel

developm

of

them to

includes

franchise

escape Tha

t works and decking

Th quality.

railway

increasing

mounLirg

and proble

memory chips

nf

the

research,

scientific

level

cost

the

meet

trJstraced r

of

cost

of

that

han:rrcc

cost

hioh

growang

nrrr

facL

exLra

rho

the

hl:mad

q innlod J r r r v + v v

the

with

f.he

€ ^ aClng r l 1u r. t, U

of

^^m^^nl'

Tu r iP hL vf r r ^ h

avccnrional

ruLi r^e

awareness

Th6

e

:n

finanee

r- ^U

eXtrfOSUIe 1e

\r^a l-o

tend

training-

The CBI fea corruption out itself

to

pick and

and up the

The increasing availability of vast banks of English stored on computef, coupled with a simple but powerful searchtool like a concordancerempowers today's student.In particular, as we have noted, theseresourcesale ideal for exploring collocation.It would seemessential,then, that all studentsshould be trained to use a concordancerand given accessto the wealth of English text that technology has made so easily available. Many teachersshy away from technology in the classroom,many also labour undel the misconceptionthat this kind of activity is an expensiveand unnecessalyluxury. I would argue that concordancingis an essentialtool for effective independentleaming, and add that the software and hardware requilements are relatively cheap.At the time of writing, concordancerslike Wordsmith ale available for well under f100 and they run on relatively small desktop computers.The programs are not complex and it only takes one short induction lesson to train studentsto use them for collocationsearches. It is worth adding here that a concordancercan be used to searchany bank of electronic text. This means that it is possible to provide mole efficient collocation sealchesby building up banks of text which match your students' needs.This is particulally useful for subject-specificcourseslike Business English, where teacherscan build up a relevant bank of material by storing businessletters, memos etc, on the hard disk of a computer. This is a fairly simple operationif the material is availableas computer files, from CD-ROM' or downloads from relevant sites on the World Wide Web. If all of this is not possible,you can build up a lessambitiousbank by the more laboriousmeans of scanningtext into the computer.Banks of material can also be graded for level to allow the less advanced student to concordance to good effect. Recently, I have started building up banks of material for elementary and intermediate students of English. Graded IeadeIS and General English coursebookmatelials are becoming increasingly available on CD-ROM and provide ideal sourcesfor the creation of appropriately graded banks of text. Even the very elementary studentcan develop a degreeof learner autonomy.

2.9 L " There is

It is im1 single et subsequ essentia Ievrsltln

pomts t( significa vocabul notebool Many ol or three the bank the fran informat Previ

CRIT (pron to ex1 The g

Revis

CRIT (pron to extr The g V: rec A: he

Verb and which ha

It is im1 vocabula just listec increase their lists word. As of the co Dictionat

In a ven developir decodin-e

Collocation

- - - € t

-=

f^

::pIe

hed.ge

rcco:rah :nd

nr^lrl

r n\7ah

bt

a

| ^rlt

over

:

donlz

- --

rlarra

:en -

cha i na

r

't'n

::v.

l nnm

to ,!

tend

alrrrrr9

::D:iOn --

afrd

.

and

nialz

-:

rrn

the

computer, : empowers re ideal for 3nLts should :n_s1ish text 3U ar,r flgm

r-ption that ,a,,1.-1 4.^,.a Lrulu 4r5uu

armlg, and r+:n

A t the

'r,'el1under .oEramsale siudentsto :,nr-bank of fi efficient Lxrsrudents' i- Business 1 L.. I Li-\ :

; n]

-+^--i-^ StUI[rB ^ 4

f^:*1., td[r]

I CD-ROM, r- this is not ntr|is means r sraded for Irrild effect. nentarY and I r iI

43

2.9 Lexical notebooks

- ^ i , . ^

hrhhl/

-

- encouraging leanter independence

E*-li^L Lll_gllDll

f,-R.O\I and n-ts of text. r ixltonomy.

There is more to the successfullearning of vocabulary than simply noticing. It is important to record what is noticed in some way. We also know that a >ilgle encounterwith a word is not enough to ensureits acquisition, and that subsequentencounters- researchsuggestsa minimum of perhapsseven- are essential.Furthermore, it is now acceptedthat acquisition is facilitated by revisiting an item and recreating it in the production of language.A11this points to the need to train our studentsto record, revisit and re-activate the significant vocabulary they meet. One simple tool for this purpose is the vocabulary notebook. A traditional way of recording vocabulary is in small notebooks.If these are to be helpful they need to be organisedin some way. Many of my studentskeep notebooks organiseda$habetically, devoting two or three pages to each letter. Some pages are also devoted to situations - al the bank; functions - complaining; andtopics - occwpatior?s. I have modified the framework which I previously encouraged learners to use to record information about a word by adding two extra lines, as theseexamplesshow: Previous format CRITICISM (pronunciation + translation) to expressdisapprovalof something or somebody The governmenthas received a lot of criticism for increasingtaxes. Revised format CRITICISM (pronunciation + translation) to expressdisapprovalof something or somebody The govemment has received a lot of criticism for increasingtaxes. V: receive,come in for, ... A: heavy.severe.fierce.... Verb and adjective collocates are recorded in a clear and compact format which has the advantageof taking up little extra spacein the notebook. It is important for both teachers and students to recognise that learning vocabulary is an ongoing and organic process.Items in the notebook are not just listed and left. They are revisited and extendedin the light of the leamers' increasedexposureto the language.As such,I expectmy studentsto,add to their lists of collocates for criticism through subsequentencounterswith the word. As their proficiency increases,their personalrecords incorporate more of the collocates listed under the entry criticism, cited earlier from the LTP Dictionary of SelectedCollocations. In a very real sense, a lexical notebook mirrors an individual's uniquely developing mental lexicon. More importantly, the notebook is not just a decoding tool, but a resource which individuals can use as an encoding

44

Collocation - encouraging learner independence

instrument to guide their own ploduction of language.Encouragementto use a notebook in this way should lead to fewer errors in their production. It is now cleal that we need to give vocabulary notebooks a far greaterpriority in languageteaching, and raise our students'awalenessof the dynamic role they have to play in the process of learning a language. In order to give the expandedfunction and format of the notebook more pfominence, it seemed appropriateto re-name it, and I now refer to vocabulary notebooks as lexical notebooks.

2.L0 Word grammar The definition of collocation that I have adoptedin the classroomhas a clear but fairly nalrow focus. In the examplesI cited earlier, the explorationsof the words views andcriticism were confined mainly to searchesof the left co-text of occurrencesof thesewords, and to relations betweennouns, adjectivesand verbs. However, as noted earlier, students can and do notice more, and we need to encouragefurther exploration of co-text. When I askedmy studentsto look at the right co-text of criticism in the sentenceThe government has receiyed heavy criticism for increasing taxes, Ihey noted that criticism was followed by the prepositionpr and the -ing form of the verb. We summarised this information as . . . criticism fut raising /axes. Subsequentencounters would obviously enrich the students' knowledge of other prepositions and verb patterns which occur with criticism. These patteffIs are traditionally associatedwith, and taught as, grammar,and I think it is appropriateto retain that association.However, I think there is a useful pedagogicdistinction to be 'grammat'and what I havecometo term 'word grammar'' The madebetween difference lies in the way we approachgrammar pattems. Traditional grammal teaching tends to operate on a slot-and-filler approach, with broad syntacticpatternssuch as the tensesas the primary focus. Lexis is a secondaryconsiderationand fills the slots in the syntacticframes that define such patterns.A word grammar approach,on the other hand, begins with the word. Our orientation is one of moving out from the word to uncover the particular syntactic patterns associated with it. Consider the following combinations: The governmenthas receiveda lot of criticism for its decision to raise taxes. Thegovernmenthas receiveda lot of criticism over its decisionto raise taxes. The government has received a lot of criticism for deciding to raise taxes. ?Thegovernmenthas receiveda lot of criticism over deciding to raise taxes. follow the broadpatternof nown+ preposition+ ...ing The last two sentences speakersare uneasywith the final combination. most native form. However, Furthermore, I was unable to find a single example of this pattern in any of the large corpora I consulted.All this suggeststhat this particular pattern is improbable and therefore of no value to the learner.

Traditio of gramr asnoted which is produce gramma directing It direct language compete

I now fu words ar collocate The smal neatly su

Prac wori

It is prec establish presentm

As with recorded thesenotr to record particular all have personal i this: Curre

CRITI (pronu to expl The -ec V: recr A: hea G:

F:

... T]

Collocation - encouraging learner independence

nent to use rctiont It is priority in Licrole theY to give the e. it seemed ks as lexical

has a cTeat ilons of the leii co-text ecti\-esand re. and we -irudentsto ttirtent has ii:'lSl/7 WaS

,rmmarised arcounters sr:ionsand 'lirinnollrr

L-- t0 letaln

r.tronto be rmar'. The a

:nntnach

iis.Lexis is .hat define ns uith the :ncover the inl oo _ _ ' 'I-orvin ___ i'tlt5€ tClX€|.

i'Jtse taxes. t'..lse taxes. t'.';i5etaxes. ;li:ti + ...Ln8 ,-.n-LLrination. r in rnrr nf 1f pallern ls

45

Traditional grammar teaching allows the student to generatea large amount of grammatically accuratelanguage,which is extremely important. However, as noted earlier, a lot of languagewhich is grammatically accurateis not used, which is one reasonfor the large amount of improbable languageour students produce. Grammar not only generalises,it often over-generalises.A word grammar approach complements the traditional approach to grammar by directing the students'attentionto the syntacticconstraintson the use of lexis. It directs the student towards probable language rather than possible language.Both approaches,then, are essentialcomponentsof grammatical competence. I now find it helpful to extendmy own and my students'perceptionof what words are. I think it useful to see them as having, not just meaning, not just collocates,but also as having their own particular grammaticalsignatures. The small but significant changesthis brings to my approachto teaching are neatly summarisedby Michael Lewis when he suggests: Practiceshouldbe directedtowardshelping studentscollocate words and grammaticalisefrom words ro sentences. It is precisely this kind of practice that we need to prioritise and add to the establishedpracticeswe employ in the classroom.It is very much a caseof presentingour studentswith a richer picture of languagepatteming. As with collocation, it is important that elements of word grammar are recorded in lexical notebooks.I suggesttwo further categoriesfor entries in thesenotebooks,one (G) to record significant grammar patterns;the other (F) to record 'favourites', that is, pattems or expressionswhich the individual particularly likes and will probably use. This last categoryis important as we all have our own particular affinities for certain chunks of language. A personal entry for criticism in a lexical notebook might look something like this: Current format for a learner notebook entrv CRITICISM (pronunciation + translation) to expressdisapprovalof somethingor somebody The govemment has received a lot of criticism for increasins taxes. V: receive,come in for ... A: heavy.severe.fierce... G: ... criticism for raising taxes ... criticism for its plan (to build ...) ... criticism over the decision(to spend...) F: ... come under heavy criticism for not providing ... The samecriticism has been levelledat ...

46

Collocation - encouraging learner independence

z.lL Summary The growing awarenessof the rich contextual relationships in spoken and written discoursemeansthat collocation and word grammar need to become established categories of description for both the teaching and learning of languages.A greaterfocus needsto be placed on developing the independent language leaming skills that will help students develop their proficiency in theseareas.In particular, training needsto be given in the constructiveuse of dictionaries and the vast and varied sources of English that modern technology has made available. Finally, guidance in managing this learning through frameworks such as lexical notebooksneedsto be provided. It is probably true that the role of the languageteachertoday is moving more and more towards that of learning manager,and as such, a primary aim of teaching must be to raise the students' awarenessof their increasing responsibility for, and power over, their own leaming.

DiscussionQuestions Do you have learners who would use computer-based corpora and concordancingsoftware with confidence? Do you think it is useful to give all your studentsthis confidence?If not, in what ways can you provide them with similar information? What sort of information do you encourageyour studentsto record in their vocabularynotebooks?

References: Brown, P. R. (1994) Lexical Collocation: a strategy for advancedlearners,in Modem English Teacher.Vol. 3. No. 2 Lewis, M. (1997) Implementing the Lexical Approach, LTP HilI, J. and Lewis, M. Eds. (1997) mP Dictionary of SelectedCollocations, LIP Crowther, J. Ed. (1997) Oxford Advanced Leamers Dictionary, Oxford University Press Swan, M (1996) Language teaching is teaching language,Plenary IATEFL Concordancedata generatedby MicroConcord, OUP fContact Oxford University Pressfor details of Wordsmith, ref'erredto on p 42.]

Cha

Revis colloc Jimmie l

In this ch the centr revolutior intermedi of langual number c teacher to so that thr they mee emphasisi from the i

3.1 Lan

Devotion study and acculacy. developm ideaswhir still assoc of doing t most inhit bring to te

When I I grammar added.We of lexis. cupboard. yearsofm the past 1 thinkin-eal alone. Th McCarthl'. teacherstc

The more phenomen

ililnniltrnnnrnur(ruBruuil$ilnililililntuilt[MilIHil{ildll

Revisingpriorities

47

Chapter3 spok6n and C to become leaming of independent :oficiency in uctiveuse of hat modern this learning ded. noving more mary aim of .r increasing

corpora and

Revising priorities: from grammatical failure to collocational success Jimmie Hill In this chapter, Jimmie Hill suggeststhat putting lexis rather than grammar at the centre of language teaching is more than just a modest change, it is a revolution. He stresses the size of the mental lexicon needed by even an intermediate learner, and suggeststhat this means greatly increasing the amount of language input provided in language courses. He draws attention to the sheer number of collocations to be found in texts, and emphasises the need for the teacher to choosethe right kinds oftext for their learners, then to guide learners so that they can become independent collectors of collocations from input which they meet outside the classroom. ControversiallS he suggests that overemphasising grammar is a major factor in preventing learners from moving on from the intermediate plateau.

rce?If not, in

3.1,Language and lexis

ecord in their

Devotion to a structural syllabus has dominated ELI for too long, with the study and practice of grammar seen as synonymous with the teaching of accuracy. We are at present in one of those awkward stages in the developmentof ELT methodology when teachersare still putting into practice ideas which most theoreticianshave long abandoned.All manner of ideas are still associatedwith the obsessionwith grammar: standards,traditional ways of doing things, how textbooks are written, how tests are consffucted, and most inhibitingly of all, perhaps,the expectationsboth teachersand students bring to textbooks and courses.

Modem English

. LTP versity Press

nl

When I first started teaching English, we were encouraged to think of grammar as the bones of the language, and vocabulary as the flesh to be added.We now know that languageconsists largely of prefabricatedchunks of lexis. That 'skeleton' image has been consigned proverbially to the cupboard.A central feature of lexis is collocation, an idea that for the first 15 yearsof my careerin ELT I hardly gave a moment's thought to, but which for the past 10 years, has come to play a more and more central part in my thinking about English, the classroom,materials, and methodology.I am not alone. The work of John Sinclair, Dave Willis, Ron Carter, Michael McCarthy, Michael Lewis, and many others, has all contributed to the way teacherstoday think about lexis and what it meansfor their teaching. The more we have become aware of language as a predominantly lexical phenomenon, the more we know that many of our previously cherished

48

Revisingpriorities

structuralistideas are false. This is one of the most exciting tumaroundsin our thinking for a very long time.In one sense,it is a recognition of ways of thinking which we all knew, but which many teachershave denied.

3.2 Language and learning All languageteachersknow that the way they teach, and expect their students to learn a secondlanguage,is very different from the way they learned their L1. We acquire our Ll efficiently without any explicit knowledge of grammar rules, parts of speech, or knowing what collocation is. During our Ll acquisition we are happy with the idea of making 'mistakes'. We wait for the natural process of acquisition to take its course. We know that our children learn huge chunks of lexis, expressions,idioms, proverbs,nursery rhymes, songs,poems,bedtime storieswithout necessarilyunderstandingeachword. We now realise that in learning such chunks they are also acquiring the pronunciation, stress,and intonation pattems which will remain with them throughout their lives. They are also leaming the grammatical system of the Ll. No young native speakerof English exposedto Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water is awareof conceptssuchas simplepasttenseand irregular verbs. And for many children the illustrated 'pail' in the nursery rhyme book willbe the closestthey everget to one in their lives, asmetalpails have now been largely replaced by plastic buckets. A lexical approach to language and to leaming does not break everything down into individual words and structures,but seeslanguagein larger units. It could be seenas a sensiblereturn to traditional ways of learning after a rather futile trip down the dead-endroad of structuralism.

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3.3 What is collocation?

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Many yearsago, J.R. Firth definedcollocationas 'the companywords keep' - their relationships with other words. Another definition might be 'the way words combinein predictableways'. When we think of the number of words in English,the numberof potentialcombinationsruns into many millions. So, the first and most important fact about the nature of collocation is the sheer numberof individual collocationswhich exist in English.Pastassessments of the number of individual words known by an educatednative speakerpale

Any analys competenc mistakesbe collocations then focus c make no dil but a lack r cumbersom

It is true that leaming anL2 is not the sameas leaming your L1, but it is also true that the human activity closestin nature toL2leaming is L1 learning. To deny the many similarities seemsperverse.It seemssensibleto take on board what lessonswe can from the lexical nature of languageand the lexical ways in which natives learn their mother tongue. In particular, that huge area of language commonly referred to as idiomatic usage, is clearly learned lexically. One of the most important areas of idiomatic languageis collocation.

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Revisingpriorities

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49

into insignificance when compared with the total number of items - words, expressions,idioms, and collocations- which exist in the mental lexicon of the typical educatednative speaker.This fact of the size of the mental lexicon must dominate all our methodological thinking. when we believed that grammar was the basis of all language learning, it was quite comforting to know that we had discovered all the English tenses and they could be summarised on half a dozen pages of a gtammar book. Grammar - in its assumedfiniteness- was a superficially attractivebasis for our syllabus.The complete lexicon of English, on the other hand, is enormous. The mental

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3.4 Collocational competence

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Any analysisof students'speechor writing showsa-lackof this collocational

50

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Revisingpriorities

verb + adjective + noun collocation He has a permanent disability. Even if learners successfullynavigate the grammar, what they produce often sounds 'intermediate'. Analysis of students' essay writing often awkward and very 'de-lexicalised' verbs shows a seriouslack of collocational competencewith such as get, put, make, do, bring, take. For example, I make exerciseevery morning in the gym. Studentswith good ideas often lose marks becausethey do not know the four or five most important collocates of a key word that is central to what they are writing about. In this respect, collocation is an old problem. Only now, however, are we beginning to see it might be a new solution to many of our leamers' problems.

3.5 Collocations,idioms and phrasal verbs Even during the height of structuralism, we knew that the lexicon was complicated.Apart from individual words, we were keenly aware that multiword expressionswere important. We identified phrasal verbs and idioms as 'idiomatic usage'.It is two importantareasfor students.The rest we labelled only recently through the rise of corpus linguistics that the extent of the fixednessof much languagehas been more widely recognised.We know that fixed expressionsrange from the totally ftxed (An apple a day keeps the doctor away), through the semi-fixed (What I'm saying/swggesting/proposing is . . .), to the fairly loose yet still predictable (go on holiday). In one senseall collocation is idiomatic and all idioms and phrasal verbs are collocations predictable combinations of different kinds. So, how can we use thesetetms most usefully? It seemssensibleto continue using thoseterms and categorieswhich language teachershave found useful in the past - idioms and phrasal verbs - while introducing the term collocation to name and categorisethat languagewhich has previously been ignored or undervalued.Let us look more closely at each of thesethreecategories. L.Idioms An idiom is an expressionwhich is relatively fixed and allows little or no change.It is often metaphorical:He pwt the cat among the pigeons; Don't cowntyour chickens.Not all idioms are aspictorial as thesetwo examples.We as idioms becauseof the could think of catch the bus or fired with enthwsiasm inherently metaphorical use of catch and fire. The native speaker has no problem with the idea that bolh fish and buses can be caught or that nonphysicalthings can be on fire.If the sameverbs are not usedin the learners' L1, it is probablethat they will havea problemwith the English idiomatic use. We need to broadenour conceptof idiom to include much more metaphorical usage, which is frequently hardly even recognised as idiomatic by native soeakers.

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Revisingpriorities

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2. Phrasal verbs Phrasalverbs contain a verb plus one or more pafticles: make up a story,put the light out' The meaning may or may not be obvious from the individual words. Again, learnersmay have no trouble with the riterarput the cat outbtt cannot relate that to put the right out. some teachers get on (in get on the bus) as a phrasal verb. others think of it as verb"onrid". plus preposition. The distinction is not helpfur for the classroom where ttre emprrasisis on the phrase as a whole rather than any analysis of it. Arguments aside, the category of phrasal verb is a useful one for both teachlrs and leamers to identify certain items which they are tryrng to teach and learn. 3. Collocations

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As mentioned above,in a sense,all colrocations are idiomatic and all phrasar verbs and idioms are collocations or contain collocations, but rather than spendingall our time describing and sorting expressions, the real issuefor the methodologist is to try to help teachersto make simple categorieswhich will help their studentssee some order and organisation in the lexicon. ELr has always recognisedtwo types of multi-wo.Jit"where the patternshave been clear - idioms and phrasal verbs. It is time to introduce our studentsto one more category of languageas it really is _ collocation. A collocation is a predictablecombination of words: get rost,make upfor rost time, speak your mind. Some combinations may be very highly predictable from one of the component words foot the b,r, minirat ior"r, spring to mind. some 'sfong' collocations have the status of idioms - shrug your shoulders - they are not guessableand are non-generative. Some may be so common that they hardly seemworth remarking upon - a big Jtat, a nice catl have lunch. (As just mentioned, however, native speakersmust be careful, becausean item which seemsunremarkableto them might be a problem to a leamer. Becauseof their Ll, some learners may find eat runch or take runch a more obviouschoice thanhave tunch.) Teacherswill find it useful to draw their learners,attention to collocations of different kinds. I suggestthat the following, in particular, wilr be of interest: adjective + noun a hugeprofit noun + noun a pocket calculator verb+adjective+noun learn a foreign language verb + adverb live dangerously adverb + verb half understand adverb + adjective completely soaked verb + preposition + noun speak through an interpreter collocations can, in fact, be much ronger. For example: adverb + verb + article + adjective+ noun + prepositioni.roun = seriousryaffecttheporiticat situation in Bosnia. The term 'collocation' shourd nerp oring ail thesechunks of languageto students'attention as single choices.

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i 1-rasthe ,iLocations, \\-e should rng every I recording t:l are very :i learners )i1tUtlon OI Ling. Some Lidents afe, ,t. and Our learned the lus number )- combine, 'ater.It may l:1lng,but to

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learn also that native speakerstrsesibling rivalryt and do not generally use sibling competitiottmakesthe task even more daunting.we suddenly realize the 20,000-word vocabulary forms onry the rudimentary base of the native speaker'smentallexicon.This, combinedwith the 'word choice,errorsthe L2 leamers make, despite contextualizedpresentationof new vocabulary,is evidence that ESL students need additional, explicit instruction in collocations.Swan reminds us that vocabulary ,will not take care of itself ,, and points out the pedagogic necessity of deliberately selecting, incorporating, and recycling high-priority vocabulary into classroom materials and activities. This point applies just as much, if not more, to collocationswhich studentsare lesslikely to notice unlessguidedtowardsthe importanceof collocationby their teachers. After the intrial Aha!feeling one has when realizing how much collocations come to bear upon language,the classroom teacher has to consider the questionofjust how to go about the explicit teachingof collocation.Today, in part due to technological advances,more researchand resourcesthan ever are availableto help the classroomteacherspecificallyaddressthe collocation 'problem'. collocation has often been a source of student e[or; some teaching suggestionsfollow that can help students understand the idea of collocationand enablethem to use collocationsto their advantagein buildins their mental lexiconsin a systematicway.

4.6 Nlake students aware of collocation In someways, it is a relief to bring collocationsout of the closet,so to speak. Instead of feeling frustrated and a bit ineffectual when a studentasks me, Bzl why don't Americans say 'mitigating situations'? I can answer with

ways classroomteacherscan assisttheir studentsin taking control of this part of theirlanguage learning. l. Teach students the word ,collocation' Collocationsexist in the students'L1, so, except for studentsof extremely limited proficiency, it really is not difficult for them to understand the concept. It is helpful to remind them that, just like their native language,the English language has some words that go together, and some that do not. Once explained, you can save a great deal of class time by using the term when appropriate. 2. Adapt books to include collocations currently, few textbooks for ESL students address collocations

76

Integratingcollocatnn

Modifying and adaptingexisting books is a good solution, and this can be accomplishedfairly easily.If using vocabulary-builderbooksbasedon wordlists or roots and affixes, have students adapt them. Students can make notationsabout frequentcollocationsnext to the word lists. Teachersshould feel confident in supplying frequent collocations from their own knowledge of the English lexicon, but if desired,it's also possibleto check someof the corpus-based referencesmentionedbelow. 3. Context and collocation notebooks Within the specific area of vocabulary building, I have found it useful to presentto the students'the two C's' of context and collocaflon.When I first stafiedpresentingnew words with only the collocations,this did not always help them avoid pitfalls with new vocabulary becauseindividual words and multi-word items can operate within a restricted context as well as with particularcollocates.For example,the following is a sampleof somecontext and collocation information I gave to some students using Goodman's Advancing VocabularrySkills, a book for native speakersand leamers which we have at times used in our advancedreading and writing class. Word

Special context?

Collocations

discretion (n)

(caution/privacy, authority, judgment)

at your/someone'sdiscretion verbs: exercise- , handle sth with -. use -. leaveto sb's show adj: complete/total/utmost-

Thereare no servicechargesaddedto the bill. Tip at your discretion. He handledthe private matter with completediscretion. Thejob applicantswere hired at the discretionof the hiring committee. facetious (adj)

(flippant - often negative)

noun: - remark

I wish Bill wowldstop makingfacetiowsremarks. scrupulous (adj) (relatingto honesty, noun: - care,- attention fairness, exactness) John deals with the accountsand he's absolutelyscrupulous. What works especiallywell for this purposeis a stenographer'snotebook. [used for taking US shorthand, Ed.] It's a portable size for recording vocabulary, and also comes ready-made with two columns thal are ideally suited to record context and collocation in their respectiveplaces, following the initial word entry and definition. During one of the first class meetings, I model how to record the context and collocation of each word, and then for the remainder of the course,whenever we work specifically on vocabulary,I write the two headings, Context and Collocation, on the blackboard, and write the relevantnotations under eachheadins as we work down the list. For

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77

somewords I might only note a restrictivecontextand no collocations;this is becausethe particular word might combine freely with other words. For other words, my notation under the collocation column may be as simple as the preposition that follows an adjective (adept at), or it may be severalcommon phrases frequently associatedwith that particular word, (a vicarious thrill, pleasure,experience).Sometimes,I haveno notationin either column. where do I get my information? context I can suppry myself, or from examples in the vocabulary book. Information about collocations can be obtained from a collocation dictionary like the LTp Dictionarv of seleited Collocations.which I usedherefor manyentries.or othergood ESL corpus_ based dictionaries in which the example sentences,sometimes slightly modified (rather than the definitions) can be ideal for this purpose. In addition, like any other teacher,I can also use my own knowledge of English to provide collocation information to the students.(A word of advice: it is much saferfor a teacherto tell students:I rJon't think I,ve ever heard.that than No, you can't say that when the classencountersa questionablecollocation. If you say the latter, there is every chancea studentwill hear or read it the next day!) 4. Add a question

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when first presentinga new vocabulary item, teacherscan ask,what kinctsoJ things are (severed)?(the connectionwith, economic ties, and,thegruesome limbs, heads).what kind of things are (potent)?(drinks, chemicals,a mixture) collocations can be elicited from the studentsor provided by the teacher.This simple questioning is especially effective as a reinforcing technique in subsequentlessons,and ensuresthat the studentshave the repeatedexposure to the collocations necessaryto fix them in their memories.All it tat