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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.
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Collocation - encouraging learner independence agenc a e s ^i uf
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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
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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
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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
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r-ption that ,a,,1.-1 4.^,.a Lrulu 4r5uu
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'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.
into insig expresslo the typica must dor grammar knou, tha summans assumedi compiete lexiconoI leamedpf collocatio all narural
For teache ,:b-.enerio
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3.3 What is collocation?
Even if the problem ol often do str can, but v'e and It's ttic open air? A restaurant? or the studt conceptof collocation
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.
iiuxnintinMu!iiiuultuliltl
Revisingpriorities
Csin our u'ays of
students ed their remmal our Ll t ior the :hildren rhrmes, hLri'ord. ing the m them n of the i un
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
tltp
:nseand nursery t:l neil s
'r-rach to dir idual i-n as a ip dou'n
3.4 Collocational competence
lt is also rino
Tn
ln board -.t .-.^..^ _Jt \\dyS
ar"'a of ieamed :u30e 1s
conceptof communicativecompetence,but we need to add the concept of collocational competence to our thinking. ,l< L-een'
:r u'ords i , - r n< S n
he sheer mentsof fter pale
Any analysisof students'speechor writing showsa-lackof this collocational
50
iI i
ij
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.
2.Phra
Phrasai the ligh words.r camot l on the b distincti phrase categon identify 3. Collo
As ment verbs an spending methodo help thei always rr clear - i< more catl
A colloca time, spe from one mind. So shoulders common have lunc becausea leamer. B a more ob
Teachersr different I
adjeoi, noun + verb + verb + adverb adverb verb + I
Collocatio afticle + ad situation ir of languag
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,'.Even if :n sounds ing often ;ed'verbs :tseevery ausethey rrd that is is an old be a new
5l
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
:1COn WaS
hat multiidioms as sage'.It is :nt of the know that I'eenr
the
'proposing e senseall ocatlonsICSC TCITNS
r language rs - whiie aeewhich e11'at each
little or no otts;Don't rmples.We auseof the ier has no r that nonLelearners' )matlc use. :taphorical by native
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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3.6 Collocations and grammar
3.7Wh
It is always an oversimplification to divide languageup rnto categorieswhen all the elementsof natural languageuse are interdependent.So, idioms have a grammar and can be minimally variable to fit the speaker'spurpose:
Collocati I suggest
Don't He She'sjust If only you hadn't Why did you
let the cat owt of the bag.
Collocations, too, cannot be divorced from the grammatical context in which they occur. There are two important pedagogicalconsiderationshere. Firstly, it is important that teachersare aware of this. The simple collocation brush your teeth is for native speakerspredominantly used in the dentist's surgery and in the home when speakingto children or other family members. One of the most common structures in which it will occur is Have you brushedyowrteethyet?- a parentteachinga child habitsofpersonal hygiene usually at bedtime.One can imaginea husbandsayingto his wife: I'll be with you in a minute. I'm .just going to brush my teeth. I imagine few husbands would ask their wives the question that they would ask their young children. We can speculatethat sentencessuch as the following will be rarer than the presentperfect and going to usesabove: I brwshedmy teeth. . . I'm brushingmy teeth. . . I'd brwshedmy teeth. . . Secondly, when the child hears the parent asking Have yow brushed yowr teeth?somethingelse is going on. The child is hearingthe presentperfectin a natural context. For perhaps ten years of childhood a parent may ask the question. Children may never use the question themselves until they are parentsthemselves.What the children have been exposedto is an archetypical example of the present perfect without knowing anything explicit about English tensenames.It is clear that the acquisitionof generalisablegrammar rules must be partly related to the acquisition of lexical chunks containing the gramma.rin question. Perhapsthe inability of our studentsto acquire some important grammatical areas is based on the implausibility of many of the examples to which we expose them in current EFL grammar books and textbooks [See also pp 163-167]. When we know that native speakerslearn language in lexical chunks, it is not unreasonableto assumethat learning certain chunks containing these structures will help learners in their acquisition of English grammar pattems as well. [This is another plea to teachersto encouragelearners to notice and record language in a linguistic environment in which it naturally occurs. Ed.l
1. The ler
The first z way worc lexicon is substituti structures speakertl listener'sr mineral y expectatto drunk by a former are to a relatir standing a limited, e1 definition we cannot
2. Predictr
The very p givesus an The preser to an exte collocation which are where lear teachers ar pattemin-e
3. The size
Collocatior seen,enorl huge perce vary, but it I is to be fou 4. The role
We know c< our mentai memory.
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3.7 Why is collocation important? rrieswhen iL1mshave -t5c.
it in which ctrllocation le dentist's , rnembers. trIate you ral hl,giene ['ll be with husbands le children. rer than the
collocation is important from a pedagogicalpoint of view for many reasons. I suggestat least thesenine are important for teachers: 1. The lexicon is not arbitrary The first and most obvious reasonwhy collocation is important is becausethe way words combine in collocations is fundamental to all languageuse. The lexicon is not arbitrary.we do not speakor write as if languagewere one huge substitution table with vocabulary items merely filling slots in grammatical structures.To an important extent vocabulary choice is predictable. when a speakerthinks of drinking, he may use a common verb such as have. The listener'sexpectationspredicta largenumberof possibilities:tea, coffee,milk, mineral water orange jwice, even teqwila sunrise, but there would be no expectationsof engine oil, shampoo, sulphuric acid. The latter liquids are drunk by accident,but linguisticallythey arenot 'probable'in the way that the former are.Looking at arater verb - enhance- the choice of objectsis limited to a relatively small number of nouns or noun patterns,eg his reputation, the standing of the company.lf the verb is do, the choice is far greater,but still limited, eg his best, the honourable thing, but not a mistake. So, the very definition of collocation - the way words combine - gives it a statuswhich we cannot deny. 2. Predictability
u:;ltedyour nt perfectin -nal ask the LtLX they are archetl,pical phcit about rXegrammar Intairdngthe u-t]Uile SOille
nirnv of the - t'ooks and n:akersleam h:t learning :rs rn their ,ther plea to La trn-euistic
The very predictability of the collocation examplesin the previous paragraph givesus anotherclue as to why collocationis an importantpedagogicalissue. The presentsimple is irnportantin classroomsbecausewe can predict its use to an extent which helps learners. In a similar way, there are patterns to collocations which can make learning easier.There are parts of the lexicon which are organisedand patterned,and classroomsare, by definition, places where learning is encouragedby using the most efficient means known to teachers and where leamers need to be encouraged to notice predictable patterning. 3. The size of the phrasal mental lexicon collocation is important becausethis area of predictability is, as we have seen,enormous. Two, three, four and even five-word collocations make up a huge percentageof all naturally-occurring text, spoken or written. Estimates vary, but it is possiblethat up to 70voof everything we say,hear,read, or write is to be found in some form of fixed expressron. 4. The role of memory we know collocations becausewe have met them. we then retrieve them from our mental lexicon just as we pull a telephonenumber or addressfrom our memory.
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ELT has not given sufficient thought to this idea. Linguists now give a much greater importance to memorised, familiar, and idiomatic language. There was a leaction against these ideas during the sixties and seventieswhen methodologistsreactedagainst any suggestionthat leaming by heart had any place in L}leaming. Phrase-books,which had played an important part in language learning for centuries, were scol'nedin favour of the all-powerful grammatical model of languageleaming. Every native speakerparent knows how children love to hear the samerhymes and storiesnight after night to the extent that they can say the rhymes and tell the stories themselves.As adults we all have a huge store of memorised text in our heads, ranging from poetry, addresses,telephone numbets, proverbs, adverlisingslogansandjokes. Most idioms, sayings,clich6s,to catchphrases, often we have made no attempt to learn theseitems; knowing them is simply part of what we mean by being a native speaker.How do I know lead on Macduff, coughs and sneezesspread diseases,flavowr of the month, free gratis andfor nothing, each and everyone of us, Don't forget thefruit gums Mum, and evenThat's the way the cookie crwmbles?I may never use them. Indeed,I may be allergic to anyonewho doesuse them! The fact of the matter (itself a good exampleof a fixed phrase)is that every native speakerhas a vast store of these obviously fixed expressions.We have a much bigger store of collocations, ready for use when required. As language teachers,it is obvious that we have underestimatedthe role of memory in language learning. Not enough research is available to us at presentto make useful statementsabout how memory can be influenced. We do know. however, that the most crucial element in a leamer's acquisition of a lexical item is the number of times it is heard or read in a context where it is at least partially understood.We also know it is more important to hear or read an item than to use it. Communicativemethodology mistakenly assumed that early production was all important. What is obvious is that what the language learners are exposed to from the earliest stagesis crucial. Good quality input should lead to good quality retrieval. Impoverished input will lead to impoverishedretrieval. 5. Fluency Collocation allows us to think more quickly and communicate more efficiently. Native speakerscan only speakat the speedthey do becausethey are calling on a vast repertoire of ready-made language, immediately availablefrom their mental lexicons. Similarly, they can listen at the speedof speechand read quickly becausethey are constantly recognising multi-word units rather than processing everything word-by-word' One of the main reasonsthe leamer finds listening or reading difficult is not becauseof the density of new words, but the density of unrecognised collocations. The main difference between native and non-native speakersis that the former
have met i made chur much faste
6. Comple
Typical int time, and ideas. Thir expresslon language;1 complexifl complex n more expo they develc and eventu
The traditi< orthodoxy, 'present'a
practiceis I by speakin5 we needto I input at lov 7. Collocat
Paradoxica thought is t allows us manipulate words. Try recognisedI that colloca EFL methor worked in S this to be fal lots of oppot more chunli pointedout. 8. Pronunci
I wiil alwal Michael Su. similar in st vocabulary t readthe poel
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\ give a much rguagg.There :r,entieswhen heart had any rortant part m e all-powerful 3 samerhymes hvmesand tell remorisedtext rers,proverbs, rd jokes.Most .hemis simply kstow lead on ie ntonth,free ,,itefrwit gums :i er use them. :r of the matter 'ekerhas a vast ligger store of ted the role of Llableto us at i:rt-luenced.We , acquisitionof tntext where it :tantto hear or ikenly assumed , that what the , crucial. Good =hedinput will
runlcate more 1o becausethey e. immediately r at the speedof 'ing multi-word re of the main becauseof the rllocations.The that the former
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have met far more English and so can recogniseand producethese 'readymade chunks', which enable them to process and produce languageat a much faster rate. 6. Complex ideas are often expressedlexically Typical intermediate student speech,for example, is laboured, one word at a time, and uses simple vocabulary to express both simple and complicated ideas. This inevitably causes problems. Simple language is ideal for the expressionof simple ideas.Complexideasare difficult to expressin complex language;they are even more difficult to expressin simple language.But the complexity needed here is not convoluted grammar; it is usually lexical complex noun phrases,frequently made of supposedly'easy' words. The more exposure studentshave to good quality input and the more awareness they develop of the lexical nature of language,the more they will recognise and eventually produce longer chunks themselves. The traditional Present-Practise-Produceparadigm, for so long the accepted orthodoxy,tends to over-emphasise the 'practise' stage,when in reality the 'present'and 'produce'stagesarethe most important.This doesnot meanthat practiceis unimportant.While it is true that you do not 'learn'new language by speaking,it is only by speakingthat you can developconfidence.However, we needto place a much greateremphasison good-quality written and spoken input at lower and intermediatelevels than is currently the case. 7. Collocation makes thinking easier Paradoxically,the reasonwe can think new things and speak at the speedof thought is becausewe are not using new languageall the time. Collocation allows us to name complex ideas quickly so that we can continue to manipulate the ideas without using all our brainspaceto focus on the form of words. Try to say manipulate ideas or brainspace more efficientlyl Both are recognisedverb + noun andnown+ nown collocations.It is a safeconclusion that collocation is an important key to fluency. It is one of the sacredcows of EFL methodology that fluency comes with practice. Any teacher who has worked in Scandinaviaor Holland, where English is widely spoken,knows this to be false. Advanced studentsdo not becomemore fluent by being given lots of opportunitiesto be fluent. They becomemore fluent when they acquire more chunks of language for instant retrieval. As Stephen Krashen has pointedout, acquisitioncrucially dependson the quantityandquality of input. 8. Pronunciation is integral I will always remember a lecture at TESOL France some years ago when Michael Swan askedme to read a poem to his audiencein Scots- a language similar in structureto English, but with enough significant differencesin vocabularyto make it only pafiially comprehensible.BecauseI was able to read the poem meaningfully, ie chunking it correctly, the audienceall laughed
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in the coffect places. In one sensethey 'understood'the poem while not understandinga large proportion of the individual words. Most teacherswill have had the experienceof watching and enjoying a Shakespeareplay. Few will understand fully the nuances of Shakespeare'slanguage. The actors, however, speakthe lines meaningfully, correctly chunked for us. Becauseleamers createmuch of what they say from individual words, their pronunciation, stress, and intonation, can be difficult for the listener. The great addedbonus to knowing a large number of collocations and other longer expressionsis that if learnersleam the stresspattern of a phrase as a whole, their stressand intonation will be better. 9. Recognising chunks is essential for acquisition There are immediate methodological implications. Teachersshould read texts aloud in class so that studentshear the text correctly chunked. In class we should do no unseen reading aloud and less silent reading. The reason studentsfind unseenreading so difficult is becausethey don't recognise the chunks - they read every word as if it were separatefrom every other word, so during silent reading studentsmay be chunking totally wrongly. And mischunking matters. Correctly understood and stored, lexical items should be available for immediate use. Students cannot store items correctly in their mental lexicon if they have not identified them correctly; incorrectly chunked, the input will either not be stored at all or will be wrongly stored. In either caseit cannot be available for retrieval and use - put simply, studentscannot learn from input which they mis-chunk.
3.8 Collocation in texts It is interesting to examine written texts from different genres from a collocationalpoint of view. It soon emergesthat collocationis an important feature of all such texts, although different kinds of texts do exhibit different collocational characteristics,making some texts more suitable than others for the EFL classroom.Let us comparefiction, a financial report, a newspaper article and finally, a typical EFL text. Collocations which are of interest are underlined. 1. George Eliot's Middlemarch The following short extract shows that collocation is nothing new, but is important even in a literary text considereda classic: Overworked Mrs Dagley - a thin, worn woman, from whose life pleasurehad so entirely vanishedthat shehad not even any Sundalz clothes which could give her satisfactionin Ueparug_fql_Ehulqhhad already had a misunderstandingwith her husbandsince he had come home, and was in low spirits,expectingtheworst. The temptationis to think that 'good writers' do not use such 'ready-made,
off-the-s
There ar would a6 their owr it is in th partly rer physicali own. 2. Frank
The stuff and 1 whic
Here a mc lines of te McCourt argumentl hold here of express suggeststJ precisely r
3. Financir
Share yester marke The sl difficu
Financial I severalof r, shat"ply,shd
Any course collocationa leamers for trend which 4. Newspap
The wc of a bal Juli", u El Juli.
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'mldle not uhers.will plev. Few he actors, ,ords.their tener. The :herlonger s a whole,
i readtexts n classwe he reason :ognisethe )ther word, ,. And mis; should be t1r' in their 11'chunked, *n.In either ents cannot
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off-the-shelf'tricks such as collocation,but they do. There are argumentsfor more collocations in this extract, but most readers would agreewith those underlined.A novelist, by definition, is free to make their own word combinations- in other words, to break our expectations.And it is in the breaking of the conventional that the greatnessof great literature partly resides.So, to describeMrs Dagley as a 'worn woman' evokesher physicaland mentalstate,but could not be guessed.The phraseis Eliot's very own. 2. f,'rank McCourt's Angela's Ashes The new rich people go home after Mass on Sundaysall airs and stuff themselveswith meat and polatoes,sweetsand cakesgalore, and they think nothing of drinking their tea from delicate little cuos which stand in saucersto catch the tea that overflows. Here a modern novelist usessix identifiable collocations in the spaceof a few lines of text. while writing something original and creative both Eliot and McCourt rely on their store of ready-for-use expressions. My previous argumentthat we use collocations in speechto give us thinking time doesnot hold here since the writer has lots of time to think of new and original ways of expression.The fact that Eliot and McCourt use collocations so readily suggeststhat the other reason they are common is because they express precisely what we wish to express with or without time constraints. 3. Financial report
nes from a n important bit different ur othersfor Lne\\.spapef lnterestare
1.1911,, but is rse life Sunday rurch -
Sharesin IndependentInsurancerecoveredby more than 5 per cent yesterday after the company bucked the trend in the insurance market by reporting a 22 per cent increasein underwriting profit. The shares,which fell sharply last year after the company spoke of difficult tradingrose l4p to 263.5p. Financial English is dominated by a number of predictable collocations, severalof which are used in this short extract: shares recovered,sharesfell sharply, shares rose, buck the trend, the insurance market, dfficult trading. Any coursein Financial English would need to identify some of the common collocational patterns,verbs which combine with share, while also preparing learners for the large number of metaphorical expressionssuch as buck the trend which are common in such texts. 4. Newspaper article
he had
The world of bullfighting has discovereda new legend in the form of a bablu-faced16-)'ear-oldcalled Julian Lopez, but known as "El Juli", who has becomethe youngestfully-fledged matadorever.
ready-made,
El Juli, a shy and introverted teenager,has been booked up for the
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b[g bullfighting toumaments of the forthcoming season and is expectedto kill more than 200 bulls in his first full seasonin Spain. The teenagerhas spent most of his time in Latin America since he qualified as a matadorlast Octoberwhen he was still just 15. His skill and couragehas seenhim awardedthe ultimate accolade in bullfighting - being carried out of the bullring on the fans' shoulders- in more than a dozen Latin American cities in recent weeks. Quite a lot of this languageis worthy of comment. Notice thesepatterns: a) the world of sport/art/opera/ballroom dancing etc. b) he re-appearedin the form of a creature half-human, half-bird. c) the (superlative adjective) . . . ever: the youngestfully-fledged matador ever the best holiday eve4 the most expensivemotorbike ever d) There seemto be two collocations combined in: A baby-faced16-yearold called, namely a baby-facedl6-year-old anda 16-year-oldcalled . . . e) Finally, awarded the ultimate accolade is a very strong collocation typical of such newspapertexts. The first and most obvious point to make about factual texts like this is the high percentageof words which occur in fixed phrasesand collocations.This is completely typical of such texts. Collocation is either so commonplacethat it is unremarkableor so inherent in text that it should have a central place in all teaching.Thesetexts are clearly more suitedto the EFL classroomthan the extractstaken from fiction. Looking at the bullfighting text from a teaching point of view, it would be madnessto try to bring all the collocations to the attention of students.We choosetexts for classuse for different reasons:becausewe think studentswill be interested in the topic; because there is language which might be immediately useful; becausethe language is of a quality to which students should be exposed. Over-exploitation of any one aspect will kill students' interest.Class time should be spent on a few useful collocations.Students should then be encouragedto study the rest themselvesat home. A collocation will be worth drawing to students' attention if it satisfiestwo conditions - it is suitable for their level and it has some common culrency, such as the phrasequalify as a . .. .The 'level' of an item will always be a subjective issue, but I suggestthe following rough divisions from the text above: Elementary: spendtime, still just 15,in recentweeks Intermediate: the world of . . ., knownas . . ., theyoungest.. . ever, qualifuas a. . . Advanced: a shy and introverted teenager theforthcoming season, awarded the ultimate accolade.
The remai those whir them. In grammattc 'milk'ever
5. EFL cor In some lr inclusionil dealingwir from the pr identify at I to leamers'
plan aft have a p shareint a lovell, went to J a teenag I told he) And the foll
have the it mighr ) have a sa I seeher This meansr ones contain in a text of r chosencours get the most and density c There are irn should be as identifying ar underline u: notebooksiri I collocation. . words; it is in
3.9 Teach
In order to tea methodology i stress,and gr
Revising priorities . . - J llr flrliL
: 15
rni5Fatn. $irJe he i,i
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The remaining collocations fall into the most important teaching category those which are not worth spending class time on unless studentsask about them. In a structuralist approach teachers did not comment on every grammaticalpoint in a text; so in a lexical approachit would be misguided to 'milk' every text for the last drop of lexis.
a[coiade he t'ans' m recent
l patterns: ird. :,1 tnatador f
'ti I6-t'ear'.'ridcalled... !i atl0n rk; this is the ocations.This rnonplacethat rntral place in ;room than the ,,. it r,r,ouldbe i srudents.We L,studentswill r"-h might be rhich students kltr1students' lons. Students ie"
it satisfiestwo mon culTency, ilLtr alu,aysbe a ttom the text
?€5t...eve\ tftlfitg season,
5. EFL coursebook texts In some ways, the most interesting texts to consider are those chosen for inclusion in popular EFL coursebooks- texts of the type teachersare used to dealing with every day in class.Examining a single two-hundred-word extract from the popular Headway series(Upper Intermediate p 77) it was easy to identify at least the following collocations which teacherscould usefully draw to learners' attention: plan afamily have a problem share interests a lovely agefor (a child) went to school a teenzgedaughter/son I told her off
my best.friend have the samesenseof humour completelyobsessed with grow up suddenly grow away from (your family) an endlessstream of(people) in front of (my) friends
And the following are arguablyjust as useful: have the one child by the time I'd it might have beennice to . . . we were closest have a son they'd gone away Iseeheras... for days afterwards This meansover twenty useful collocations - including some relatively long ones containing important grammatical features as part of the lexical item in a text of only 200 words. The conclusion one must come to is that wellchosencoursebooktexts are full of collocational expressions.For studentsto get the most out of such texts, their attention has to be drawn to that wealth and densityof collocation. There are immediate classroomimplications for how we deal with texts. We should be asking students to predict collocations which are in the text by identifying and gapping them. We should be asking studentsto notice and underline useful ones, and encouraging them to store them in their notebooksin someretrievableway, along with the L1 equivalentof the whole collocation. Making sense of text involves not only understanding new words; it is intimately bound up with the ability to identify collocations.
3.9 Teaching collocation In order to teach collocation we have to give it the samekind of statusin our methodology as other aspectsof language such as pronunciation, intonation, stress, and grammar. We have to see it as being as central to language
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acquisitionasthoseotheraspectsof languagewhich we havelong recognised. 50 years ago nobody in the medical world had heard of DNA. Today it is central to much medical research.The same is true of lexis in general and collocation in particular. Collocation is not an added bonus which we pay attention to once students have become sufficiently advanced.Collocation should play an important part in our teaching from lesson one.
Tns
wh
autl 1.
1. Teaching individual collocations In the same way that we teach individual words * vocabulary - we need to teachcollocations.Rather than wait for studentsto meet common collocations for themselves,we need to presentthem in contextjust as we would present individual words. Here are some examples'.have a bath, makefriends, fall in love. At a higher level, when students are leaming less common vocabulary, we must be aware that some words ale used in a very restricted number of collocations. There is no point in knowing the meaning of the words impetuowsor initiative unless you also know the collocations'.impetuous behaviour;take the initiative.
8. q
10. 1 1
When teaching a new word, teach some of its most common collocations at the sametime. If the word is ferryt, teach: go on the carferry a roll-on roll-off ferry take theferry from (Liverpool) to (Belfost). If the word is belief teach',strong beliefs, have a belief, belief in God / the power of medicine/ yourself.But you might want to choosewhich classyou 'strongest'collocations of teach beggar belief to - even if it is one of the belief. Strong collocations tend to be rare, and we do not want to replace teaching obscure words with teaching obscure collocations.A good rule, however,is never to teach a new word - particularly a noun - without giving a few common collocates. This idea that knowing the meaning of a word is uselessunlessyou also know something of how the word is used is relatively new in ELT. Until very recently, dictionaries were seen only as decoding devices, designed to help studentsunderstandthe meaning of words they were not sure of. They were not seenas encodingor 'productive'- helping studentsto composetheir own text. It is probably asking too much of any one dictionary that it does both. It 'know'or is definitely worth emphasisingto studentsthat they do not really 'own' a word unlessthey also know how that word is used, which means knowing something about its collocational field. There are many pairs or groups of words such as date/appointment/meetingor broad/wide where the differencebetweenthe words is onlv clear from a knowledse of their different collocationalfields.
Theseexa clearly sh difference 2. Makinl
As mentic number ol limited cl: methodolc lesson,gir, only add vocabulan individual collocation
What teacl languagelr think big-e expresslon underline i Taking a cc can will be with a com
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cognised. oday jt is rneral and h we pay rllocation
6l
Tnsr Which of the verbs speak,say, tell fit best into the gaps in these authentic examples? 1. I can't . . . for the rest of the staff, though. 2. As I . . ., they've alreadyappointedsomebody. 3. You'd better do exactly what the doctor . . .
e need to llocations ld present ds,fall in
4. Don't wolry. Everything you . . . me is confidential.
rulary,we umber of he words mpetuous
previousone. 8. To . . . you the truth, I was half expecting it.
catrons at
God / the classyou ;ations of lo replace rood rule, )ut giving alsoknow -Intil very :d to help lhey were their own es both. It "know'or Lchmeans I parrs or where the r different
5. These figures don't . . . us what will happennext month. 6. It's too soon to . . . whether an agreementcan be reached. 7. UN sources. . . the agreementgoes much further than any
9. It may be that actions will . . . louder than words. 10. Can L . . to Mr Harrison,please? 11. Shall we . . . two o'clock? 12....meaboutit! These examples- and they are only a small selection of these three verbs clearly show that it is not possible to give a simple explanation of the difference of meaning with words of this kind. 2. Making students aware of collocation As mentioned above, the most significant feature of collocation is the sheer number of individual collocations needed for a mature adult lexicon. With limited class time teacherscan only teach some of the most common. If, as methodologists tell us, we should teach no more than 10 new words per lesson,given that half might be learned, a normal school year of lessonswill only add 500 words to a student's vocabulary. This strongly suggests vocabulary learning techniques are more important than the teaching of individual words. The same is true for idioms, fixed expressions and collocations. What teachersmust do is make studentsaware of collocation as a vital key to languageleaming. On the simplestlevel, teacherscould encouragestudentsto think bigger than the word - always to look for the two- or three-word expression.Noticing is an important stage in learning. Asking students to underline all verb + noun collocations in a text will be a typical exercise. Taking a common word and asking studentsto find asmany collocatesas they can will be another typical activity in awareness-raising.As we saw above, with a common verb like speak we cannot say that studentsreally know the
62
Revising priorities
word unless they know at least the following possibilities: speakaforeign language speak(French) speakfluently speakwith a (welsh) accent speakclearly speakyour mind sPeakvolumes speakopenly speakin public Sgch a verb would have receivedscant attentionin the past and such attention 'explaining'the difference as it did receive would be likely to concentrateon betweenspeak,talk artdtell. As we saw in the task above' however,exploring the collocational field is far more helpful than any explanation of the supposeddifferences. 3. Extending what students already know Extend students'collocational competencewith words they already know as well as teaching new words. A studentwith a vocabulary of 2,000 words will only be able to function in a fairly limited way. A different studentwith 2,000 words, but collocationally competent with thosewords, will also be far more communicatively competent. Many native speakersfunction perfectly well using a limited vocabulary with which they are collocationally competent. The messagefor ELI is that more class time needsto be spent with some of 'de-lexicalised'verbs' qet, put, the more common words, in particular the take, do, make etc.Studentswho know 2,000 words and six collocations with each,know 12,000expressions.For example: make: makea mistake/ a meal / trowble/ a complaint/ friends / spacefor end: at the end of / in the end / come to an end / to the bitter end / at a loose end / at the end of the daY at: at once/ at first / at work / at school/ at college/ not at all As the last example shows, the words with least content are closest to traditional grammaf. The discriminating exploration of word-grammar is more likely to help learners than either the more exotic parts of traditional grammaror teaching'difficuit' words. 4. Storing collocations An organisedlexical notebook is essentialfor all students.Deciding where to put an item, writing it down, and looking at iL againalong with other similar items is all part of the constant revisiting of language which is part of the learning process. Students' lexical notebooks do not need to be glossy professionally-producedproducts. The simplest looseleaf binder with blank pagescan be turned into an organisedlexicon very easily.We need to manage students'notebooksin the sameway we manageother areasof their learning' It is easy to imagine a collocation section arrangedin the following ways: 1. Grammatically:sectionssuch as noun + noun, adiective+ noun, verb + noun, adverb + adjective 2. By common key word: collocations with do, make, get, up, speak eic' 3. By topic: collocations to talk about holidays, travel, work etc'
We do not that we sl instantly. revised ar listing ner that this countries r UK-produ
3.10cr
Justas imp to teach.A class.If cc your pastti of all kind: and let thel rare and collocation involves ut lmportant collocation
1. Unique i
It is useful are probabl commentat collocation coffee. Stmt 2. Strong c
A large nu strong. Prel although thi We often hi even moved that any knc would be s collocates. 3. Weak col
Many things can make ct coloursin Et is not as sim
Revisingpriorities
: ,:iccent
r!tentlon
1,fierence :rploring rn of the
63
We do not know how we store languagein our mental lexicons. We do know that we store it in patterns of different kinds which allow us to retrieve it instantly. Storing lexis in an organisedway in a notebook so that it can be revised and retrieved quickly must be better than not storing it, or simply listing new items without organising them. one of the advantagesof this is that this makes learning less 'materials-dependent'. In resource-poor countriesmost studentsoften have accessto a simple notebookwhen glossy UK-producedcoursebooksare financially beyondthem.
3.10 Choosing which collocations to teach ,. know as r,ordswill ',rth 2,000 3 rar more :t:tiy well :n someof ,. Set,pWt, rii.onswith for l1.t,ce
1. Unique collocations
i.1! o
closestto :IAITIMAT
Justasimportantas choosingwhich collocationsto teachis decidingwhat not to teach.Avoid the temptation to teach every collocation which comes up in class.If collocationis an idea you may not have been very consciousof in your pastteaching,it is very easyto go overboard.They areeverywhere.Texts of all kinds are packed with them. Draw students'attention to irnportant ones and let them find and record others for themselves.Do not, however,confuse rare and obscure collocations with important ones. Choosing which collocationsto teachand which onesto ignore,given limited classroomtime, involves understanding collocational strength. As we shall see, the most important for the classroom are what we may call medium-strength collocations.
13
'raditional
It is useful to think of collocations on a cline or spectrum from those which are probably uniquefixed/strong to those which are flexible/weak. Several commentatorshave pointed out the uniquenessof foot used as a verb in the collocation/ootthe bill. We cannotimaginefooting the invoice,or footing the coffee.Similarly, we shrug our shoulders,but no other part of our anatomy. 2. Strong collocations
r-q rvhereto ,thersimilar part of the r be glossy ' ,,r,ithblank J to manage eir learning. Ing ways: t10L{n,
. speaketc. 3t C .
A large number of collocations, although not unique, are strong or very strong. Predictably,we may talk of trenchant criticism or rancid butter although tlris does not mean that other things cannot be trenchant or rancid. We often have ulterior motivesor harbowr grwdgeswhile being redwcedor evenmovedto tears. Such strong collocationsare not unique, but it is clear ihat any knowledge of the words trenchant, rancid, motive, grwdge, or tears u'ould be seriously incomplete without some knowledge of these strong collocates. 3. Weak collocations \{any things can be long or short, cheap or expensive,good or bad. Students can make combinations such as blue shirt, red car elc; they can apply the coiours in English in a similar way to their own language.In fact, the picture is not as simple as that, but for most teaching purposeswe pretend that it is.
l',rili ,
6-+
Reisirtgpriorities
However,there is something'more predictable',and so more collocational, about these examples:a white shirt, white wine, red wine, red hair a black mood, a blue film. Similarly, most teacherswould agree that the adjective good is not very interesting from a teaching point of view. It can be applied to anything - a meal, a joumey, a government. But notice what happenswith some slightly larger multi -word expressions containinggood : It'll takeyou a good hour Oh, he's a good age. He'll do it in his own good time. we need to recognisethat easy words have many uses;they are part of many weak collocations, but may also be a componentof many fixed or semi-fixed expressions. students need to be made aware of their more predictable collocations. 4. Medium-strength collocations The main leaming load for all languageusersis not at the sffong or weak ends of the collocational spectrum,but in the middle - those many thousandsof collocations which make up a large parl of what we say and write. Most intermediatestudentswill know the words hold andconversation,but may not know that you can hold a conversation They know the words make and mistake, but have not stored make a mistake in their mental lexicons as a single item. [Remember the key point about lexical items is precisely that they representsingle choices of meaning, and are recognised and stored as single items.Ed.l This, then, explains why learnerswith even 'good vocabularies'still have problems. They may know a lot of words, but their collocational competence with those words is very limited. I have come to the view that the main thrust of classroomvocabulary teaching at intermediate level and above should be to increasestudents'collocationalcompetencewith their basic vocabulary, while stressingto them the need to acquire more new words on their own through independentreading. A nomadic tribe is a sftong collocation becausenomadic collocateswith a very limited number of nouns; a big .flat is a weak collocation and of little interest to teachers,but He's recoveringfrom a major operation is a complex medium-strength collocation. Each individual word may be known to students,but they probably do not know the whole collocation. They are more likely to build the idea phraseby phrase:My father - he's getting better- he had a big operation. Full marks for communicating meaning, but more of an effort for both speaker and listener. It is this area of medium-strength collocations which is of prime importance in expanding leamers' mental lexicons.
3.11 I
Althou_u into therr and collc langua-re
Theories linked. Ir which -ei also have
In classir are also a learnin-etr listenin-e on radio i interact n internet.L elementin l. Revien
It is clear syllabus" i sentence-q on gramm emphasis r vocabularr than teache
The sheeri the learnin greater) me teachagree
a. Frequel rmpofiant. i may be hi_e highly freqr
b. Suitabilil rmportant p natlve-spea Such items i context. If misundersto intend.
c. Level: the
Revising priorities
cational, a black not very hing - a r slightly
65
3.11 Pedagogicalimplications Although I meet many teacherswho are trying to incorporate lexical ideas into their teaching,it seemsthat what we now know about the nature of lexis, and collocation in particular, raisesimportant issuesfor everyone involved in languageteaching. Theories of language and theories of language learning are inextricably linked. In ELT we now have a more comprehensivemodel of language,one which gives at least equal importance to the lexicon as to the grammar. we also have a more horistic view of how secondlanguagesare learned.
of many :mi-frxed edictable
'eak ends rsandsof ite. Most r may not ,mke and ons as a sely that stored as ;till have npetence dn thrust hould be cabulary, heir own :s with a I of little complex nown to are more ztter- he ore of an strength ;' mental
In class we may adhereloosely to a present-practise-produce model, but we are also acutely aware of its limitations. We are readier to accept that the best leaming probably happensoutside the crassroomwhen studenis are reading, listening, watching and interacting with the languagein a book, newspaper, on radio or TV or with a native speaker.Increasingly, too, many leamers interact with the language,with both native und non-native speakers,on the intemet. In this environment,recognising and adopting collocation as a major element in our teaching has severalimportant implicaiions: l. Review the language content of courses It is clear that lexis should be one of the central organising principres of our syllabus. unfortunately, in classrooms, gtammar still tends to rule, and sentencegrammar atthat! Greateremphasison lexis must mean less emphasis on grammar. Accuracy must be rreated as a late-acquired skill. Greater emphasis on 'larger chunks' of ranguage also means that grammar and vocabulary merge into one another.The dividing line is muchless clear_cut than teachersand textbooks often pretend. The sheer size of the learning road makes change inevitable. Accepting that the learning load is not 40,000 items but nearer 400,000 (and probably greater) means that the sylrabus must be reviewed, and criteria for what to teachagreed,basedon four parameters: a' Frequency of occurrence in spoken and written text. Although very important, frequency arone should not be the over-riding parameter.An item may be highly frequent in one genre,but not in another. Another item may be highly frequent in native-speakerEnglish but may be unsuitablefbr learners. b. suitability for foreign and secondranguageuse. This is a subjective, but important parameter. Experienced teachers are aware that some common native-speakeritems will sound silly or inappropriate if used by learners. Such items often depend on subtle features of intonation, pronunciation and context. If learners have not mastered these features,'they risk being misunderstood,giving offence or at least giving an impression,t"y do not intend. c. Level: the lexical learning needs of elementary students are very different
66
Revisingpriorities
from those of the advanced student. Different kinds of item and different learning strategiesare appropriateat different stages" d. Type of course:it is clearthat items typical in businessEnglish or any form of ESP may have little or no place in a generalEnglish course,while for general English it may be possible to predict a certain number of basic collocationsfor someof the commonestwords of the lansuase. 2. Increase language input If languagesare to an extent learned lexically, this should be reflected in our methodology. The main implication is that learners need a great deal more input than they received in most traditional languagecourses.The quantity, type, and quality of input need to be reviewed.One of the major failings of the communicative approachwas that one leamer's deficient output became another'sdeficient intake. Modem task-basedapproachesare in danger of falling into the sameffap. While recognisingthe need for expert direction and monitoring by the teacher,they focus very much on student output, student performance. Nobody would deny the importanceof output, but the main thrust of language teaching must be to create opportunities for students to acquire more and more language. This means maximising the amount of appropriate quality input available to the learners. The role of the teacher, the classroom, and materials a1l need to be changed. Instead of being a language practice facilitator, the teacher should be first and foremost a languageprovider and the expert who helps studentsnotice useful and interesting language. This might even - horror of horrors - mean increased teacher talking time, providing the talk is controlled to provide good quality, appropriate input. Languagepractice,while important,is secondary.The classroomshouldbe a language-richenvironmentwith interestingEnglish on the walls, a library of graded readers,and internet-accessif possible.Publishedmaterials should contain more natural languagewith more activities focussedon the language and on individual learning.In short,the emphasisshouldbe on activitiesand strategieswhich aid acquisition. 3. Review strategies at different levels Again, the sheer size of the mental lexicon has implications for vocabulary teachingstrategiesat all levels.At elementarylevel the priority is to increase the number of individual words learners know. These are best learned along with a small number of collocates.For example,there is no point in learners knowing the word holiday unless they also know that you go on holiday, but they will probably be intermediate before they learn a package/ beach/adventureholiday. Intermediate studentsneed more new words with more collocateswhile also increasingtheir collocational competencewith words they already know.
At leve imposs studen new w( inefficii colloca advanc but hou a co) a bu: We also ways revision advance systema At prese difficult colrespo work in compete
4. Transl
There ar discarded English a A colloca unique sk 5. Langui
This rais< throughou students r collocatio collocatior othersare everycollc usual,the r shouldbe t
3.12 Su
It is accept changeour many of ou
Revisingpriorities
i different r SnVforrn o,ihile for r of basic
:ted in our deal more : quantity, lailings of lut became danger of rectronand rut. student rf language rnore and ate quality ;room, and rp :!
nronti^o yr 4L trLU
olider and ua_se. This krn_etime, nate input. ihouldbe a r Libraryof iatrsshould ; language tllitigt .ta
r ocabulary tro lncrease med along in learners ,ti holiday, package/ ,i'ords with tence with
67
At levels above intermediate,studentsneed to read widely and it is virtually impossible to predict what items a student 'should, rearn. By this stage studentsshould be autonomousleamers and have understood that learning a new word without some of its collocatesis a waste of time, or at least very inefficient. Advanced students will always be adding to their store of collocatesevenof words they learnedaselementarystudents. For example,all advancedstudentsare familiar with the words book, farnity, holiday andright but how many would be familiar with the following collocations: a coffee-tablebook the nuclearfamily a bwsman'sholiday a blinding light we also need to develop techniquesto help studentsto record lexis in helpful waIS. - ways which reveal patterns and which are easily accessible for
correspondingly of limited use to the learner.The main thrust of vocabulary work in most classes should be to make students more collocationally competentwith the words with which they are already partly familiar. 4. Translation
5. Language model
every collocation mistake than they should correct every grammar mistake.As usual, the communication of meaning and the learner's current intergrammar shouldbe the decisivefactors.
3.12 Summary - Iessgrammar, more lexis It is acceptedthat recentdevelopmentsin corpuslinguistics haveforced us to change our view of language.This means it is time for a re-evaluationof many of our acceptedideasaboutlearningand teaching.corpus hnguisticsis
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Revisingpriorities
going to change the content of what we teach radically. These ideas on collocation are only the first rumblings. In ELT we have grown accustomedto the idea that language- the content of what we teach- is a rule-govemedsystemand if we couldjust leam the rules, we would acquire the language.We now know that this idea is so at odds with the way both first, and subsequent,languagesare learnedthat there is no point in hanging on to it as any kind of model for leaming. To be efficient, learning must reflect the nature of what it is we are leaming. Languageis proven to be a mixture of the totally novel, the absolutelyfixed, the relatively fixed, and all held togetherwith fairly simple structureswhich we call grammar.The largest learning load and the one which is never complete - even for native speakers - is masteringthe lexicon. Within the lexicon, collocation is one of the biggest definable areasto which all learnersneed to be introduced from lesson one. Insistenceon accuracyinhibits production and makes studentsconcentrateon language at or below sentencelevel. Competencedependson being able to decodeand take part in discourse,whether spokenor written. Similarly, there is little point in spendinga lot of class time presentingindividual items of vocabulary,practising them, and trying to set up situationsfor studentsto use them.The acquisitionof individual items dependsnot on students'usingthem 20 times in one lesson,but on meeting them, perhaps10 times, in different conlexls,at differenttimes. The fact is, language courses are finite - time is limited. If we are to start teachingcollocation, we must stop teaching somethingelse to make room. The answermust be to spendless time on formal grammar work, restricted to a small rangeof traditionalEFL 'structures',regularlyrevisited.A secondfact is that most students are intermediate. Spending a lot of class time on traditional EFL grammar condemns learners to remaining on the intermediate plateau. Helping learnersto become 'advanced'needsa huge injection of lexis. It is lexis in general, and collocational competencein particular, which allows students to read more widely, understand more quickly, and speakmore fluently. By taking a finite list of grammatical structuresas their basis, many current coursebooksand ministry syllabusesare seriouslyflawed.Progressin English for all post-elementaryleamers dependson sufficient lexical input, of which collocationis the singlemost importantelement. [Parts of this article ffust appeared in Issue 11 of English Teaching Professional.l
DiscussionQuestions Different texts contain different kinds of collocations. What kinds of texts do you think will be of most use to your learners?Are there kinds of texts which you think will not be particularly useful? How doesyour choice comparewith
the tex How n single really r
How r, advanc learner
Do you from de
Revisingpriorities
)se ideas on :recontent of arn the rules, at odds with re is no point ient,learning proven to be fixed, and all r. The largest rtive speakers of the biggest t lessonone. oncentrateon being able to rnilarly, there dual items of tudentsto use ts'using them s. in different i,e are to start l make room. k. restricted to A secondfact :lass time on ining on the 'needs a huge :ompetencein ierstand more ,many curTent ressin English nput, of which ,lish Teaching
nds of texts do ; of texts which e comparewith
69
the texts you find in coursebooks? How many items do you think you should presentin a singre lesson,or on a single day of teaching? How many of those do you expect your learners to really master so that they can use them themselves? How would you explain the difference between an intermediate and an advancedleamer? Is it, as Jimmie Hill suggests,a matter of the size of the learner's mental lexicon? Do you agree that over-emphasisinggrammar can actively prevent learners from developing beyond the intermediateplateau?
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Integratingcollocation
Chapter4 Integrating collocationinto a readingand writing course Jane Conzett Jane Conzett works on a typical Intensive English Program in the United States. She describes how her reading and writing classeshave changed as a result of her dissatisfaction with the way she was reacting to errors in her students' written assignments. Like Morgan Lewis, she found that some theoretical reading helped her understand the problem better, and guided her towards teaching strategies that she finds more effective. She emphasisesthe importance of both context and collocation in presenting new words. Non-American readers need to be aware that language teaching in the US may vary from what is usual in the British and European tradition. Jane writes from the perspective of an American Intensive English Program, but many of her experiences and conclusions parallel those of George Woolard and Morgan Lewis described earlier.
4.1 Background As an instructor in an Intensive English Program (IEP) in the United States, my discovery and understandingof collocation actually resultedfrom my own frustrationwith vocabularystudy in the classroom.Before I describehow this came about, a brief outline of a typical American IEP may be helpful for readersnot familiar with suchprograms.The goal of most IEPs is to improve students'abilityto use English for academicand professionalpurposes,most often in preparationfor academicwork in American collegesand universities. Term length ranges from 8-16 weeks; class size averagesabout 12. The approachto curriculum is frequently content-based,and core coursesmay be integrated so that students enroll in combined skills courses such as reading/writing, or listening/speaking,or they may be taught as single-skill courses. Many programs offer electives such as pronunciation, computer skills, or TOEFL preparation,the latter becausethe Test of English as a Foreign Languageis the proficiency test most often required by American universities for admissionto degreeprograms.Studentsare in classan averageof 18 to 25 hours per week, and they complete severalhours of homework outside of classeachday. My frustration as a teachercame about when, despite careful, contextualized study of vocabulary in my reading and writing classes,my studentsoften used
their r produc classe serend heard c of colk Learnit, stumbii vocabu haveres
Asmyr approac In the cr describe to imple
4.2 Tr
Asdom as an 1r thematic 'society
vanety ol the En-el encounte nonrnatt\
vocabula point in o at a tfeme native spe and others vocabular estimatesi this same speakervc thosewhot
How can tr up the hill thinking. T US in the 1 the notion inferring fi with severa acquisition
Integrating
u'riting
nited States. is a result of er students' : theoretical her towards r mlportance the US may r v rites from manr- of her lnd \Iorgan
lr t:d States, f _rmnlv own :e horv this : reiptul for s io lmprove r t s e s .m o s t rlir ersities. ,r . t t l l , T h e : r r e sm a y b e 'ri such as : srngle-skill ;;r skilis, or L: a Foreign -;n1\'ers1t1es : eo f 1 8 t o 2 5 L outside of r,11:e\tualized Ltsotien used
collocation
7l
their new vocabulary incorrectly when they moved from receptive to productivelanguage.As I struggledto remedy what wasn't working in my classes, I headed to the library for some help and stumbled almost serendipitouslyupon the notion of collocation,a word I had previouslynever heard of. The proverbial light bulb went on. I recognized from a description of collocations that was included as part of Nation's book, Teachingand Leaming vocabulary,that this was preciselywhere I and my studentswere stumbling. Since that time, I have changed my approach to teaching vocabularyin my readingand writing classes,testingand trying methodsthat haveresultedin more accuratelanguageproductionby my students. As my knowledge and understandingof collocationhas grown, my overall approachto teachinghas changedin somesubtle,but importantways as well. In the context of our IEP, a typical one in the united States,I would like to describehow this gradualchangecameabout,and sharesomepracticalways to implementpracticeand training in collocationswithin existing cunicula.
4.2 The need to build vocabulary As do many American IEPs today, our program teachesreading and writing as an integrated course. Students read articles or texts, often grouped thematicallyaround a particular content area such as ,work and careers,,or 'society and aging', and then respond to the readings in writing, using a variety of discoursetypes.This approachmimics the typical interactionwith the English language that future graduate or undergraduatestudents will encounterat the university.When thesereading and writing tasks are given to non-nativespeakers,a naturalresponseis for studentsto bemoantheir lack of vocabulary,and we teachers- most of us secondlanguagelearnersat some point in our own lives - can certainly seetheir point. In fact,L2leamers are at a tremendousdisadvantagewhen one comparestheir vocabulary to that of nativespeakers.If we aredefiningvocabularyasjust individual words,Nation and othersestimatethe sizeof a native-speaker undergraduate student'sactive vocabulary (words used in speech and writing) at 20,000 words. crow estimatesa much greaterpassivevocabulary- 60,000to 100,000words _ for this sameaveragestudent,but eventhe most conservativeestimateof nativespeakervocabularyis enoughto be discouragingto every ESL student,even thosewhoselanguageis quite 'advanced'. How can teachershelp their studentsfeel lesslike sisyphuspushinghis stone up the hill as they study vocabulary? current approachesreflect a shift in thinking. The communicative approach to languageteaching, popular in the uS in the 1970sand 1980s,downplayedexplicit vocabularyinstruction,with the notion that students could learn vocabulary implicitly, guessing and inferring from rich context. Sokmen has describedhow this approachmet with severalproblemsrelatingto the slowness of rhe merhodand the raleof acquisition, the inaccuracy of some of the 'guesses', its disregard for
72
Integratingcollocatton
individual abilities and learning styles, and especially,the lack of retention of the new vocabulary. Recent research,while not advocating total abandonmentof inferring from context, which is a valuable reading skill in its own right, supporlsthe notion that some systematic,explicit study of vocabulary is vital to gaining language proficiency.As Sokmenconcludes: The pendulum has swung from direct teaching of vocabulary (the grammar-translationmethod) to incidental (the communicative approach)and now, laudably,back to the middle: implicit and explicit learning. The question today is no longer whether or not to teach vocabulary explicitly, but how to go aboutit.
4.3 Explicit vocabulary study Recognizing the imporlance of explicit vocabulary study, our IEP has in recent years made it an explicit part of the reading and writing curriculum, The meansof achievingthis vary, dependingon the teachers'preferences and the students'proficiency levels. Some teacherschoose vocabulary builder books basedon word-lists; some choosebooks basedon roots and affixes; others study vocabulary in context in teacher-createdlists based on the readingsthe studentsdo in class. All of thesechoiceshave their advantages. With limited time one can see the efficiency of studying high-frequency vocabulary;booksbasedon roots and affixescan help studentsmakeeducated guessesat the meaningsof new words, with the added benefit of helping studentswho strugglewith English spelling patterns.It can, for example,be reassuringto studentsto know that medicine and medical have the sameroot spelling of medic, even though one would not be able to guessthis from the way the words arepronounced.In-contextstudy of vocabularyencounteredin reading has the well-known advantagesof point-of-need relevance to the student,and natural,real-life examplesof usage. The vocabularybooks I have used have been for the most part well-written, with ample opportunities for studentsto practice the vocabulary through incontext cloze exercises,matching, fill-in-the-blank, etc. Interestingly,the students have always been enthusiastic about explicit vocabulary study, perhapsbecauseit has the initial appearanceof being somethingreassuringly concretein the complex world of secondlanguageacquisition. With good books, motivated students,and plenty of practice, I felt destined for success.Instead,evenif the studentsscoredwell on passiveskills exams, when they tried to actually use the new vocabulary, something often went disappointinglywrong. Here are some sentencesthat were produced by studentsin our IEP after they had received explicit vocabulary instruction for the underlined words:
Bec Wei AFe
My usu partiai c the wori on their toxic nte bwt we ct and dis commun langua-u certainhaccurac\ successf
4.4 Th
The reaso of colloca they conta definition but don'r might be simple del Elsewhere perspectt\ Even with may be of
verb + adjectii, verb + I adverb
Smadja po explained studentsari can see tha adjective+t that informr snake, nor. snake. The powerful, ar and the othe
Integrating collocation
tion of l from notron 1_quage
'lt
rli,-itlru
has in .cLllum. ,.s and builder utlixes; on the Lxtages. '.luency :ucated helping -rrle,be ne root rom the teredin : ro the .r rrtfAn
r'.ish ins1r'. the !
JLUUIT
suringly destined i eKams, en went lier they
73
Be careful. That snake is toxic. Wewill sever this class becauseit is too larpe. A Ferrari is a verTW[e]xt:car My usual responseto production elrors of this type was to give the student partial or half credit becausethey had obviously understoodlhemeaningof the words despitethe awkward sentences.Sometimes I wrote ,word choice, on their paper,indicating the error type. when a student asked,But croesn,t toxic meanpoisonous?I wourd give a responsealong the lines of, weil, yes, but we don't usually use it that way, which left both of us feering fiustrated and dissatisfied. I should point out that the student obviously had communicatedthe intendedmeaning, and in that regard was successfulin language production. However, one of the objectives of the course, and certainlya goal of the college-boundstudentsthemselves, was to increasethe accuracy of their production, and in this regard we were not always successful.
4.4 The missing link: collocation The reasonthat 'we don't usuaily use it that way,is explainedwith the idea of collocation. The three student-producedsentences are incorrect because they containcollocationerrors.what is collocation?you might get a different definition from everylinguist you askedbecauseterminology is not yet fixed, but don't at this stagewo''y too much about what collocation is, or how it might be preciserydefined. I have found it easier to work with this very simple definition: Two or more words that tend to occur together(collocate). Elsewherein this book different kinds of collocations, and u -or" theoretical perspective,are discussedin more detail. Even with my simpledefinition,it is easyto seeimmediately that collocations may be ol severaldifferenttypes: verb + object disputefindings adjective + noun wnuccompanied mino, verb + preposition engagein, hear oUorl adverb + adjective + noun highly irregular situation Smadja points out that why these words occur together cannot easily be explained on semantic grounds, and the sentencesproduced by our IEp studentsare good examplesof the probrem. Retuming to the toxic snake we can see that although the student may learn the grammatical collocation of adjective+noun,andmay learn that 'the meaning'of toxic is poisonous,all of that informationneitherhelps the studentto produce the expectedpoisonows snake,nor, equaily importantly, to avoid the non-standard/unacce ptabretoxic snake. The same is true for the potent Ferrari. one meaning of potent is powerful, and both are adjectives,but one does go collocate - with Ferrari and the other does not. Similarry, severecrc/ass is another coilocation enor.
74
Integrating collocation
For the native speaker, knowledge of acceptable and unacceptable collocations is largely instinctive. This is demonstratedby the way most native speakerswould automatically add exactly the samewords to complete thesephrases:sibling , mitigating You almostcertainlyselectedsibling rivalry andmitigating circumstances.In 'obvious' answerswhich fact, tt is quite difficult to think of alternativesto the are plausible and likely. Collocations may be strong - the presenceof one word means you strongly expect the other word to be there too - or weak, when the collocatescan vary a great deal. I have found it helpful to conceptualize collocations on a continuum like the one below. On such a continuum, units made of freelycombining words llke friendly dog or old car would not be treated as collocations,nor would fixed expressionsand idioms llke throw in the towel. I treat as collocations those items that appearin the middle of this continuum, with stronsercollocationsto the risht. and weakercollocationsto the left. friendly dog
sibling ivalry
strongcffie weaker
oM car
heavysmoker
throw inthe towel
stronge
mitigatingcircumstances
Starsand Stripes
'treatsas'collocations.This is wise; ratherthan getting [Janetalks of what she involved in long discussionsof what exactly is and is not a collocation, teachersneed to make a pedagogical,rather than theoretical decision. Ed]
4.5 The need for guidance from the teacher For the study of collocations to be successful, the teacher has the responsibility to direct leamers' attention to the most useful collocations, those which hold high priority in the context of the curriculum. We should also discourage students from going overboard, and recording every collocation they meet. This means they must be discouragedfrom recording very weak items (nice house,good vacation), or strong ones which are very unusual, and correspondingly probably not appropriate for most learners (reducedto penury). Not all vocabulary effors are collocation errors. Some are substitutionor contextual errors, using the wrong word with the wrong meaning. Some examples of vocabulary effors of this type produced by our students are, When I have children, I hope I will be vetj amorowswith them, and Owr trainers are vety helpful and suggestlve.These students simply learned the wrong meaning, or the wrong context, for amorous and suggestive. When one realizes that native speakersnot only know an enormous number of individual words, but they also know much more about how thesecombine, or collocate, the burden of theL2leamer suddenly seemseven greater.It may have seemeddifficult enough for our studentsto learn the word sibling,btrtto
leam al sibling the 20.( speake leamers evidenc colloca and po incorpo matenal collocat rmportar
After thr come to quesfion in part d are availi 'problern
teachin-e collocati their mer
4.6 Mt
In somer Insteadol why don somethin the studer it and pr< make stu< ways clas of their la 1. Teach r
Collocaiic limited pr concept. J English ia Once expl when appr 2. Adapt t
Currentl1,.
Integrating c ollocation
)Jeptable ',3)' most complete 'iltces.Ilr 3rs which . strongly I can vary ons on a ri
freelrr-
i-ated as :irc towel. t]ltlnuum, he left. i rovel ---> S:,tpes rtrngettlng rllocation, rrr, Edl
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
t3
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
some\\becaus words. r preposlt phrases pleasur
Where < example obtained Collocatt based di modified addition. to provid much safr No, you c Ifyou sar day!)
4.Addar
When first things ctre limbs, heor Collocatio simple qu subsequen to the collo subsequen questlonroutine for rtemsto the 5. Selectvc
By domain looselythe s domain miE might incluc Though prot a good basis observing th understandtl domain sucl whimpe4 ho. pomt out exi
Integrating
can be n wordn make , should rwledge e of the
Lsefulto :n I first t always rrds and as with l context odman's rs which
collocation
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
retron ile sth sb'srostot1. Utree.
notebook. recording rre ideally following neetings,I rd then for cabulary,I ooard,and he list. For
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<esdurins subsequentencounterswith the vocabulary item is a quick repeat of thl question - what kinds of things are . . . ? rt can become an easy, automatic routine for studentsand teachersthat is effective in helping studentstransfer itemsto theirlong-termmemories. 5. Select vocabulary textbooks that use domain vocabulary By domain vocabulary I mean the study of different vocabulary items with looselythe samemeaning,basedon a 'parent'domain,for exampiethe LovE domain might include adore, cherish, treasure, while the HATE domain might include detest,loathe, despise. Though probably not intendedto, books basedon domain vocabularyprovide a good basisfor training and practicein collocation,for two reasons. First, by observing the lexical variety related to a single concept, students come to understandthat the English lexicon is not an open system.when they learn a domain such as cRY, suggestedby Hollisky and including weep, sob, tvhimpe4 howl, bellow, shed tears, students will see - and teachers should point out explicitly - thaLwords with similar meanings are frequently not
78
Integrttting
colloctttion
collocationally interchangeable.Second, the way that domain vocabulary books are arrangedaround a particular concept provides an ideal set-up for addinga studyof collocalion.
The Wa sentenc example
One series I particularly admire is Walk, Amble, Stroll (Levels 1 and 2, Hollisky et al.). In thesebooks,when the words relatedto basicconceptssuch as the OLD-NEW domain are introduced,the authorspresentthem in context, often with collocations:
Pape Han'r (fout
Many people are interested in old things and events which happeneda long time ago. Some of them like to buy expensive antique fwmiture and others enjoy reading books about Julius Caesarand other leaders from ancient history. Other people are more interested in new things and new ideas. They like to have moderufurniture or read about current events.Some of them only go to the most recent movies.Do you prefer old or new movies? Are you interestedin ancientor modern history?
Teacher with an; reinforce Again, fr
The underlined words are those selected for presentationby the authors; I haveaddedthe italics to showthe collocations.This domainprovidesan ideal opportunity to point out that we don't say old histoty or antique history; Ihe standardexpressionis ancient historlt. Similarly, we say cwrrenteventsand recentevents,but we do not saynew events. Dependingupon the goalsof the class,the teachercan simply point out the collocations,or createadditional exercises and activities specifically geared to practicing and retaining the collocations.
(Italics mr the compc
One such activity, suggestedby Channell,is a collocationgrid. Thesecan be done for many groups of words with similar or related meanings, and for different kinds of grammatical pairs such as subjects and verbs, verbs and objects, adjectivesand nouns, etc. Using the OLD-NEW domain from the previous example, the grid might look like the one below. If using a domain vocabularybook in class,the teacherneedsonly supply the blank grids after modelling the first unit, and the studentscan complete the grids with the collocations they discover in each chapter. This is also an excellent way to review and practice, which is crucial to retention. events
furniture
old
T
antique
T
ancrent
?
new
history
+ T
T
recent
T
cuffent
T
modem
)
T
ideas
movles T
? T
T
+
T
T
+
+ +
T
When Did a Has I'r was fir
Again, w.r Two C's o For some collocatior 6. Tlain st
One semes and writinl rnterestin_e 'vocabulan
the studen lmpoftant Il word units 1
Because E thematicalil presentan ir reading,and teachercan I collocations themselves woffy wheth any other wa and writing, ideasof 'pns
Integrating collocation
Yocabulary L1set-,upfor ls 1 and 2, nceptssuch r m context, u'hrch r-ns1ve Julius rle are rr have n only :oties? e authors;I ,les an ideal itistorl; the r eventsand goalsof the : additional rtaining the -lese can be lg:s.and for '. r erbs and rn from the r supplythe ompletethe s is also an n. movles
79
The Walk,Amble,,Srrollbooks follow the introductionof each domain with sentencecompletion practice that frequently reinforces collocation. Some examplesfrom the BUILD domain: Paperwas first . . . in China. (manwfactured,constructed) Harvard,the oldestuniversityin the US, was . . . in 1636. (fuunded,manufactwred,thowghtup, produced) Teacherscan mimic this techniqueof forced-choicepracticeof collocations with any words the class might be studying. Hollisky et al take this reinforcement one step further in their questions for discussion or writing. Again, from their BUILD domain: When was your country establishedas an independentcountry? Did a personor group of people/oundyour countryT Has your country'ssystemof governmentchangedvery much sinceit was first organiled? (Italics mine, and note particularlythe last examplewhere,on this occasion, the componentsof the collocationoccur quite widely separated.) Again, we must remember,collocation is not the only area of interest;the Two C's of contextand collocationoperatein domain vocabularybooks,too. For some words (whimpea sob, weep), context is much more important than collocation. 6. Train students to observe and note collocations in reading One semesterI choseto study vocabulary'words' in context in my reading and writing class, rather than use a vocabulary builder textbook, and an interesting thing happened.Working through each unit, I would pull out the 'vocabulary' that was important to that particular subject, and make lists for the students.However, I soon noticed that I was not generatinglists of important words, but in nearly every case had lists of expressions - multiword units that I cameto recognizewere often collocations. Because ESL reading and writing books are commonly organized thematicallyaroundsubjectssuch as'the workplace',or'prisons'this can present an ideal opportunity to train studentsto observecollocations in their reading, and to note and use these expressionsin their writing. At first, the teachercan model the kind of list neededby making a list of vocabularyand collocations for a thematic unit. Later, students can generate the lists themselves,for leamer autonomy,or as a class.At this juncture, I do not woffy whether a phrasefits a particular definition of collocation, or analyzeir any other way. If it is important,useful vocabularyfor the students'reading and writing, I include it. Here are two examplesof the lists I made using the ideasof 'prisons'and'the workplace':
80
Integratingcollocation
Prisons
The workplace
prrsonsentence corections officer prison-issueclothing self-helpcourses kill time re-entryinto society doing time alternative sentence prison capacity
mental challenge prospectiveemployees job autonomy hourly wage straight salary employee turnover incentiveschemes unskilledworkers extemal recognition
The single most important thing for teachers,more than worrying whether or not somethingis a collocation,is to shift their and their students'focusaway from individual words to chunks of language. These chunks improve the fluency and accuracy of the English students produce. This can be accomplishedwithout changingtextbooksor even modifying the course,but by simply calling students' attention to the collocations in the readings, studying them as a paft of a vocabulary list, and repeating and reinforcing them in writing assignments,describedbelow. 7. Collocations in writing Writing is frequently taught as an integrated course with reading in many IEPs, so the above-mentionedtechnique is easily adapted to reinforcing collocationsin writing. When teachersgive writing assignments basedon the readings, they can review with their students a list of collocations and expressionsthat are important to accurately expressingthe ideas relevant to the topic. Teacherscan also ensurethat studentsusethesenew expressionsby giving short 'forced choice' writing and discussion assignments,where studentswill haveto use the expressionsin order to answerthe question:Are alternative sentences a good idea when prison capacity has reached its maximwm?Are self-help coursesofferedto prisoners in your counttj before their re-entry into society? Alternatively, for a writing assignmentwhich doesn't follow a reading selection,teacherscan quickly preparea short list of common collocations and phrases used in the context relevant to that assignment; this can be discussedwith studentsbefore they begin writing. [Morgan Lewis makesthe samesuggestion.Ed.1 For example,if you were going to haveyour studentswrite an essayaboutthe pros and cons of child day care, you might first want to do a pre-writing exercise and in this context, note on the board and discuss the meaning of expressionsllke: physicalwell-being,emotionalwell-being,quality time, high turnoverof pre-schoolteachers,child-careworkers,working outsidethe home, double-income family, womenin the workforce,teacher-childratios,etc.
8.'Look
Students dictionar construc the accul friendll, 1 Once thel from thet collocatio how to u_ 9. A writi
When our Purposes accustom emphasizi degree.Th as my inst experlence traineeaski at the appr envisionins no actualla to approac through our informatior phrases- cr Typical exa experience Cowldwe gt He's tied up not so far of Perhaps the functional nc its langua_e emphasizele English in a students'at speaking.Na their book Ze at the end of t 'useful invan variableslots
[ntegrating collocation
81
8. 'Look it up twice, Students writing in or translating a second language rely heavily on dictionaries and thesauruses,and teachers can attest to the mangled constructionsand confusingmeaningsthat often result.Studentscan improve the accuracyof their writing if they are taughtto .look it up twice', a student_ tiiendly phrase that is another version of Lewis' decoding and encoding. once they have found the basic word they want to use in writing - perhaps tiom their bilingual dictionary - a dictionary or ref'erencethat includes collocation information such as those given below is necessaryto find out how to use it accurately. \\ hether or ocusaway nprove the is can be :ourse,but : readings, reinforcing
s m many reinforcing ised on the ations and relevantto ressionsby nts. where restion:Are ,eached its ntrty before a reading :oliocations this can be s makes the
ar,aboutthe pre-writing meaning of n'time,high ,.Iethe home, ts. etc.
9. A writing lesson from ESp/Business English when our IEP firsr branched out to include ESp (English for Specific Purposes)programs for corporate clients, the academicEngrish we were accustomedto teachinghad to be modified to meet the needsof the trainees, emphasizingthe functional and pragmatic nature of English to a much greater degree.Though I remain primarily a teacher of academicEnglish in an IEF, as my institution employs specializedtrainersfor corporateclients, my first experiencewith businesstraineeswas an eye-openingone. one particular traineeaskedif I could give him 'a list of expressionsI can memorize and use, at the appropriateplace and time. put off by his word ,memorize,, and envisioningsome sort of mechanicaltraveler'sphrasebook that would build no actual languageproficiency, I assuredhim that was not at all asound way to approach improving his English. Interestingry,though, as we worked throughour languageunits on negotiating,describingtrends,telephoning for information,clarifying, etc,rreaTizedthat we were in fact presenting lexical phrases- collocations- and asking our traineesto practiceand retain them. Typical examples were: I'll get back to yow Jirst thing tomorrow. The market e-rperienceda sharp drophlight decline/remainedstable. Is that everything? C o u l d w eg o o v e r t h a t a g a i nL?e t m e c o n f i t m . . . . w o u r d y o u m i n d i f r. ".? He's tied up at the moment.The traineewho askedfor usefulexpressions was not so far off the mark. Perhapsthe very nature of ESp and businesstraining - the pragmatic and functional notions previously referred to - puts collocations at the forefront of its language work; certainly the relevant books and training materials emphasizelexical phrasesas a matter of course.Those who teach academic English in an IEP can benefit their students in the same way, by calling :tudents' attention to the 'useful expressions'of academic writing and speaking.Nattinger and Decarrico have written about exactly this concept in :heir book Lexical Phrctsesand LanguageTeaching.The teaching suggestions et the end of their book provide recommendationsfor having stuJentspractice 'useful invariablephrases'commonly used in written discourse,some with ''ariableslots that studentscan fill in. Relatedto this, Hoey's book. patterns
82
Integrating
collocation
of Lexis in Text, demonstratesthe cenfal role lexis plays in cohesion, even acrosssentenceboundariesand over distanceswith texts,and an earlierbook by Halliday and Hasan, Cohesionin English, classifiescollocation as the second of two types of lexical cohesion (the first being various types of reiteration). How could this work in the IEP classroom?Teacherscan give their students shortcutsto more fluent and natural academicwriting by having them practice the 'collocationsof writing'. When teachingthe common academictask of summary writing for example, along with instruction in the general conventionsof summary writing, I have my studentspractice with a list of commonly-usedphrasesand verbs: contendsthat (+ clause) maintainsthat (+ clause) addressesthe issueof (+ noun phrase) In his/her article/book etc, John Doe disputes(+ noun phrase) suggests(that) (+ nownphrase) discwsses points out that (+ clawse) These same verbs prove useful later on when we introduce the documented research paper, which requires internal citations. When we address the importance of objectivity in research papers, neutral phrases such as: Evidencesuggests. . ., Recentfindings support . . ., h has beendetermined by . . ., Supportfor this point existsin . . ., arepresentedfor the studentsto practice. To make a point, we also light-heaftedly compare them to biased phrasessuchasEverybodyknowsthat. . ., Theyhad a craly idea that. . . etc. These ideas are certainly not new, but, much like the explicit teaching of vocabulary, they fell out of favor with many teachersduring the era of the communicative approach to teaching. Though concerned at first that these approachesmight soundtoo 'canned'or formulaic, I have beenpleasedwith the resultsin the students'writing, and pleasantlysurprisedat how well they are able to adapt the phrasesto their own writing topics. I have also successfullyincorporatedcollocationsand lexical phrasesin the writing curriculum by introducing and having students practice the multiword items that indicaterelationshipsbetweenideas.A few examplesfollow; teacherscan emphasize any such phrases as appropriate for their students' proficiency. Similarity/comparison
Difference/contrast:
Conclusion
strikingly similar in like manner
in marked contrast draw a conclusion jump a fundamental difference to a conclusion the logical conclusion on the contrary a hasty conclusion ln summarv
Agree, genera unanln out of i
4.7 Rt
As our repetitio students meanin-e needsto 7, thou-s teachin-s expenenc informati
Convincii it operate can be dii word = d, and electr not enou-s a word tha knowing I so system goal of g Fortunatel help teach enjoyable accomplis Listed herr classroom want to cot ways their
1. Collocat
This techni has alreadlcan compie competitive 2. Addition Vocabulary
Integratingcollocation
, : : 1 , - l f l .e V e i l
:.-,Lierbook :- :n ?Sthe ,-: I\pes Of 1-rr students tem practice rmic task of tire genelal r ith a list of
,i,',iutphrase)
' documented ir,ddressthe !:s SuChaS: r:.detennined ni studentsto i-m to biased .ilirut...etc. ri teaching of th- era of the ;r:t that these r pleasedwith h,l,' rvell they ;hrases in the rice the multiimples follow; tlieir students'
Agree/disagree Listing/enumeration generalconsensus another/yetanother unanlmous agreement in a number of wavs out of the question
83
Cause/effect leadsto resultsin unexpectedresult or finding
4.7 Review and testing As our understanding of the human memory grows, the importance of repetition and reinforcement can't be over-emphasized.The brightest of studentswill not be able to recall and use new words without repeated, meaningful contact with them. Estimates of the number of times a student needsto meaningfully encountera new word range in the researchfrom 5 to 7, though classroomteachersare probably not sulprised by this. Whether teaching the multiplication tables or collocations, teachers know from experiencethat there must first be systematic,meaningful practice, or the new information will not be retained. Convincingstudentsthat they don't really 'know'a word until they know how it operateswith other words and contextsis also part of the teacher'sjob. It can be difficult to wean studentsfrom the idea that Ll word = L2 word and word = definition, particularly in this instant-gratification age of computers and electronic dictionaries. Telling a student that something is important is not enough; to make a studentacceptthe notion that there is more to knowing a word than knowing its basic definition, they need to be held accountablefor knowing how it is used.Teachershold studentsaccountableby testingthem, I so systematictestingof vocabularyshouldinclude collocations,with the twin goal of giving students additional, meaningful contact with the words. Fortunately,this is not difficult to accomplish,and many resourcesexist to help teachersproduce qluizzes,tests and practice exercises.These can also be enjoyable and game-like - many of them matching exercises- and can be accomplishedwithout overly stressingstudent or teacher. Listed here are some of the review and testing exercisesI have used in my classroom.As teachersadaptand createtheir own techniques,they might also want to consider current researchon learning styles, and consider in which ways their review work complementstheir students'variousleaming styles. 1. Collocation grid
sion : irnclusion l conclusion ;a1 conclusion conclusion ItLll \
This technique,mentioned above, is especially good for review when a class has already completed a grid once.A new grid can be supplied, and students can complete them again, either as an individual review, a race, or as either competitive or collaborative teams working for both speedand accuracy. 2. Additions to tests for vocabulary-builder textbooks Vocabularytests often only ask studentsto know a word's definition. Where
84
Integrating collocation
applicable,add questionsthat elicit collocationsthe classhas studied.Again, this is where the teacher'srole in selectinghigh priority, useful collocations ls lmportant. Intermediateleamersor above,'Odd one out': Crossout the word which doesnot belong in the group: potent caf potent drink, potent drwg,potent weapon Advancedlearners:the more activetask, askingthem to supply collocations: For the following words, add one or more words with which it might be expectedto occur: potent- potentdrwg,potent weapon,........ reality -face reality, harsh reality, virtual reality, ........ For all levels:matchingcolumnsof collocations(passiveskill). For matching exercises other than those designed to test material already learned, it is usually best to have the strongestcollocationsfirst. The more ambiguous examplesshould come later, so that the whole practice gets easieras students work through it. Putting the most ambiguousexamplesfirst makes the whole activity more like a frustrating guessinggame than useful review and testing. 3. Backwards vocabulary test Use this technique in a reading class where a list of expressionsand collocations has been generatedby the class for a thematic or content-based unit. (See number 6 in the section Make students aware of collocations 'definitions', which may actually be above.)The teacherpreparesa set of longer descriptions or explanations. The student must provide the correct collocationor multi-word unit. This is especiallyvaluablein helping students retain their reading vocabulary.For example: What collocation or phrasemeansa method of payment in which a worker is not paid by the hour, and doesnot eam commission,but is paid a fixed wage, usually arrangedas an annual contract? (a straight salary) What collocation means competition between brothers and sisters? (sibling rivahlt) 4. Producing example sentences 'vocabulary sentences' Require only more advancedlearnersto write and then hold them accountablefor using correct collocations. 'use Sincechildhood,we as native speakershavebeenaskedto the following vocabulary words in sentenceswhich demonstratetheir meaning'. This is a fine task for native speakers, but when teachers require this of second languagelearners,collocation error can causegreat difficulty, with the added dangerof reinforcingenors. (Wewill severthis classbecawseit is too large.)
Prelimin increase students such as r who are a be expec advanced produced very pote,
5. Collocr
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85
Preliminary research,though sparse,suggeststhat collocationalknowledge increases along with language proficiency. Therefore, for lower-level students,it is betterto testpassivevocabularyand collocationskills with tasks such as matching, cross-outand fill-in the blanks.Advanced level students who are askedto write sentences with vocabularythat hasbeenstudiedshould be expectedto use it correctly.If we have studiedpotent,I no longer give my advancedstudentshalf-credit for a potent Ferrari. A successfulsentence, produced by one of our studentsis: 11lsLong Island lced rea [a cocktail] was vetj potent. 5. Collocations Dominoes
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Teamsor pairs of studentsare given setsof cards,eachof which containsone part of a useful collocation.The task, like traditional dominoes,is to match the two parts. The cards can be re-used and presented again to the same studentsfor more review.
4.8 Concordancesfor teachersand students computer technologyhasprovidedlanguagelearnersand teacherswith some excellentresourceson collocations.one I haveusedis Cobuild Direct which is an on-line service for accessinglanguage data based on the Bank of English. Extraction of concordances,collocations,and word frequency are available from the corpus; searching tools are point and click. The information is available [at the time of writing] on the Cobuild website at http://www.cobuild.collins.co.uk/. Thoseinterestedcan try a demo. After learning about collocations,when studentsuse databasesor search engines on the Internet, they may discover on their own some frequent collocations related to a particular topic. Encouragethem to observeand note those collocations,particularly if they will be writing about these subjects. [Michael Hoey explains on p 238 how an informational text is a kind of disguised concordance,so relevant arlicles are an extremely useful resource for leamers to find the particular collocations they need. Edl Finally, when explaining collocations in the classroom,teachersshouldn't forget that, as fluent speakersofEnglish, they have a greatdeal ofknowledge about collocations - their own personal databases.Expensive computer programs and well-stocked reference libraries are nice, but not vital to the introduction of collocation in the classroom.You don't need a computer program to tell your studentsto say that a Ferrari is a powerful, not potent, car. Much of the collocation information that studentsneed in the classroom is readily available from the teacher's own mental lexicon. The differences between British and American English, and regional variations of certain expressionsmight also be more easily explained by a local native speaker.
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Integ rating c ollocation
4.9 Conclusion The English lexicon is not an open system.Realizing this through my own frustrations in the classroomhas changedmy overall approachto teaching in some subtle ways. My primary coursegoals of helping studentsto improve their reading, writing and vocabulary have not changed significantly, but wheneverpossible,I call my students'attentionto multi-word units - chunks - of language,and work to help them leam and retain them. I no longer disparage'useful phrases'and collocationsas shortcutsunworthy of'real' languageteaching,but recognizehow much they come to bear on language production.It has been my impressionas an ordinary classroomteacherthat thosestudentsoften dubbed'good at learninglanguages'are in fact unusually good observersof language,and, in particular,of contextand collocation. Teachers'attitudesin presentingcollocations can affect whether their students perceivethem as useful, necessaryinformation or as just one more thing to learn in their seeminglyendlesstasksas languageleamers.If teacherspresent collocations in a matter-of-fact,positive way, as if they were no more unusual than parts of speechor word forms, this attitude is picked up by the students. In the context of ordinary lessons, useful, strong collocations can be highlighted everywherewe find them both in plannedreading and in language which comes into the classroom serendipitously.Reading, listening and speaking materials, particularly those used by IEPs which follow a thematic or content-basedapproach, are rich, authentic sources of collocations. Existing vocabulary-builder books can be modified to include information about collocations, and notebooks can be kept by studentsto record context and collocation information. It is up to the teacherto call students' attention to these useful collocations, practice them in a regular, systematic manner, and hold students accountablefor them through testing and in their written languageproduction. Part of teaching collocation includes training students to use available resourceswhen they move from receptiveto productive language,particularly writing. When studentsleam that it does indeed matter 'what word goes with what' and have the tools to discover this information on their own, they are able to produce language that is more natural and accurate.They are also correspondinglybetter able to expresswhat they wish to, which is itself a satisfying achievement. Until textbook writers addressit explicitly, adding the study of collocation to the curriculum does require a little extra effort on the part of already-busy teachers,but I have found it more than anything to be a change of attitude. Teachersin IEPs can apply the ideas in modest ways, by incorporating the study of collocation into their traditional vocabulary work, and by providing training in the use of collocation references to improve their students' productive language.In larger ways, teacherscan emphasize,more than they
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Channel, J. TeachingJou Crow, J. T. I EnglewoodC Halliday NL Longman. Hoey,M. (19 Hollisky et al Hollisky et ai Lewis, M. (1! Lewis, M. (l! England:Lanl Nation, I.S.P. Nation, I.S.p Nattinger, J.F Oxford Univer Smadja, F.A. compuhng,4(: Siikmen,A. (i and M. McCar University Pre: Swan, M. (199 IAIEFL Confe
Integrat ing collocation
:h my own teachingin to lmprove cantly, but ts - chunks no longer Lt,of 'real' n language "'acherthat t r,rnusually location. eil students )re thing to )-rs present rre unusual re students. ns can be in language tening and a thematic ollocations. information rrrd context :s'attention llc manner, h:ir written e available parlicularly d _soes with ,,n.they are Levare also h is itself a rllocationto iready-busy of attitude. rorating the 1 providing ir students' re than they
87
might have previously done, the collocations and multi-word units encounterednaturally in all of their courses,with an eye toward their 'big picture' effect on the English language. Regardlessof the approach to collocation,our goal as teachersremainsthe same:to empowerour students as languagelearners. [This chapter is based on a presentation given at the 32nd, TESOL Convention,Seattle,1998.1
DiscussionQuestions Do you see any advantagesor disadvantages in separatingvocabularyfrom other aspectsof languageleaming? Do you use a code indicating the type of error when providing feedback on learners'written work, particularly essays?If so, does collocationform part of that feedback ? To what extentdo you think faults in your learners'written work are caused by: . not knowing a (single)word that they need? . not knowing the correct collocation? ' writing long, grammaticallycomplicatedexpressions, perhapsincluding grammarmistakes,becausethey do not know the appropriatemulti-word expression?
References channel, J' (1981) Applying semantictheory to vocabularyteaching.English Language TeachingJoumal 35(2) lI5-122. Cro% J. T. (1986). Vocabulary for advancedreading comprehension:the keyword approach. EnglewoodCliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall Regents. Halliday, M.A.K. & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesionin English.London & New york: Longman. Hoey, M. (1991).Pattemsof Lexis in Text. Oxford: Oxford University press. Hollisky et al. (1995).Walk, ambie,stroil, level 1. Boston,MA: Heinle & Heinle. Hollisky et al. (1992).Walk, amble, stroll, Ievel 2 Bosron,MA: Heinle & Heinle. Lewis, M. (1993).The lexical approach.Hove, England:LanguageTeachingpublications. Lewis, M. (1997) Implementing the lexical approach: putting theory into practice. Hove, England: Language Teaching Pubiications. Nation, I.S.P. (1990). Teaching & leaming vocabulary. New york: Newbury House. Nation, I.s.P. (Ed.). (1994).New ways in teachingvocabulary.Alexandria,vA: TESoL. Nattinger, J.R., & Decarrico, J.s. (1992) Lexical phrasesand languageteaching.oxford: Oxford University Press smadja, EA. (1989).Lexical co-occulrence:The missing link. Literary and linguistic computing,4(3),163-168. Siikmen, A. (1997). current trendsin teachingsecondlanguagevocabulary.In N. Schmitt and M. Mccarthy, (Eds.), vocabulary: description, acquisition and pedagogy.cambridge University Press,Cambridge, England. Swan, M. (1996) Languageteachingis teachinglanguage plenary addressto IATEFL, IAIEFL ConferenceReport. 34,38.
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CLassroom stratep ies. activ ities and exercises
Chapter5 Classroornstrategies,activitiesand exercises Jimmie Hill, Morgan Lewis and Michael Lewis This chapter begins by describing ways teachers have introduced collocation to their learners. It discusses some general strategies for making your classroom approach more lexical. There is a detailed description of how one teacher, Deborah PettS has introduced more collocational work for different kinds of classes.The chapter then presents sample activities and exercises which can be taken into the classroom immediately. All the activities and exercises suggested have two purposes - firstly, the immediate one of practising new collocations and building learners'rnenfal lexicons. The second, more long-term purpose is to make learners more aware of collocation as a powerful way of improving their ability to write precisely and well. Many of the activities and exercises are particularly helpful in preparing learners for any more adyanced examination.
5.1 Introducing collocation to learners Learnersnaturally assumethat the word is the basic unit of language,but this book is basedon a differentassumption- that languageis storedin our mental lexicons in different ways, some single words, but also a vast number of multi-word items. It is essential,then, that teachersintroduce the idea of multi-word units to their learners,and then adopt classroomstrategieswhich constantlyremind learnersof the importanceof thesemulti-word items.The phrasalnatureof languagecan initially seemstrangeto learners,and teachers need a number of different strategiesto introduce the idea to different kinds of leamers.Here are a few, which have been usedsuccessfullybv teachers. 1. Words are like people Leamers may find it easy to understand the parallel between words and people. We all feel comfortable when we are sunounded by friends and acquaintances,but anxious in unfamiliar situations when we are surrounded by strangers.We have friendships of different kinds - close, intense relationships which, even if relatively infrequent, are the most important in our lives - loved ones who live abroad, for example. But we also have relationshipswhich are frequent but unimportant - the person who travels on the sametrain to and from work, five days a week. There is also the one-nightstand - a serendipitous one-off, creative encounter, which may be more exciting than any regular encounter,but, however sadly, not part of everyday life. The relationshipsbetween words closely resemble the relationships between people. Readerscan no doubt extend the metaphor and use it in different ways, appropriatefor different groups of learners.
2. A fan
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Classroom strategies,actiyities and exercises
89
2. A familiar example DeborahPetty reports on how a single examplepersuadedan adult one-to-one leamer, who initially wanted to understandevery individual word and resisted the idea of translatingphrases,of the benefitsof a phrasalview of language. once he had beenpersuaded,he soonrecognisedthe benefits,as shereports: 'As a banker, the learner knew the collocation bear market and had no doubt that he could use it when speakingto other professionals.For once, he was not concernedto analysethe item, simply accepting that it was the corect term. This was important because, like many students, he initially wanted to know why particular words went togetherand othersdid not. I had alreadyexplainedthat ,theyjust do,, and pointed out, with examples, that the same was true in German" Here, however, was an example to which he could relate directly: he did not need, or ask for an explanation. After this example,he acceptedothermulti-word items as 'that is what you say'much more readily.As a result,we did more collocationwork to which he responded very positively, feeling that it improved his ability to communicate.He realisedthat if he knew a coilocation,he no longer had to paraphrase as much. I noticed that when he used collocations, he made fewer surface effors - an improvement he noticedhimself."
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3. Model aeroplanes Most learnerswill be familiar with the kits you can buy which provide all the small parts needed to build a complete and complex model, such as an aeroplane. George woolard has suggested asking learners which of the following methodsthey would prefer to use if they had such a kit, and had to build the plane as quickly as possible: ' All the pieces,but no instructionsand no picture of the finishedplane. . The same,but with verbal instructions. . The samebut with verbal and diagrammatic instructions. ' The same,but with many of the smaller pieces already pre-assembled
a ords and iends and urrounded e. rntense rponantm also have travels on one-night' be more I everyday atronships i use it in
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into recognisablechunks,suchas wings. The parallel with producinglanguageis easyto see;it is enormouslyhelpful to have a view, albeit rather imperfect, of the finished whole. The verbal instructions('grammarrules') areprobablylesshelpful than diagramsof how to assemblecertainbits, and the most helpful of all is unquestionablyhaving recognisablepre-assembled chunks. 4. Molecules An analogywith basic chemistry,suggestedby Graham smith - needlessto say,himself a trained chemist - may appealto older leamers with a scientific
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90
Classroom strategies, activities and exercises
background.Al1 chemical substances,however complicated, are made of atoms,but most atoms do not wander around looking to make more complex compounds;most of them spendtheir existenceas componentsof molecules, recognisablecombinations of atoms.More interestingstill, moleculesare of different kinds and if we imagine a molecule as a string of atoms, at the ends of the string are different combinations which form potential 'hooks' which can connect the molecule to others which have appropriate'hooks'. The analogy with words, which combine in standardcollocations which, in turn, have characteristicswhich make it possible for them to combine into larger stretchesof language,is closeand revealing.
5.2 General strategies It is increasingly clear that the tradition of presenting lexis as individual words,or doing practicesbasedon individual decontextualised sentences is at best inefficient, and at worst actively unhelpful. Grouping those sentences according to some arbitrary linguistic feature seems also to be counterproductive, as it in no way mirrors what we now know about the organisation of the mental lexicon. Breaking things down too far and concentratingon the brand new rather than the relatively new, both contradict what we now know about the nature of language and acquisition. [See chapters7 and 8.1 1. Larger frameworks In general, learners are more likely to acquire new language so that it is availablefor spontaneoususe if it is incorporatedinto their mental lexicons as an element of some comparatively large frame, situation or schema.Using larger units in class, such as an episode of a soap opera, increasesthe possibility of leamers transferring items to their mental lexicon within these global organisingschemata. 2. 'The same thing twice' activates collocations One of the most interestingmethodologicalinsights of recent researchinto secondlanguageacquisition,is the value of what we might call, rather oversimplistically, 'doing the same activity more than once'. Many of us rememberwriting essaysat school,only for them to be retumed 'marked'and for them then to be filed, possibly even discarded,while we moved on to a new essay,when the write-mark-file pattern was repeated. Similarly, many learners are asked to make a short oral presentationto their classmates;the teacher may provide correction, better ways of saying something,and then the classmoves on to a new topic and a new talk. Researchevidence shows that both of these proceduresrepresentmissed
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91
opportunities;a changeof classroomprocedure- giving feedbackthen asking learners to repeat the same task - can produce real improvements in the lexical - in particula-rcollocational- quality of learners'production,in either writing or speech. 3.4-3-2 minute talks In the case of spokenlanguage,the following procedurecan be extremely helpful in developinglearners'fluency: 1. Learners work in groups: one student in each group gives a short talk for four minutes to one of the others in the group. 2. The same studentthen gives the same talk to a different student in the group, this time restrictedto three minutes. 3. Again with a new pafiner, the studentgives the same talk a third time, this time restrictedto two minutes. changing partnersis important becausethe speakeris less inclined to add new information than they would be if talking to the same 'audience' again. Reducingthe time limit has a similar effect,encouragingthe speakerto focus on better, more fluent, versionsof the same content. The researchevidenceshows conclusivelythat for most learnersthere is a measurable (statistically significant) improvement in fluency, and that the final version shows both grammatical and lexical improvement. In particular, leamersfind and recycle collocationsin the later versionswhich they could not retrieve from their memories at the first attempt, when so much of their attention was devoted to deciding the content of what they wish to say. Repeatingmeanslearnershavemore time to processthe languageleadingto better collocationaluse and increasingthe chanceof the improved language being turnedinto long-termintake. 4. Rehearsal in safety This activity reverseswhat so often happens in classrooms.Too often, teachersand learnersenter a kind of 'conspiracyof safety' where learners producesimple,safe,corect languageand teachersget a neat,tidy lessonbut in such safety little may be learned.This activity deliberately puts learnersin a situationwhere they are likely to producea lot of defectivelanguage.It is essentialthat teachersexplainthe rationalefor this to learners.The classroom is not the safe place where you do not make mistakes,it is safebecauseit is the place where you can rehearse and make mistakes without serious consequences, so that you will perform better,and feel more confidentlater in the real-worldsituation. Graham Smith has devised a powerful, but very simple, way of using the centralidea of the Lexical Approach- languageconsistsof grammaticalised lexis - with more advancedclasses.Here is the basicprocedure:
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C las sroom strateRies, activities and exercis es
1. With pafiicular learners,identify something they genuinely wish to talk or write about, and then identify a single central collocation which expresses the basic topic; this is usually averb + (adjective)+ nowncollocation. 2. Ask learners, working alone or in small groups, to write a sentence containing the collocation. The sentenceshould be as long as possible, containing as much true and relevant extra information as they can add. 3. If they find this difficult, ask them to use a series of Wh-questions,to generateextrabits of information.Thesevary accordingto the basicsentence, but might be somethinglike: Who is it for? When did/will it happen?How often did it happen?Why was it a problem? etc. 4. Allow time for this stageof the activity; help if asked,but emphasiseto leamersthat mistakesin what they produce do not matter and encouragethem not to play safe,but to try to write what they really want to say. Explain that the longer the sentence,and the bigger the mess they seemto get into, the more you will be able to help them with languagethey actuallyneed. 5. Once they have produced their sentences- Graham reports his learners often produce what is, in effect, a short paragraph- you can help by providing input directlv relevantto learners'needs.This often involves:
a
more collocationswhich expressthe ideasmore conciselythan the often over-grammaticalised expressionsleamershaveproduced. linking expressionsto arrangeand order the information naturally. the correction of some surface srammar elTors.
It should not be necessaryto remind ourselvesthat these last, although perhaps worth pointing out, are - at least for most learners - the least importantpart of the editing process. 6. Finally learnerswrite a good copy. This may be done as homework, or even in classa day or two later.As we saw above,researchevidenceshowsthat redoing the activity when the content is already decided, and the focus is exclusivelyon the languageusedto expressthe content,can havea major role to play in converting input into intake. 5. Expand the event PeterWilberg has suggesteda similar activity,the centralpulposeof which is to diagnoselanguageneededby the leamerswhich they do not know. The leamer- Wilberg originally devisedthe activity for one-to-oneteaching- is askedto describein a singie sentencesomething(s)hedid recently- an event that (s)he would like to be able to talk about. The learner then describesthe sameevent in two sentences.Then in three, then four and so on. The purpose is to require more and more detail which the learner cannot express,or at least cannotexpresseasily,in English. What they say must, however,be true, and it must be made clear to the learner that a real description of what they would like to (be able to) say is all that
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Classroomstrategies,activities and exercises
93
',,,ish to talk or '.nlch expresses "r-..cation. ,,ilte a sentence ong as possible, he-vcan add. \Vh-questions,to thebasic sentence, il it happen?Hoyv but emphasiseto rd encouragethem l say. Explain that m to get into, the ra1lyneed. :portshis learners nelp by providing ,S:
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6. Essaypreparation r:achers who prepare studentsto write essaysoften compl ain thatthe single :iost difficult problem is that learnerssimply lack ideasaboutwhich to write. -t|hile it may be true that many learnerscould not write well on similar topics in their own language,it is alsoimportantto rememberthat this lack of .ideas' ls very closely associatedwith lack of a sufficiently large, and sufficiently phrasal,mental lexicon. In addition to the formal definition of collocation as words which frequently co-occur,it is importantto realisethat many lexical collocations,for example verb + noun (accept the owtcome,predict the fwture) or verb + adverb (struggleunceasinglyagainst),are the most preciseand economicalway of expressinga particular 'idea', so that lack of a sufficientlylarge collocational lexicon is the samething as a lack of ideas,or at leastof precise,ready-made, easily expressibleideas. In preparing learners to write essays, many teachers brainstorrn suitable vocabulary as part of the preparation.It should be immediately obvious that this processwould generatemore ideas,in relativelycompletelexical form, if the brainstormingprocessincluded an explicit collocationalelement.First collect nouns strongly associatedwith the main topic of the essay,then look for verbs and adjectives which collocate with the noun, then for adverbs which collocatewith the verbs.This processshould produce a much largel and more phrasal preparatory list. Equally importantly, the exploration of possiblecollocatesis also an explorationof ideascentralto the essaytopic. Collocations are of different kinds, and not all are equally accessiblein the classroom.Adiective+ noun andadverb + verb collocationsadd meaning,so both He ambled dotvn the street an:dHe ambled slowly down the street are possible; the latter is merely more descriptive than the first. Much less amenable to classroom practice, but more important for learners, however, are verb + noun collocations.This is becausetheseare rarely alternativeor better ways of expressinga single idea. Instead,they are typically the firstchoice- the unmarked- way of expressingthe idea.A learnerwho doesnot know the expressionwill be unable to expressthe idea easily in English. In
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Clnssroom strategies,actiyities and exercises
class this means leamers frequently say nothing, or say something they can say, without even attempting to say what they would like to if they had the same linguistic resourcesin English as they have in their mother tongue. Hence,the importanceof the teacherproactivelyproviding more collocations of this type. One way of doing this is to find a text on the topic of the essayand use it to introduceuseful collocationsto the class.If you have accessto the intemet, this is simple and quick to do. If you download a text, it takes only a few moments to create a cloze-type text by gapping the text. The most effective way to do this is by deletingverbs from verb + noun collocationsand asking learners working in groups to think of as many words as they can which could go in the gaps. There may only be one natural choice; in other cases several alternatives, possiblychangingthe meaningof the original text, may be grammaticallyand lexically possible. The idea is not to recreate the original text, but to encouragelearnersto seethat expandingtheir mental lexicons is at least as much to do with acquiringnew combinationsof words as it is with learning words which they have not met before, whrle at the same time introducing lexis which they may needfor their own essay. 7. Essay feedback If you wish to build your learners'collocationallexicon, you needto go well beyondadjective+ noun combinations;verb+ noun collocationsare central. This also applies to the kind of feedback you give learners after they have produceda pieceof writing. DeborahPettyexplainshow shechangedthe way sheprovidedfeedbackon her First Certificatestudents'essays: "Writing is a difficult task and however well-motivated learnersare, they find the idea of writing an extensivepiece daunting. Many Cambridge course students,while faithfully doing everythingelse requestedof them, postpone their first extensivewriting assignmentfor many weeks. In the past, I used a marking code and brief notes for error identification, combined with an encouraginggeneral comment at the end of a piece of writing. I returned their papers and gave them a moment to look at my comments while I listed selected errors on the board. before askins for corrections or improvements. This procedure concentrated too much on surface errors. The resulting product was stil1 unnatural, stilted English and sometimesstill difficult to follow. Many learners avoided rewriting the longer sentencesor paragraphs which we had talked about, and some continued to feel threatened by extensivewriting tasks. I realised that many of my comments, although designed to encourage them, failed to provide concrete practical help in actually improving their writing by, for example, providing more collocationally-orientated suggestions.I knew about processwriting but had
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95
hesitatedto use it becauseI didn't want to overloadlearnerswho alreadvhad extensiveEnglish homework. My studentswere generally positive to collocation work, so I decided to reduce the overall number of written assignments and introduce process writing with a collocational emphasis as a potential solution. When I explained this, all agreedto try the following procedure: Step 1 Studentswrite an initial draft which I read for meaning alone, noting anything which I don't understandor which puts a strain on the reader.If there is a collocationwhich replacesthe learner'soften clumsy phrase,and I think they know it, I add a symbol they know means:Do you know a collocationto replace the wnderlinedwords? For a more difficult collocation I have a symbol which means:Simplify with collocation including . . . . With this symbol I give the stronger member of the collocation. Any positive commentsrelateto specificlexical items. Step 2 I return their papers, but now focus on meaning-basedrather than surface errors. Becausethe feedback is meaning-driven,it increasesthe relevanceand memorability of any reformulation. They take away this first draft and reformulateit. Step 3 I read the reformulated version, again for meaning and textual coherence.If necessary,I provide in full any collocationswhich they were unableto producecotrectly.I also give concretesuggestionsratherthan hints for any remainingsupra-sentential problems. Step 4 They take it away and write a third and final version. This approachhas severalbenefits.Firstly, learnersare no longer intimidated by the writing process.Secondly,their first drafts quickly begin ro improve, partly becauseany practiceis lessstressful,but alsobecausegoing throughall the stagesmore thoroughly acquaintsthem with how a more extendedpiece of writing is constructed.They become more aware of collocation as an essentialcarrier of meaning. A third substantialbenefit is that, by being directed towards the stronger part of collocations, they develop better nonolingual dictionary habits. This in turn, improves their ability to recognisechunks,while the increasedawarenessof chunksaidstheir reading. \lore effective, and therefore more enjoyable, reading enlargestheir mental ,e-ricons,which in turn providesthem with more communicativepower.The .,'.holeprocess is cyclical and improvementis self-perpetuating. Dri_qinally,I expected the procedure to reduce the number of written -issignments they produced.This has not been the case.The more they write -a this way, the faster they become at writing, and many of them actually ::quest additional tasks. These have the exam-related bonus that the :iocedure producesa perfect final version, which is a useful revision tool j-tore the exams.The more we use the procedure,the more enthusiasticthey
95
Cla,vsroont strategie s, activ ities and exercise s
become. Many report that they believe it not only benefits their writing, but also their English overall." 8. Collocational feedback in businessEnglish She useda similar techniquewith businessstudentswhoseprincipal objective is to make their English more effectiveas a result of a short,intensivecourse meelings. basedon business 'useful She began using listening materials, concentratingon the kind of expressions' with which teachers are familiar. After listening for content, leamerslistenedagainfor the exact expressionsused,recordingexactlywhat they thought they heard. Many students,however, who had little difficulty in understandingwhat had been said, had real difficulty in noticing the exact words. This endorses other contributors to this book who report learners 'looking straight through' the text in front of them, or understandingwhat was meant, without hearingexactly what was said. To aid exact noticing, she addedtwo stepsto her procedure- firstly leamers called out what they (thought they) had heard, with the teachereither echoing their correct examples,or reformulating those they had misheard. Secondly, and in a radical departnrefrom her previous practice, she asked the learners to listen again,while simultaneously following a transcriptof what was said. Doubtful at first of the value of this herself, she soon concluded that it representeda real methodological improvement. But still she remained convinced that something more was needed. Within the framework of the lexical approach,functions are often realisedby fixed expressions,content is most often representedby adjective+ noun + verb collocations,so balanced lexical input involves both (semi-)fixed expressionsand collocations.She describesher dissatisfactionand her new procedureas follows: "spending time on expressionsalonefails to addressthe key problem - ESP studentsneed their own content language as much in a rneeting as in any other situation, and the longer I worked with the idea that lexis, not grammar, forms the basis of language,the more I noticed how collocationally and lexically rich this contentlanguageis. The classbrainstormedtopics for a meetingand made a rough agenda.Once a topic and agendawere agreed,leamersheld the meeting,which I recorded on video. Then I made notes of mis-collocations,items which may result in misunderstanding,and paraphraseswhich were used becauseof a missing collocation.Also noted were phrasesused correctly, with the name of the personwho usedeachone- it is motivatingto be told you did somethingwell, but also studentsare often unsure that somethingreally is correct, even when they have used it correctly. Many times learners confirmed that they needed and appreciatedthis confirmatory feedback. I experienceda certain amount of resistancefrom some students,however,to creating their own simulations, even though they understoodthe aim was to
have mi underst in those changet small ciz however themseh psycholo someone watchin_
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Classroom strategies, activities and exercises
but . : ,,'.'riting,
r"rpal objective ntensivecourse 'useful lind of no for content, lu exactlywhat nie difficulty in icing the exact :epofi learners rndingwhat was -;irstly learners 'r ;ither echoing ':ard. Secondly, ..:d the learners ri ,,i'hatwas said. ,rlcluded that it i, she remained ':irrework of the :irrns.content is .rns.so balanced She .',rliocations. " . 'S :
'' problem- ESP ]seting as in any \,is. l]Ot gramfilar,
-',:cationallYand .rh agenda.Once .'-.hich I recorded i.:h may result in tuse of a missing L ihe name of the Lclsomethingwell, 'crrect,evenwhen i that they needed .dents,however,to od the aim was to
97
have meetings similar to those they participated in in real life. They also understoodthat I was trying to introduce the exact lexis they actually needed in those situations.Their resistanceprompted me to make an important changeto the way the topics for the meetingswere chosen.Now I divide even small classesinto two groups, who then create frameworks as before. Now, however, instead of having them prepare a meeting which they conduct themselves, they do the preparation for the other group. This was the psychologicalkey to the problem of resistance.Developing a product for someone else engaged their interest both in preparing the task and while watchingthe othersholding their meetings. I follow up with a handout listing items containing wrong or cumbersome expressions,concentrating largely on correct versions of language which I think they will already have met, but which has not yet been incorporatedinto their productive lexicon. when I provide the correct expression, it is surprising how often someone says oh, I've heard /hal. Stress and pronunciation follow I finish by putting up a ffansparencywhich contains all the successfullexis. These procedures are easily adapted to any exam or ESp group in which improved writing is one of the aims. All in all, in many different teaching situations,process writing with the emphasis on collocational input has proved a very effective addition to my range of skills. It has, I believe, made me a more effective languageteacher." Several points of interest arise: firstly, her procedure has changed several times,as a result of her own, or her students'dissatisfactionwith the current procedure.Secondly,she involved the learners,explaining why she thought one approachor activity was better than another.As every teacherknows, in introducingany changeof contentor methodology,you must caffy the class rr.ith you. Resistancefrom the learners can invalidate, or at least greatly diminish, the effect of any change,however theoretically sound. Thirdly, erperimentationhas lead her to the conclusionthat feedbackshouldprobably concentratenot on the entirely new, but on the half-known. Confirming what '*'ascorrect was valuable.Just becauselearnersget something right, it does not always follow that they have fully internalised it, and a simple ionfirmation of the kind described above can be the critical intervention needed to turn the half-known into fully internalised intake. Finally, the -'hangesshe made were gradual, experimental,and basedon an explicit, even ii at times rather uncertain, theory. If every teacher behaved in this way, ',''illing to incorporate small changes,and to engagein and evaluate simple iorms of action research,many leamerswould feel the benefits.Many readers rLmost certainly do this already. one of the purposes of this book is to 3ncouragethem to do it with the focus on collocations, rather than the more :raditional focus on grammar.
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Classroom strategies,activities and exercises
5.3 Activities - exploiting a text Here are two activities which exploit the collocational content of any text. Remember,howevet, that they will be much more useful with factual rather than narrative texts. 1. Finding collocationsin a text Ask learnersto underline all the nouns (words used as nouns if you wish to be strictly acculatewith advancedlearners,so in love letter the wotd letter is underlined, blut love is not) in a text they have studied. Now underline the verb which is used before the noun, if there is one. Now, check a third time and, if appropriate,underline the whole phrase in which the collocation is used. This explicit focus on form, after the language has been exploited for meaning,may be a necessarypreconditionfor input to becomeintake.Second languageleamers seemto have a natural tendencyto break the input down too far, into individual words. A recurrent theme of this book is that part of the teacher'stask is to encouragenoticing of larger chunks. Near the beginning of a coutse, take a relatively short text and show all the chunks of different kinds on one occasion.Later, it is better to draw attention to a particular kind of chunk, such as prepositional phrases,chunks which help the reader through the text (discourse markers), verb + noun lexical collocations and so on. As leamersbecomemore proficient with chunks, they can be asked as a class which collocations they think are of interest to the group. Certain types of text contain huge numbersof collocations, so teachers must learn to select some, rather than trying to draw attention to all. This is the lexical extension of traditional vocabulary teaching where, as every teacherknows, asking about every new word is counterproductive.The simple messageis to do with collocationswhat you previouslydid with words.
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2. Reconstructing the content Working in small groups, studentsread a (relatively short) text and then write exactly 15 words which occur in the original text on a sheet of paper, choosing the words and order carefully. They should choosethe words so that another group has the best possible chance of reconstructing the main content of the original text, using only the 15 words as a framework. Guide studentsby reminding them that, rather than 15 individual words, the most helpful notes will usually be some 2- or 3-word collocations, and perhapsonly three or four individual words. Groups exchangepapers and try to expand the notes to recover the main content of the original text.
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99
The sameactivity canbe donewith a broadcastnewsitem; groups makenotes while listening, then reduce their notes to 15 words, then exchaneeand reconstructas before.
5.4 Activities - using a collocation dictionary \ ou wish to ord letter is rderline the a third time rllocationis ;ploited for ake.Second ut down too r part of the ,ior,i' all the l\\, attentl0n Luntrls which rlrllr lexical :runks, they ierestto the . so teachers r all. This is '-. as every The simple ,,rords.
rd then write :t of paper, i ordsso that rq the main ork. il rvords,the cations,and ipers and try l\t.
Many of the following activities work on the basisof the teacher,sintuition or by using the standard EFL dictionaries. Teachers wilr find, however, that using a collocationdictionary will be a great help, and such a dictionary is essentialfor some of the activities. Some of the activities can be easily adaptedfor use with corpora and concordancesif these are available to you and suitablefor your class. In using a collocation dictionary, teachersneed to train learners to scan or browsethe entry, ignoring unknown words in the collocates as they use the entry to remind themservesof known, and most importantly, half-known, words. Learnersneed to meet a word severaltimes before they acquire it, and it is often more effective to work not on brand new, but on relatively new vocabulary if words which are known passively are to become available for learners'active use.Altr of theseactivities are suitable for use in class with intermediate or more advancedlearners. 3. Recording collocations Encouragestudentsto record words in a 5-1 box. The single most important kind are verb + noun corocations which representthe standard,trrst-choice way of expressingcertainconcepts.Encourageleamers to record new nouns in boxessuch as these.you may want to leaveone or two spacesfor leamers to add other words which they meet later. apply fbr a beoutofa Irnda hunt for a resign from a
II I I
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a one-man a historical a tounng
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a retrospective a contemporary
4. Essay preparation Choosea topic for a discursiveessay,for example; IJ we had moreprisons, we wourd have fewer criminars.Do you agree? Ask learnersto write down four or five nouns you think they will need to write about the topic, for example: prrcon criminal crtme sentence
Have learnerslook up the nouns in their collocation dictionariesand choose adjectivesand verbs which they need to expresstheir ideas.Emphasisethat they must not wony if there are some words they do not know. Encourase
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Classroom strategies,activities and exerctses
them to look quickly through the dictionary entry and notice the words they do recognise. Help them to choose useful phraseswhich will help them to write a good essay: go to / sendsomebodyto / sentencesomebodyto (7) yearsin prison bom / dangerous/ hardenedcriminal prevent I crack down on I petty lviolent crime death lheavy I lite I severeI Q)-year sentence Exploring collocations of key words with the classbefore they write will help them to avoid mistakes and to express their idea better when they write. Collocation is particularly important in texts about opinions and ideas; it is nowherenear as commonin the sort of short (120/180word) descriptionsand narratives which ale common in, for example, Cambridge First Certificate essays. 5. Find a better word Using a collocation dictionary, look up the word idea and try to find a better way of expressingeachof these: a new idea
a silly idea
a vetl interesting idea
an unwswal idea
a nice idea
0 very good idea
Here are some possible choices: innovative, ridiculous, striking, bizarre, bright, imaginative.Now do the samewith thesewords: 1. effect a bad effect an effect which helps a very funny effect
a big effect an effect nobody expected an effect that put things right
2. change a very big change a very very small change a changethat made you happy
a very small change a changethat upset people a changethat pleasedeverybody
3. problem a very very small problem the real problem a problem that happensoften a problem that nobody expected
the basic problem the most urgent problem a problem that can't be solved a problem that makes you feel bad
When learnersare writing, encouragethem to use a collocation dictionary, to look up the noun they want to use to find an adjective which expressestheir idea more preciselythan the most common adjectivesor phrases,which they will tend to use if not guided towards more interesting alternatives.
6. Real
Some r adjectil English need to has a vt suchas:
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Classroom.strategies,activities and exercises 101
\ ords they ip the,mto
6. Really useful words
r prtson has a very long entry in a collocation dictionary is suitable for this activitv. suchas: :eu,illhelp :he1'write. ideas;it is iptions and Certificate
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account, action, answet approach, argument, behaviour, change, circumstances, condition, consequences,decision, clffirence, discussion, effect,feature, idea, information, interest, issue,manner, method, move, performance, plan, policy, position, problem, programnxe,project, question, reason, relationship, result, scheme, situation, solution, state, stotj, sele, system,theme, theory, use, view, vision, way, work. As a simple five-minute activity, choose one of these words. Take six adjective collocations from a collocation dictionary and write them on the board, for example: an ernbarrassingsituation a bewildering situation a triclq sitwation
n uniquesitwation an extraordinary situation a tensesituation
Ask leamers to think of a real example of each from their own lives and write a sentenceor tell a paftner about someof the situations. one reasonthese words are so common is becausethey are used in many different contexts. Specific examples suggestcontexts; what context does eachof theseexamplessuggest: l
si-lt
e rr body
rived i feel bad 1ctlonary,to lressestheir . u'hich they J\.
tell a.funny story run afront poge stoty
concoctan implawsiblestorlt believesomebody'ssob storlt with many of the nouns above, you may want to sort examples first (see Activity 7), then put some of the collocationsinto sentenceframes which provide a context,such as: If you want to . . . , yoLr'remore rikeryto swcceecr if yowadopt a logicar/ flexible/cawtious approach. If yow aclopt a more . . . approach, you,ll only. . . one of the most controversial issueswhich is being d.iscussed (in my country) at the moment is . . . . It's an isswewhich tenclsto divide. . . . This activity rerninds us that teachers should keep language in the largest possible context or frame, rather than trying to break it down. The larger the frame, the more useful information, including grammatical collocations, is likely to be retained. This, rn turn, means learners are more likely to store larger chunks and that they will make fewer mistakes when re-usins the Ianguage themselves.
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Classroom strategies,activities and exercises
7. Sorting
black and
Ask learnersto work in groups and selectitems from a collocation dictionary 'rule'. For example,look up the verb changeand find collocates entry using a 'quickly', such as: abruptly, immediately,overnight.Or look which suggest up the word reason and find adjectiveswhich are negative in different ways, for example: far-fetched,friv olous, p erverse, sinister. 'rules'which you can use with many different Here are some more general words. Searchfor: . verbsor adjectiveswhich seempositive or negative . adjectiveswhich mean big / strong / serious . adjectiveswhich meansmall / slight / minor . verbs which mean something started/ stopped . verbs which mean somethingchangedin a certain way 'rules' work well with thesewords: Many of these crisis, style, rules, view, marriage, image, strike, reform, hope, search, scheme.measures.solution, role, risk 8. Near synonyms Take two or more words with similar meaning. For example: iniutlt
wound
Ask learners to look carefully at the adjective and verb collocates of both words in a collocation dictionary. The difference in the way similar words are used is often largely the difference in their collocational fields. Ask leamers to translate some of the collocations into their own language; this will help learners build an understanding of how the English words are used. More advancedlearnerscan use groups of words of similar meaning, for example: 1. answer,conclusion,explanation,result, solution 2. mistake, eror, fault, problem, defect 3. instructions,guidelines,rules,regulations,directives 4. abllity, talent, gift, skill, aptitude 5. pattern,shape,fotm, design,structure 6. document,report, file, article, story, account 7. task,job, work, career,occupation,profession 8. number, quantity, amount, size, dimensions,proportions
ANSS expect have,a detaile
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Give leamers two nouns from a collocation dictionary, which they write on a pieceofpaper.Readout a selectionof about 10/12collocatesfrom the entries. Studentswrite the collocatesin one or both lists as appropriate.
When yor often noti< modify tlu attentron i units. Dc collocatio
Try to choose relatively new, half-known words. If you choose words of similar meaning,you must be preparedto discusspossibilitiesand sort out possible confusion. Remember that collocation is about probabilities,not
Classroom strategies,activities and exercises 103
black and white choices.Here is an example: lCtlOnary
roliocates . Or look 3ntways, different
ANSWER expect,supply,insist on have, appropriate,complete detailed,final
REPLY expect,send,insist on appropriate,audible detailed,pointed
If you want to wake up a sleepy class, you can tum this activity into real activity by having learners point to the left hand wall if the verb collocates wirh answer, the right hand wall if it collocates with reply, and,both walls if the verb collocateswith both nouns. 10. Five-word stories Look up order andexaminationin a collocation dictionary. Find five verbs for eachwhich suggesta 'story' if they are in a particularorder like this:
earch,
place,get, process,despatch,receivean order enter for, revise for, take, fail, re-sit an examination You can do the samewith any noun which suggestsan extendedprocesssuch as:problem, product, relationship, research,system,lette4 wa4 negotiations, job. 11. Collecting collocations
:s of both rvordsare k leamers n'i11help sed.More erample:
Learnersoften do not realise how many words collocatewith a word they already know. This means they do not get full value from the words they know. when an interestingnoun comesup in class,read out a list of about 10 verbs which may collocate with it and ask learners to note all the correct collocatesas you read. use sevenor eight correct words, particularly halffamiliar words - againa collocationdictionarywill provide you with a helpful list - and add two or three others which do not make correct collocations. This activity reminds us of the importance of negative evidence. It also provides an opportunity to remind learnersof words they often overusesuch as do, make, have, take. Make sure they note any relatively new words, perhapsin a 5-1 box. choose the words you practisefor particular classes. with a generalcourseyou might choosemoney,or with a specialistgroup economy,then use the following lists where the non-collocatesare marked *: money: bot:row,change,eam, *gain, invest,make, *reduce,save,spend economy: boost, *break, *do, expand,kick start,run, steer,stimulate 12. Translating collocations
\\rrlte on a theentries. : rvords of rd sort out rilities, not
when you are browsing a dictionary or reading a text with a class,you will often noticeverb + adjective+ noun collocationssuchas eanxa proper wage, modifi the original proposal, take regular exercise.Draw these to students, attention and ask them to translate them into their own language as single units. Doing this regularly will help students become more aware of collocationand lessinclined to translateword-for-word.
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Classroom strategies,activities and exercises
13. As easy as possible Learners work in small teams, two teams competing against another. Give each team a list of, say, 10 nouns which are headwordsin a collocation dictionary. Choose these carefully, taking into account the class level, words met recently etc. Each group has about 10 minutes to prepare, using the dictionary. They list 5 collocates from the dictionary for each noun. Team A then say these one at a time for each headword to Team B who have to write the words down and try to guessthe noun. The interest lies in the fact that collocatesshouldbe chosenso that Team B's task is as easy as possible. If they guessa noun from one collocate,TeamA scores5 points, if they need two collocates,4 points and so on. If they do not work out (not, we hope, 'guess')the headwordwhen they haveall five collocates,TeamA scores0 for that word. When Team A has gone though its 10 words, Team B does the same. Notice the game is constructed so that the team which uses the strongest and/or most frequent collocatesis likely to win, so there is a systematic elementbuilt into the designof the game.Here are somewords which you can useto demonstratehow to choosewords: examination: revisefor, re-sit,pass,fail, take language: foreign, spoken,written, sign, strong job: apply for, look for, get, lose,hold down rules: obey,stick to, bend, explain,change smell: delicious,disgusting,awful, terrible,horrible interested: not remotely, extremely, seriously,vaguely, definitely
Choosea noun with a lot of verb or adjectivecollocates- again,a collocation dictionary is a big help. Tell the leamers that all the words you read out collocate with the same noun, which they must try to guess.Learners write down the collocatesyou read out. When they think they know the noun, they stand up. Continue till everyoneis standing.Check guesses.Repeatwith a new word. This activity only works properly if you choose the order of the words carefully, moving from more general words to stronger collocates. Make sure before you start that there is one word that means everyone will recognise the noun, so that the activity does not become unnecessarily frustrating for learners.Here are some examples: plain, dark, white, bitter, milk, bar of collect,provide, volunteer,conceal,gather,withhold test, advance,build, outline, put forward, corroborate huge, growing, profitable,export,domestic,black year,loss, allowance,bracket,haven,evasion cut.calculate, cover,minimise,meet,recover,amortise
You can r
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14. The collocation game
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Example Example
chocolate information a theory market tax the cost of
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Classroomstrategies,activities anrJexercises
er. Give location l. words sing the Team A to write iact that ;ible. Le!need 'e hope, res0 for loes the rongest ;tematic vou can
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Example 3 is suitabre for an English for Academic purposes group, and Examples4-6 for a businessEnglish group. You can do the samething with adverbsand adjectlvesor verbs: 7. fairly, relatively, ridiculously, comparatively, dead easy 8. extremely,reasonably,remarkably, superbly, fighting fit 9. upstairs,in luxury, alone,beyondyour means,to a ripe old age live 10. carefully, thoroughly, properly, closely, in minute detail examine After you have played this game several times, if you have a number of dictionaries, studentscan do the activity independently in small groups. 15. Noun + noun combinations English word classesare unusuallyflexible, so verbs can be used as nouns, nouns as adjectives and so on. Even advanced leamers do not arways feel comfortabre using noun + noun combinations, and may need to be reassured that theseare standardEnglish. Here are two sequencesof such combinations which teacherscan easily ad.aptinto a collocation game such as collocation dominoes. blank cheque- chequebook - book club club sandwich- sandwich board - board room _ room servtce_ service charge_ chargecard table top - top quality - quality rime time manasemenr _ managementcourse _ course work _ workshop _ shop assistant_ asslstantmanager
Location ead out rs wnte un, they t with a : words ;. Make ne will "^ssarily rcolate nation lheory rarket tax :ost of
16. Exploring examples Peter sunderland (Arena, Issue 19) describes the advantagesof exproring a group of examplesrather than looking for distinctions of J"anirrg, refrecting a point made by GeorgeWoolard in his chaprer. "I am increasingly coming to see no distinction between vocabulary and grammar lessons in my mind, replacing them with the belief that a lexical approachbasedon teaching chunks of language is of greatervalue to student and teacher' correspondingly, the end product of my lessonsis maximising the students'communicativepower by exposing them to useful, real chunks of language. An advanced class want to be able to use words other than shine. They recognisegritte4 grow, gleam etc but have little idea of the distinguishing uses' Traditionaily, there have been four ways of distinguishing uses: 1. Traditional standarddictionary definitions: glitter: sparkle with light gleam: glow or shine not very brightly glisten: gleam or shimmer, as a wet, oily surfacedoes shimmer: gleam tremulouslyor glisten
106
Classroom strategies,activities and exerctses
Theseare of practically no useto EFL learners.As can be seen,the definitions are interchangeableand rely on each other.
1 .I v 2. wl
wl
2. Typical EFL dictionary definitions: glitter: shine in a sparkling way gleam: shine brightly as reflecting light or as very clean glisten: shimmer brightly as smooth, wet or oily shimmer: shine with a fairly unsteadylight Theseare slightly more helpful as all the definitions revolve around variations of shine. 3. Typical EFL dictionary distinguishing information: glitter: many little flashes gleam: reflect/clean glisten: wet/oily shimmer: unsteady,soft light Better still; a little over-simplified, a sanitisedversion of the truth but more user-friendly. 4. Typical EFL dictionary examples: glitter: star, eyes, diamonds, career,prize, anay gleam: white teeth, car (new), (eyes) with excitement,hair, (gold/black) glisten: sweaton the face, eyes(with tears),dew drops on grass glimmer: lights (in the distance),of success/hope/interest shimmer: moonlight on water glow: embers/ashes,skin/complexion with health, praise/tribute/ report/terms This last approachis of greatestuse. We go sffaight to the real, the probable, the typical and the frequent; actual combinations of words as the starting point. Studentslearn native-speakerphrases,and may or may not work back towards distinguishing definitions, like those in 3 above. As with native speakers,knowledge of the collocations may be enoughto provide an instinct for what is correct.The basisof teachingand leaming is observationof used language.This procedurerecognisesthat it is often collocational field which distinguishesthesegroupsof words which have similar meanings."
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L. Correcting common mistakes
6. I dor 7. She<
There is a collocation mistake in each of these sentences.Correct them by looking up the word in bold in a collocation dictionary. All the mistakes are similar to those made by candidatesin the First Certificate exam.
8 .I . . .
9. We. 10. Coul
Classroom strategies,activities and exercises 107
initions
1. I was completely disappointed when I failed my exam. 2. When I did badly in the exam it was a strong disappointment. 3. when you decide what to study, you must make a planned choice. 4. The holiday I went on last year was a full disaster. 5. What happenednext was a really disaster. 6. I'm afraid I would like to do a seriouscomplaint. 7. If you want to lose weight, you need to make a diet.
matlons
8. Getting on a diet will help you. 9. If you are too fat, you needto miss someweight. 10. To improve your health you need to do some sacrifices. 11. If you want to be really fit, you need to make more exercise. 12. If you don't keep to your diet, you won't have the result you want. This type of exercise is parlicularly useful as feedback after learners have done a piece of written work.
DUtmore
Ublack)
The following six exercisesall focus on collocations where one of the words modifies the other, for example, verb + adverb, arlverb + adjective. These exercises are useful and comparatively easy to write. It is imporlant to remember,however,that activities and exerciseswhich introduce collocations which identify or name a concept, for example, verb + noun collocations such as make a mistake ot propose a toast are perhaps more important if leamers are to build their lexicons in a way which is both systematic and balanced. 2. Verb + adverb
probable, e starting rork back Lth native m instinct rn of used eld which
Some verbs collocate strongly with particular adverbs.Use each adverb once to complete these sentences.If in doubt, check the verb in a collocation dictionary. categorically legitimately
confidently hardly
completely flatly readily strongly
fulb tentatively
1. I'm sorry,I . . . . forgot to passyour messageon. 2. He. ...refusedtohelp. 3. Oh it's you! I . . . . recognisedyou with your new haircut. 4. I . . . . recommendwe wait until we have more information. 5. I . .
. . admit I did not expect things to change so quickly. 6. I don't think you . . . appreciatehow seriousthe situation is. 7. She can . . . . claim that she had the idea before anyone else. t them by stakesare
8. I . .
. . deny that it was anything to do with me. 9. We . . . . expect to make as much profit this year as last. 10. Could I . . . . suggestit might be beuer to wait?
108
Classroom strategies,activities and exercises
3. Alternativesto very With manyadjectivesyou wantto usevery,bluttherearelots of otherwords with a similarmeaningwhich aresffongeror moreprecise.For example:
10 Ir
Use a collocation dictionarv to add a word which meansvery to eachof these: 1. 2.
exhausted disorganised handicapped disillusioned
3. 4.
5. ....... 6. ....... 7.....,.. 8........
encouraged unexpected recommended prepared
2. 4. 5. 6.
. . . . . .
greedy
7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.
honest inaccurate remarkable sceptical theoretical
grateful impractical offensive ruthless sure unacceptable
When you put an adjective in your notebook, try to record a word with it which meansvery. Often you can also find a word which means a bit, for example, slightly inaccurate,somewhat sceptical.
Some adverb phrasessffongly suggestone particular verb. Can you add the verb (in the correct form) to each of these?The clue is in the adverb phrase. If in doubt, look up the verbs in a collocation dictionary.You need to use each of theseverbs once: reject
change search
An ex to lea phrase
Some advert a collc l
I
6
'l I
4. Verb + adverb phrase
accept
a)
5. Adr
Now do the samewith these: 1.
Ci
9.r h
bitterly disappointed
highly qualified
8.7
live sign
prove spread
refuse think
. . . . point-blankto consider iritroducing new 1. The government legislation. . . out of hand the possibility of 2. The governmenthas . . changing the law. . . high and J . Have you seenmy briefcase anywhere?I've . . low,but I can't find it. on the 4. Everything's agreed;we're just waiting for them to . . . . dotted line. like wildfire. 5 . When the news got out, it . . . . . . beyond all shadow of doubt that he did it. 6 . This . . ,7 . . . to a ripe old age. IhopeIwill.
Now cc
1. The I parry
2.Thet the fi
3. She's somo
4. The Ir and tt 5. If yor 6. The d 7. His w diffen 8. The P so hel
Classroom strategies,activities and exercises
vords.
hese:
109
8. The band's tour of Japan . . . . in triumph witha sell_out concertin Tokyo. 9. I seewhat you mean. We're obviously . . . . alonR the same lines. 10 It was years since I'd been there and the town had . . . . out of all recognition. An exerciselike this can be used to encouragelearnersto seethat it is better to learn language in chunks. In this exercise, they need to leam the whole phrase,complete with the verb. 5. Adverb + adjective some adverb + adjective collocations are often fairly strong. Match each adverb in List 1 with an adjectivein List 2.you should find allihe answers in a collocation dictionary by looking up the adjectives.
,ith it ightly
ld the ilase. reach
List I
List 2
1. delicately 2. closely 3. enthusiastically 4. highly 5. carefully 6. ideally 7. badly 8. dangerously
a. associatedwith b. balanced c. chosen d. mistaken e. overcrowded f. qualified g. received h. situated
Now complete each of thesesentenceswith one of the expressions: 1. The election is very party could win.
. . at the moment. Either
2.Thenewproductionof'Hamlet'was.. the first night audience. 3 . S h e ' st o o . . . someonewith a degree.
......by
. . . . . f o r t h ej o b _ w e d o n ' tw a n t
4. The houseis . . . . and ten minutes to trr" -ounr;i;..
' ' ' ' ten minutes from the sea'
5. If you think I'm going to agreeto that, you're 6 . T h e d i s c o w a sa l r e a d y the
......
7. His words were . different sectionsof the audience. 8. The Presidenthas been so he's very anxiousthat it is a success.
. whenthefirestarted. . to ensurethey appealedto . . the idea from the start,
110
Classroom strategies,activities and exercises
6. Adverb + adjective Match the adverbsin List 1 with the adjectivesin List 2. You should find all the answersin a collocation dictionary by looking up the adjectives. List 1
List2
1. bitterly 2. strictly 3. lavishly 4. eagerly 5. generously 6. widely 7. heavily 8. extensively
a. anticipated b. available c. damaged d. disappointed e. illustrated f. influenced by g.limited h. rewarded
9. The t 10. Expo handi
11. All rh 72. The p in the 8. Synonl
Now complete thesetexts using each of the expressionsonce: and ticketswere . but in fact they were to two per person.I was . that I couldn't get any tickets all.
1. Oasis'snew tour was . . supposedto be .
2. A new . . biographyof PrincessDiana hasjust . by interest appeared.It seemsto have been . photos, personal supplied by in America. There are some new, rather so-calledfriends ofhers who have,no doubt,been . for supplying personaldetails. Famouspeople often don't realise their . . by so-calledfriends.I'm reputationcan be glad I'm not famous. 7. Adverb + adjective
heavily richly
densely hopelessly severely
Use a coll word in br
1 Rumour 2. You can 3. You grc 4. News ca 5. You can 6. You can 7. You can 8. You can This type samething
9. Opposil
Use eachof theseadverbsonce to complete the examples.If in doubt, look up the verbs in a collocation dictionary. absolutely
7. I rea roun( 8. Everl dese
fatally ideally sorely
generally narrowly strictly
1 . 'Lord of the Flies' is still . . . . consideredto be Goldine's most successfulbook. z. I'm . . . . tempted to keep the money - I could do with some extra at the moment. . limited. 3. Suppliesat this low price are . . . . . . . populated parts of 4. Central California is one of the most the United States. 5. I was . . . . appalled to hear they were discussingbringing back the death penalty. 6. The house is . . . . situated- on the coast.near the citv and surroundedby beautiful mountains.
Use a coll the one in 1. You cal
2. You car
3. We thor
JOUme) 4. If some investi-e
5. Are you
6. Johnis have evl
7. You can
8. I had an to the fr
Classroomstrategies,activities and exercises
:'iuid.find all
1ll
7. I realisedI'd taken the wrong road, and when I cameto the second roundabout,Iwas. ...confused. 8. Everyonewas delightedat her success,which was . . deserved. 9. The theory tumed out to be
. . . . flawed. 10. Exporters who do not have foreign languageskills are handicapped. ll. All the newscomingfrom the regionis. . . . . . . . censored. 12. The polls suggestthat the govemment will be . . . . def-eated in the referendum. 8. Synonyms )Ie
hasjust rnlerest lied by ise their i s .I ' m
ubt. look up
use a collocation dictionary to find another word similar in meanins to the word in bold: l. Rumours are rife trr . . . . . . 2. Yotcan get into a row or get. . . . . . in one. 3. You grow up in a neighbourhoodor are . up in it. 4. News can slip out or . . . . . out. 5. You can see something clearly or . . . . . . 6. You can make a guessor. . . . . . a guess. 7. You can galvaniseor. . . . . . public opinion. 8. You can demand or. . . . . . certainminimum qualifications. This type of exercise, which gives leamers altemative ways of saying the samething, is only suitable for advancedlearners. 9. Opposites use a collocationdictionary to find a word which is oppositein meaning to the one in bold: 1. You can dismissor. . . . . . employees. 2. Yolcan impose or . . . . . . an embargoon a counfy.
'ino'q
h some
parts of olno
! and
3. we thought that crossing the Kalahari would be a fairly dangerous joumey, but it turned out to be quite . 4. If somebodyis stealing things at work, you can instigate an investigation and then it if it is causing too much troubre. 5. Are you the sort of person who follows or . . . . . . instructions? 6. John is the perfect guest,but Tony is one of the most guestsI have ever entertained. 7. You can either Ioosen your grip on something or . . . . . . it. 8. I had an accident in my car rast week. There was some sright damage to the front of the car, but the damageto the back was . .
112
Classroom str(ttegies,activities and exercises
Sometimesthe oppositeof weak ts strong; weaUstrong teabutthe opposite of strong cheeseis mild cheesenot *weak cheese,so once again remind learners of the need to learn words in collocations or larser chunks.
11. The enth
12. Thet you
10. The missing verb What are the missing verbs in the following collocations? The same verb completes all three examples.If in doubt, check the nouns in a collocation dictionary. Notice how important it is to learn words in phrasesrather than single words. 1. . . . . . . . .
2.
amistake a statement an observatiofl
panic a problem smbarrassment
4.........
to a complete standstill 5. . . . . . . . . danger to an understanding an accident toadecision aquestion concem embarrassment fear
5
12.lntet
You dor house/pn always a the noun Add one more thal
1 .. . . . . 2 ... . . .
11. Interesting adjectives - L
4.....
Complete the sentencesusing each of theseadjectivesonce. In each caseone ofthe adjectivesis the fairly obvious choice.
5 6
bitter safe
embarrassing remarkable
1. It's a
extensive genuine sound strict
inspired wide
powerful wild
7 ... . . . .
Exercises used carefi
. . assumptionthat he will passthe exam easily.
2. Your parentsgave you very . . to them. 3. I found myself in the . again.
advice.You'd be wise to listen . position of having to apologise
4. It was a. . . .. . . . disappointmentwhen I couldn't get onto the courseI liked most.
5 . Our holiday in Iceland was an
. . choice. We enjoyed every
minute of it. 6 . It's a . . coincidence,but four out of five membersof the team come from the samevillage.
t . The old part ofthe town suffered . . . . . . . . damagein the war. 8 . The team won the championshipby a very . . margin, the biggest ever. 9 . He has a. . . . . . . . giftforhelping otherpeople. 1 0 . If you're seriousabout losing weight, you need to go on a . . . . . . . diet.
13. Odd vr
One verb i which does
l. accept,a 2. come up
3. build up, 4. deal wirtt 5. accept,a
6. describe, 7. crash, fin
8. arrange,< Now try the 1. acclaim,r 2. come to, t 3. analyse,d
Classroom strategies,activities and exercises 113
)ositeof learngrs
11. The performancewas absolutely wonderful and greetedwith enthusiasmby a large audience. 12. There is a . . argumentfor spendinga yeur at work before you go to university.
ne verb location her than
12. Interesting adjectives - 2 You don't want to use the same few adjectives all the time: a big house/problem,an interestingjob/person/book.When you leam a noun, it is always a good idea to leam at least one adjective which you can use to make the noun stronger. Add one or more of these adjectivesto each of the nouns below. Sometimes more than one is possible. If you are in doubt, check in your dictionary. complete heavy special
caseone rful
listen
1. 2. 3. 4 5 6. 7.
........advantage ........ accident ........agreement ban career ........complaint ........confusion
great serrcus strong
excellent total successful
8. 9. 10... 11... 12. . . 13... 14...
..consequences .. defeat doubts emphasis example feature flavour Exercises like this, which do not have unique, 'correct' answersneed to be used carefully so that they help rather than confuse leamers. 13. Odd verb out one verb in each line does not collocate with the noun. cross out the one which does not fit. 1. accept,act on, disregard,follow, ignore, make, solicit, take
rery
AN ANSWER
3. build up, close down, set up, put off, takebver, wind up
A BUSINESS
4. deal with, do, examine, ignore, reject, respond to
A COMPLAINT
5. accept,answer,come in for, give rise to, make,_reject 6. describe,do, enjoy, have, recall, share
he
ADVICE
2. come up with, do, expect, get, require, supply
CRITICISM
AN EXPERIENCE
7. crash, finish, hire, park, repair, run, service, start, write off 8. arrange,do, gatecrash,go to, have, throw
A CAR A pARTy
Now try thesemore difficult words: 1. acclaim, disparage,exaggerate,praise, reduce 2. come to, decide, endorse,implement, reach, sign 3. analyse,determine,establish,make, study, trace
AN ACHIEVEMENT AN AGREEMENT THE CAUSE
ll4
Classroom strategies,activities and exercises
4. cause,compensatefor, outweigh,realise
THE DISADVANTAGE(S)
5. classify, collate, deny, gather,organise,provide, withhold 6. acknowledge,answer,cteate,meet,put, respondto 7. announce,condemn,endorse,moderate,move, relax 8. adopt,apply,do, establish,propose,test,work out
MATERIAL
15. Won
A NEED
Match ee verbs in l
A POLICY
ana(
A FORMULA
Group A: Group B: Group C:
In No 8, which verbs suggesla chemicctl/mathematical formwla, and which suggesta more generalplan? Notice that some of the most useful nouns are rather generalwords which do not caffy very much meaning: answer,changes,cause,policy. Words like this are often used with a verb with a very precise meaning, and often with an adjective too in phrases llke act on professional advice, introduce radical changes,sign a provisional agreement,withhold sensitivematerial. 14. Short paragraphs 1. Look vp news in a collocation dictionary. Then ffy to complete this shorl text: A hundred years ago news was slow to in. Today as soon as news . . , it is flashedacrossthe world by satellite.It is almost impossible for govemmentsto . news. No matter what they do t o s t o p i t. .. . . . . , i t w i l l a l w a y s . . . . . . o. u t . 2. Look up emergency.Then try to completethis short text: Emergenciescan never be . . . . . . . . When they take . ., the emergencyservicesswing into action. As part of their everyday work, they . for an emergencyso that when one . . , they are ready for all eventualities.Unfortunately, . . emergencieshappen all the time and cannot be . . . even with the best planning. 3. Look tp hair. Then try to completethis short text: Sandrahad dull . . . . . hair. She had tried every kind of shampoo.She hadtried. . . . . it a differentcolour.Shehadeven. . . . . itpure white just like Annie Lennox. Eventually, she had it all . . . . . off - start from scratch,shesaid.But it grew back,the same. . . . . stragglyhair shehad hated even from childhood. To prepare students to write an essay,first ask them to write a paragraph similar to those aboveusing five or six collocations of an important noun they will needfor the essay.
Group D: Group E: Group F: Now do tl
fin, GroupA: GroupB: GroupC: GroupD: GroupE:
16.Senten Put the foll in fa
tn re)
1. It's a -eo
2. I decidec decision
3. The desr politiciar
4. There are
5. The situa no choice
Remember. text - are ol teachingma to develop a
Classroom strategies,activities and exercises 115
.\GE(S) ERIAL I NE,ED )OLICY {TMULA J which u'hich do ls like this n with an :e radical
15.Wordsinto groups Matcheachof thesenounsto oneof the groups of verbs.Remember, all the verbsin thegroupmustcollocatewith thenoun. attack
Group A: Group B: Group C: Group D:
soonas almost they do
dispute
fiSht
struggle
war
avoid, get into, pick, provoke,start,win declare,go to, lead to, prolong, wage,win
be engagedin, continue,face, give up, join, take up be vulnerableto, caffy out, launch,mount, resist,step up Group E: fight, force, go into, lose, win Group F: aggravate,get involved in, intervene in, put an end to, resolve Now do the samewith these: fin"
this short
battle
penalty
punishment
sentence
discipline
Group A: heavy,lenient,suspended,life, long, reduced Group B: harsh,heavy,severe,death,stiff, huge Group C: heavy, hefty, immediate, on-the-spot,stiff, token Group D: effective,firm, strict, slack,poor, excessive Group E: appropriate,brutal, capital, fit, lenient, harsh 16. Sentenceadverbs Put the following sentenceadverbsinto the sentencesbelow.
..,the r work, ihey are happen 1ng.
roo. She re white :art from shehad
a paragraph rt noun they
in fairness m retrospect 1. It's a good idea
in theoryt in other words
in practice in particwlar
but it will neverwork
2. I decidedto leave school at sixteen. it was the wrong decision. I should have stayedon and gone to university. 3. The destructionof the rain forestsis a disaster,although, politicians are starting to take it more seriously. 4. There are many problems with the presentHealth Service. there are simply not enough hospital beds. 5. The situationis getting worse and worse. , we have no choice- things haveto changeand changesoon! Remember,discourse markers - phraseswhich help the reader through the text - are one kind of collocation which is frequently under-representedin teachingmaterials. Leamers need practice of this kind of languageif they are to develop an adequatelexicon for writing.
116
Classroom strategies,activities and exerctses
5.6 Your own exercises If you write your own exercisesusing a collocationdictionary and copying one of the above formats, be wamed that collocation is never as simple as it seems- sometimesthe adverb must come in front of the verb, sometimesit must come after, and sometimeseither position is possible with very similar meanings. Some adjective + noun or verb + noun combinations are much more common if they are used in the negative;perhapssome of the verbs are used with the headword mostly when it is literal, others mostly when it is 'diffetent'uses of more metaphorical.Very rarely are the lines betweentwo this kind clear; one use tends to overlap and merge into another- that is how real languageworks. Although writing exercisescan be very frustrating, it is one of the best ways you can yourself develop a clearer understanding of collocation and in tum help your leamers to notice, record and leam language from the texts they read in a way which builds their mental lexicons efficiently and systematically. Finally, two wamings. You need to pay special attention to: . Generalnouns, which are common and useful, which have little meaning on their own, but very wide collocationfields [See activity 6, p 101]. Learners think they 'know' thesewords, but they are a source of many mistakeswhen leamers(mis-)usethem in speechand writing. . De-lexicalised verbs such as do, make,put, keep, get, have, which learners overusewhen they do not know the appropriateverb collocate. They need to learn both which can be used with a particular noun, and, perhaps more importantly, which cannot be used with a parlicular noun (xdo a complaint, *make a hard diet). In addition to the activities and exercisesdiscussedin this chapter,many of the 45 Activities and 30 Exercise-types discussedin Chapters 6 and 7 of Implementing the Lexical Approach focus on collocations, and many familiar activities either already have, or can easily be adaptedto have, a collocational focus.
5.7 Surnmary All of the contributors to this book stressthe importance of making leamers more aware of the phrasalnature of language.The single most important kind of multi-word item is collocation. The single most important kind of collocationis the type which names a concept,usually verb + noun (move house)or verb + adjective + noun (take the wrong turning). Finally, the single most important contribution the teacher can make to ensuring that input becomes intake, is ensuring that learners notice the collocations and other phrases in the input language. This involves an important change of perspective for many teachers,particularly those used to emphasising the languagethat studentsproduce.We now recognisethat it is noticing the input
langua-ee tlme, tea successf these rea balanced which hel activities encourag of input b
Discuss
Think of a it so that rt
Do you thl the classr collocatior
How woulr the idea be
Classroomstrategies,activities and exercises ll7
opymg rle as it :imes it similar : much :rbs are en it is usesof is how ng, rt rs ding of rnguage exicons
mrngon ,earners :s when learners needto ls more mplaint, many of Lnd7 of familiar rcational
Ieamers tant kind kind of Ln(move he single rat input Lndother tange of ising the the input
languagewhich is crucial to expandinglearners'mentallexicons.At the same time, teachers and learners expect to produce language in class, and any successfulmethodology needs to maintain involvement and motivation. For these reasons alone, productive activities and exercises are important. A balanced leaming programme also involves quiet reflection and homework which helps to reinforce input. Teachersshould remember,however, that all activities and exercisesshould be designedto support the central activity of encouragingleamers to notice languagein ways which maximise the chance of input being retained as long-term intake.
Discussionquestions Think of a vocabulary activity you use regularly in class. How can you adapt it so that it focusseson collocationsratherthan singlewords? Do you think your learnersleam most of their vocabulary in class or outside the classroom? what do you do in class to ensure that they can acquire collocations and phrasesfrom the languagethey meet outside the classroom? How would you introduce the idea of collocation to a classwho had never met the idea before?
118
Calloway's code
Chapter6 Calloway's code O. Henryt As a light interlude before the more theoreticalpart of this book, readersmay enjoy this short story. It is about a hundred years old and, printed here in its original form, the vocabularyand style seemvery dated.Surprisingly,however, it touchesdirectly on the content of this book. There is a short commentaryat the end of the chapter,but initially readers are invited to enjoy the linguistic skills of two journalists, Calloway (the encoder) and Vesey (the de-coder). Betweenthem, they put fixed collocationsto highly creatiyeuse. The New York Enterprlse sent H. B. Calloway as special correspondentto the Russo-Japanese-Portsmouth war. For two months Calloway hung about Yokohama and Tokyo, shaking dice with other conespondentsfor drinks of rickshaws - oh no, that's something you ride in; anyway he wasn't earning the salary that his paper was paying him. But that was not Calloway's fault. The little brown men who held the strings of Fate between their fingers were not ready for the readers of the Enterprise to seasontheir breakfast bacon and eggs with the battles of the descendants of the gods. But soon the column of correspondentsthat were to go out with the First Army tightened their field-glass belts and went down to theYalu with Kuroki. Calloway was one of these. Now, this is no history of the battle of the Yalu River. That has been told in detail by the corespondents who gazed at the shrapnel smoke rings from a distanceof three miles. But, for justice's sake,let it be understoodthat the Japanesecommanderprohibited a nearer view. Calloway's feat was accomplishedbefore the battle. What he did was to furnish the Enterprlse with the biggest beat of the war. That paper published exclusively and in detail the news of the attack on the lines of the Russian generalZassulitch on the sameday that it was made. No other paper printed a word about it for two days afterwards, except a London paper, whose accountwas absolutelyincorect and untrue. Calloway did this in face of the fact that General Kuroki was making his moves and laying his plans with the profoundest secrecy as far as the world outsidehis campswas concerned.The correspondentswere forbidden to send out any news whatever of his plans; and every messagethat was allowed on the wires was censoredwith rigid severity. The correspondentfor the London paper handed in a cablegram describing Kuroki's plans; but as it was wrong from beginning to end the censorgrinned and let it go through.
Calloway's code ltg
v
ts f)
rt tc
).
e g b
e e
n a
o d n
d
S
J
t 1
I i I i
So there they were - Kuroki on one side of the yalu with forty-two thousand infantry, five thousandcavalry, and a hundred and twenty-four guns. on the other side, Zassulitch waited for him with only twenty-three thousand men, and with a long stretch of river to guard. And calloway had got hold of some important inside information that he knew would bring the Enterprise stafr around a cablegramas thick as flies around a park Row lemonadestand. If he could only get that messagepast the censor- the new censorwho had arrived and taken his post that day. calloway did the obviously proper thing. He lit his pipe and sat down on a gun cariage to think it over. And there we must leave him; for the rest of the story belongs to vesey, a sixteen-dollar-a-weekreporter on the Enterprise. calloway's cablegramwas handed to the managing editor at four o'clock in the aftemoon. He read it three times; and then drew a pocket mirror from a pigeon-hole in his desk, and looked at his reflection carefully. Then he went over to the desk of Boyd, his assistant(he was usually called Boyd when he wanted him), and laid the cablegrambefore him. 'It's from Calloway,'he said. 'See what you make of it.' The messagewas dated at Wi-ju, and thesewere the words of it: 'Foregone preconcertedrash witching goes muffled rumour mine dark silent unfortunate richmond existing great hotly brute select mooted parlous beggarsye angel incontrovertible.' Boyd read it twice. 'It's either a cipher or a sunstroke,'saidhe. 'Ever hear of anything like a code in the office - a secretcode?' askedthe ME, who had held his desk for only two years. Managing editors come and go. 'None except the vernacular that the lady specials write in,' said Boyd. 'Couldn't be an acrostic,could it?' 'I thought of that,' said the ME, 'but the beginning letters containedonlv four vowels.It must be a code of somesor1., 'Try 'em in groups,'suggested Boyd. 'Let's see- "Rash witching goes,,-not with me it doesn't. "Muffled rumour mine" - must have an underground wire. "Dark silent unfortunate richmond" - no reason why he should knock that town so hard. "Existing greathotly" - no, that doesn'tpan out. I'll call Scott.' The city editor came in a hurry, and tried his luck. A city editor must know something about everything; so Scott knew a little about cipher-writing. 'It may be what is called an invertedalphabetcipher,' said he. .I'll try that. "R" seemsto be the oftenest used initial letter, with the exception of ..m,,. Assuming "r" to mean "e", the most frequently used letter, we transposethe letters- so.' Scott worked rapidly with his pencil for two minutes; and then showed the first word accordingto his reading- the word 'scejtzez,. ,Great!'criedBoyd. 'It's a charade.My first is a Russiangeneral.Go on, Scott.'
120
Calloway's code
'No,
that won't work,' said the city editor. 'It's undoubtedly a code. It's impossibleto readit without the key. Has the office ever useda cipher code?' 'Just what I was asking,' said the ME. 'Hustle everybodyup that ought to know. We must get at it some way. Calloway has evidently got hold of somethingbig, and the censorhas put the screwson, or he wouldn't have cabledin a lot of chop sueylike this.' Throughout the office of the Enterprise a drag-netwas sent, hauling in such membersof staff as would be likely to know of a code, past or present,by reason of their wisdom, information, natural intelligence, or length of servitude. They got together in a group in the city room, with the ME in the centre. No one had heard of a code. All began to explain to the head investigatorthat newspapersnever use a code, anyhow - that is a cipher code. of coursethe AssociatedPressstuff is a sort of code - an abbreviation.rather -but....
rtr wlt
cro rtu tol CXC
am( thal
Ves 'co<
tou( Ves prot like 'It's 'The 'The
The ME knew all that, and said so. He asked each man how long he had worked on the paper. Not one of them had drawn pay from an Enterprise envelopefor longer than six years. Calloway had beenon the papertwelve years. 'Try old Heffelbauer,'saidthe ME. 'He was herewhen Park Row was a potato patch.'
som Gee end
Heffelbauer was an institution. He was half janitor, half handy-man about the office, and half watchman - thus becoming the peer of thirteen and one-half tailors. Sent for, he came, radiating his nationality. 'Heffelbauer,' said the ME, 'did you ever hear a code belonging to the office a long time ago - a privatecode?You know what a code is, don't you?' 'Yah,' said Heffelbauer, 'Sure I know vat a code is. Yah, apout dwelf or fifteen year ago der office had a code. Der rebortersin der city-room haf it here.' 'Ah!'said the ME,'We're getting on the trail now. Where was it kept, Heffelbauer?What do you know aboutit?' 'Somedimes,' said the retainer, 'dey keep it in der little room behind der library room.' 'Can you find it?'asked the ME eagerly.'Do you know where it is?' 'Mein Gott!' said Heffelbauer.'How long do you dink a code live? Der reborterscall him a maskeet.But von day he butt mit his head der editor, und - 'Oh, he's talking about a goat,' said Boyd. 'Get out, Heffelbauer.' Again discomfited, the concertedwit and resourcesof the Enterprise huddled aroundCalloway'spuzzle,consideringits mysteriouswords in vain. Then Veseycame in. Vesey was the youngest reporter. He had a thirty-two-inch chest and wore a number fourteen collar; but his bright Scotch plaid suit gave him a presence and conferred no obscurity upon his whereabouts.He wore his hat in such a position that people followed him about to seehim take it off, convinced that
Vese cablr 'Let' 'I be Heu his c wisdr anott theor It to code 'I fe He's new Thu Fore Prec Ras Witr Goe Mul Rur
Calloway's code l2l
it must be hung upon a peg driven into the back of his head. He was never without an immense,knotted, hard-wood cane with a German-silvertip on its crooked handle.vesey was the bestphotographhustler in the office. Scott said it was becauseno living human being could resist the personaltriumph it was to hand his picture over to vesey. vesey always wrote his own news stories, exceptthe big ones,which were sent to the re-write men. Add to this fact that among all the inhabitants, temples, and groves of this earth nothins existed that could abashVesey,and his dim sketch is concluded. vesey butted into the circle of cipher readers very much as Heffelbauer,s 'code'would havedone,and askedwhat was up. Someoneexplained,with the touch of half-familiar condescensionthat they always used towards him. vesey reached out and took the cablegram from the ME's hand. under the protection of some special Providence,he was always doing appalting things like that, and coming off unscathed. 'It's . a code,'saidVesey.'Anybody got the key?' 'The office hasno code,'saidBoyd, reachingfor the message. veseyheld to it. 'Then old calloway expectsus to read it anyhow,' said he. ,He's up a tree, or somethingand he's made this up so as to get it by the censor.It,s up to us. Gee! I wish they had sent me, too. say - we can't afford to fall down on our end of it. "Foregone,preconcerted,rash,witching" _ h,m., vesey sat down on a table comer and beganto whistle softly, frowning at the cablegram. 'Let's haveit, please,'saidthe ME. ,We,vegot to get to work on it.' 'I believeI've got a line on it,' saidVesey.,Give me ten minutes., He walked up to his desk, threw his hat into a wastebasket,spreadout flat on his chest like a gorgeous lizard, and started his pencil going. The wit and wisdom of the Enterprise remained in a loose group, and smiled at one another,nodding their headstoward vesey. Then they beganto exchangetheir theories about the cipher. It took vesey exactly fifteen minutes. He brought to the ME a pad with the code-key written on it. 'I felt the swing of it as soonasI sawit,'saidvesey. .Hurrahfor old calloway! He's done the Japs and every paper in town that prints literature instead of news. Take a look atthat.' Thus had Vesey set forth the reading of the code: Foregone- conclusion Preconcerled- arrangement Rash - act Witching - hour of midnight Goes- without saying Muffled - report Rumour - hath it
122
Calloway's code
Mine - host Dark - horse Silent - majority Unfortunate - pedestrians Richmond - in the field Existing - conditions Great - White Way Hotly - contested Brute - force Select- few Mooted - question Parlous- times Beggars- description Ye - correspondents Angel - unawares Incontrovertible - fact 'It's simply newspaperEnglish,'explainedVesey.'I've beenreporting on the Enterprise long enough to know it by heart. Old Calloway gives us the cue word, and we use the word that naturally follows it just as we use 'em in the paper. Read it over, and you'll seehow pat they drop into their places.Now, here'sthe messagehe intendedus to get.' Veseyhanded out another sheetof paper. Concludedaffangementto act at hour of midnight without saying. Report hath it that a large body of cavalry and an overwhelming force of infantry will be thrown into the field. Conditions white. Way contested by only a small force. Question the Times description. Its correspondentis unawareof the facts. 'Great stuff!'cried Boyd excitedly. 'Kuroki crossesthe Yalu tonight and attacks.Oh, we won't do a thing to the sheetsthat make up with Addison's essays,real estatetransfers,and bowling scores!' FOOTNOTE Mr Veseyafterwardsexplainedthat the logical journalistic complementof the word 'unfortunate' was once the word 'victim'. But, since the automobile became so popular, the correct following word is now 'pedestrians'.Of course,in Calloway'scode it meant 'infantry'. 'Mr Vesey,'said the ME, with his jollying-which-you-should-regard-a-favour manner, 'you have cast a seriousreflection upon the literary standardsof the paper that employs you. You have also assistedmaterially in giving us the biggest "beat" of the year. I will let you know in a day or two whether you are to be dischargedor retainedat alarger salary.SomebodysendAmes to me.' Ames was the king-pin, the snowy-petalledmarguerite,the star-bright looloo of the re-write men. He saw attempted murder in the pains of green-apple colic, cyclones in the summer zephyr,lost children in every top-spinning
urchir potatc his Br
Ames there fingerr the Ya brief n of the speech descrit which ffoops whatA founda he glee false an Army p
Only or ju. Call shouldl Ames ' descript by the effective guns thr the 'con the Enrc It was v censorbi dearlh o wonderfr with one part.
On the se repofier \ a coal-ho 'The old 'All right say - "S whole it c
Calloway's code 123
urchin, an uprising of the down-trodden massesin every hurling of a derelict potato at a passingautomobile.when not rewriting, Ames sat on the porch of his Brooklyn villa playing checkerswith his ten-year-old son. Ames and the 'war editor' shut themselvesin a room. There was a map in there stuck full of little pins that representedarmies and divisions. Their fingers had been itching for days to move thosepins along the crooked line of the Yalu. They did so now; and in words of fire Ames translatedcalloway,s brief messageinto a front-page masterpiecethat set the world talking. He told of the secret councils of the Japanese officers; gave Kuroki's flaming speechesin full; counted the cavalry and infantry to a man and a horse; described the quick and silent building of a bridge at Suikauchen, across which the Mikado's legions were hurled upon the surprisedZussulitch, whose troops were widely scatteredalong the river. And the battle! - well, you know what Ames can do with a battle if you give him just one smell of smoke for a foundation. And in the same story, with seemingly supematuralknowledge, he gleefully scoredthe most profound and ponderouspaper in England for the false and misleading accountof the intendedmovementsof the JapaneseFirst Army printed in its issue of the samedate. only one effor was made; and that was the fault of the cable operator in wiju. calloway pointed it out after he came back. The word 'great' in his code shouldhavebeen 'gauge', and its complementalword 'battle'. But it went to Ames 'conditions white', and of course he took that to mean snow. His description of the Japanesearmy struggling through the snow-storm,blinded by the whirling flakes, was thrillingly vivid. The arlists tumed out some effective illustrations that made a hit as pictures of the artillery dragging their guns through the drifts. But, as the attack was made on the first day of May, the 'conditions white', excited some amusement.But it made no difference to the Enterpris e, anyway. I1 was wonderful. And calloway was wonderful in having made the-new censorbelieve that his jargon of words meant no more than a complaint at the dearth of news and a petition for more expense money. And vesey was wonderful. And most wonderful of all are words, and how they make friends with one another,being oft associated,until not even obituary notices them do pafi. on the secondday following, the city editor halted at vesey's desk where the reporter was writing the story of a man who had broken his leg by falling into a coal-hole - Ames having failed to find a murder motive in it. 'The old man says your salary is to be raised to twenty a week,' said Scott. 'Al1 right,' said vesey. 'Every little helps. Say - Mr Scott, which would you say - "we can state without fear of successful contradiction". or ,.on the whole it can be safely asserted"?'
124
Calloway's code
Commentary I am indebted to Jon Wright for drawing my attention to this splendid tale. Despite the laboured prose, some interesting commentson languageemerge: 1. Journalism is, and always was, riddled with its own particular lexis and collocations.Someof thoseusedin the story havestoodthe testof time, while otherssimply do not 'soundright'for us, a centurylater.So, maybethe fixed elementsof languageare not as fixed as we might like to think. 2.The managing editor is quite clear thatVesey has 'cast a seriousreflection on the literary standardsof the paper that employs you'. Like other educated people he had been taught that clich6 - a word drawn directly from the world of newspapers- was bad 'literary style'. There is still an in-built prejudice against what is, in certain contexts, called clich6; but if non-native speakers write essaysin non-standardlanguage,they are told: that's not the way we say lr. Apparently, while some of us need to learn to avoid clich6, others need to acquire alarger phrasal lexicon, in other words, more clich6s. 3. The brilliantly creative're-writer', Ames, needs'just one smell of smoke for a foundation'before he can write a graphic description of something he has not seen.What fires his account of the Japaneseattack is a few central ideas - no, not ideas, but rather a few essential collocations provided by Calloway,once his messagehas been decoded.There is a messagehere for any teacherhelping studentsprepareto write essays;it is not enough to have some ideas, perhaps in your own language, what is essential is a few collocations central to the main themes.This reminds us of suggestionsmade by Deborah Petty and Graham Smith in the previous chapter.
T l l
All chz hor the, da] enc rntr
Mat thar thec oft acql exte 10ti und< desc way
whil deve resea their of be
Part 2 - Backgroundtheory 125
Part 2 Background theory All the contributorsto the first part of this book - both the authorsof complete chaptersand the many teachersquoted in Chapter 5 - repeatedly emphasise how their own understanding of collocation has developed step-by-stepas they have made small, and then increasingly radical changesin their day-today classroom practice. Again, a deeper understanding of collocation has encouraged them to extend and refine the modest changes they first introduced. Many other teacherswho have already begun to emphasisevocabulary rather than grammar would like to take their understanding further. Background theory is essentialfor such teachers.The first two chaptersofthe secondpart of this book provide a summary of recent research on language and acquisition - Chapter 7 on language, Chapter 8 on acquisition. Chapter 9 extendsthe comments on texts, corpora and concordancesin Part 1. Chapter 10 takesup the questionof how examsmay changein the light of our changed understandingof the mental lexicon. Finally, in Chapter 11, the distinguished descriptive linguist Michael Hoey provides teacherswith a glimpse into the way research'maysoontake us 'beyond collocation'. While PalrI 2 is more theoretical, its primary purpose is to help teachers develop their own understanding so they can initiate their own action research.It provides frameworks within which they can evaluatethe results of their observations,so that they can be sure the changesthey make really are of benefit to their learners.
i lll E
F ilii s
126
Language in the lexical approttch
Chapter7 Language in the lexical approach Michael Lewis
1S
This chapter looks at the way descriptions of English have improved as a result of analysis of large amounts of natural spoken and written text on computers. It explains the breakdown of the old distinction between vocabulary and grammar, and emphasises how much of the language we use consists of multi-word phrases. It clarifies the terminology which is used in the other chapters of the book to discuss different kinds of rnulti-word phrasesl in particular, it explores the many different kinds of collocations. It will help readers new to the idea to develop their understanding of the different kinds of chunks of which lexis is composed. Finally, it rerninds us that the improved descriptions of English now available have radical implications for the language classroom.
7.1 Descriptions of English In recent years, since the widespread availability of large computer-based corpora - collections of natural written and spoken text - which have been statisticallyanalysed,we have better descriptionsof English availableto us than ever before. Although intuition has an important role to play, many statementsabout how words are used, and the pattems which are typical of sometypes of text can now be supportedby empirical evidence.The repofts of corpus linguists involved in this work sometimesconfirm our intuitions, but frequently provide overwhelming evidence contradicting some belief which is widespread.Their work is essentiallydescriptive,but it is selfevident that if their descriptions show that English is not used in the way traditional teaching has claimed, there are considerable implications for classroompractice.
7.2 lnttition
nu
ide Lo fig 30
and evidence
Every teacherhas said I've never heard that, which is usually interpretedto mean something very close to Nobody says that. But although every competentspeakerof Englishhasmet many millions of words of the language while reading, watching TV, conversingand so on, the sampleof the language you personallyhave met is an absolutelyminute fraction of the ever-changing 'English'. Supposethere are 30 million native-speakeradults entity we call using English in Britain every day; and that they each speakfor a total of only 60 minutes at a normal speedof about 120 words a minute - that is 220billion words spoken every day in Britain by its adult population. Now pause to considerthe number of words of English producedworldwide every year.The
lirr En col
I 1 cor inc ten eml Do
wh ifv
say con mal, exa whe Iare
Coll exp( com like lmff
than than
Alth help; by ar ofE diffe
1.W
2.W
3. Th fre thi 4.
Language in the lexical approach 127
numbers are almost unimaginable, yet each of us believes we have a good idea of what is and is not possible in the language.The editors of the new Longman Grammar of spoken and written Engrish (LGSWE) give some figures which provide a perspective:a typical page of printed text is around 3001400words, so a 300-pagebook is around100,000words; a million words is 10 books. In their recordings of conversation,speakerstypically speakat a little under 120 words per minute, so a million words of informal spoken English correspondsto about 140 hours of conversationalinteraction. you could easily take parl in 15 million words of conversationa year. At my age, I have probably heard or spoken welr over half a billion words of conversationalEnglish. Despite thesehuge numbers,like everyoneelse, I am inclined to think that I rememberwhat I have and have not met before. we all tend to have confidencein our intuitions about language,but unfortunately the empirical evidencesometimesshows that our intuitions are seriously flawed. Do you recogniseToo many cooks spoil the broth as a'common'proverb? when do you think you last used it yourself? when did you last hear it? And if you did hear it, are you sure the person said an the words, or did they only sayTbomany cooks. . . 7 Do you recogniseto makea mistakeas a .common' combination of words? If you answered res this time, you are yourself making a mistake. To make a mistakeis a dictionary-style generalisationfrom examplesyou may have heard such as I think we probably made a mistake when we. . . . The exactwords to makea mistakeare possible,but relatively rare.We needto ask what we mean by a 'common,phraseor word. collocation is about words which occur together more often than might be expected if words were produced randomly; collocations are ,common, combinations of words, so it is usefui to ask what we mean by expressions like 'they frequently occur together'. The number of words used every day is immense; the number of words and phrasesyou know is probably far greater than you would guess,so things you think are common are,in fact. much rarer than you think. Although this book is about collocation - the way words co-occur - it is helpful to think about how individual words occur.First, check your intuitions by answering these questionsabout a large corpus - say 10 million words of English including spoken and written language and representing many different geffes. 1. which is more common, a or the? (you can think this out logically.) 2. WhaI are the 10 most common words used in English? 3. Think of any one of the most common 250 words in English. How frequent do you think it is? If it occurs once in every x words, do you think x is closestto: a. 100 b. 1000 c. 5000 d. 50,000 e. 100,000
128
Language in the lexical approach
4. What percentageof the words in the l0-million-word corpusdo you think would occur only once in the corpus? a.50Vo b.25Vo c. l0% d" 57a e. less than 57o 5. We say that word A collocateswith word B if the two words co-occur 'frequently'. What do you think 'frequently' means here? On what percentageof occasionsof occurrenceof word A, do you think word B co-occurswith word A? Is it: a.90Vo b.50Va c.25Vo d..10Vo e.57o How confidentare you of your answers?Here are the answers: 1. The definite article - the - occurs about twice as often as the indefinite articles* a, an - combined. 2. The top ten are the, of, and, to, a, in, that, I, it, was according to Cobuild's published list. Interestingly, the proportions fall very fast. Here are the relative frequencies related to every 100 occurrencesof the most frequentword the: of a I
50 4 2 2 t
i i
n r
and 50 3 2 2 1
to 44 that 22 was 18
The 100th most common word, however,has a relative frequencyof less than 2.In a million-word corpusit would occur about 800 times. 3. Words which we think are common, such as set, given as an example by John Sinclair in Corpus, Concordance,Collocation, occur onlv about once every 4000 words. 4. About half the words in a corpus of 10 million words will only occur once.Words which we think of as rare or unusual,are very rarely used! 5. By now, you may have guessedthat the answer is less than 57o. Even very common words have relatively low frequencies; collocations involve two relatively rare things happening together, so they are even less frequent.Our intuitions are very unreliable.To quote Sinclair again: The languagelooks rather dffirent when you look at a lot of it at once. Words which we think of as common may only occur once in a million words; common collocationsare much rarer eventhan that, and commonexpressions such as proverbs are rarer still. Chitra Fernando reports that when she consultedthe Birmingham Collection of English Texts in 1990,it contained 13 examplesof the phrasered herring in the then total of 20 million words in other words, this familiar expressionoccurred only about once in one-andhalf-rnillion words. LGSWE suggeststhat words which occur once in every thousandoccur about once every 8.5 minutesin speech,while a word which is only used once in every 100,000words will be heard once every fourteen hours(of non-stopconversation!). A maturelanguage-user's mentallexicon is much larger than we previousiy thought,and the non-nativeleamer'stask in mastering a sufficiently large lexicon correspondinglymore difficult.
wi
thir
use lim whr Chz real
7.3 Alrl nhrr r_"-
largr proc Ling idiot this l one l these probl think Introt unhel well-r cours
The p of the rtems phrase into dl lot of catego goalke a Gree of thes descril a glver describ linguisr for dif express teachel underst
Language in the lexical approach
129
dnk
)cur that d B
nlte !to iast. the
limited duration. To do this, teachersneed to develop their understanding of which language really is useful. corpora and concordances [discussed in chapter 9f are a great help in testing your intuitions against the evidence of real languageuse.
7.3 Terminology Although it has long beenrecognisedthat the mental lexicon had an important phrasalelement,it is now generally acceptedthat the phrasal elementis much larger than was previously recognised.perhapsinevitably, this realisation has produced a proliferation of terms, with the resulting potential for confusion. Linguistic terms with which the reader will certainly be familiar arephrase, idiom, fixed expression,phrasal verb, adverb, proverb, and, in the context of this book, collocation. unfortunately, all theseterms are used with more than one meaning by people writing about vocabulary and the mental lexicon. In
less
)by
SCUr J I
ll
,ven LONS
The problem of terminology arises as soon as we recognise that a large part of the immediatelyaccessiblelexicon which we storeconsistsof multi_word
)ven taln: e. rrds; 10ns she ined dsandvery hich teen )n ls ;k in
of theseis 'really' me, or how I am 'best' classified.All of theseare coffect descriptionsof me, in different circumstances;which is more appropriateon a given occasion depends on your purpose in talking about me at all. we describe and categorisewith a particular purpose in mind; this is as true for linguistic description as it is for any other. The samepiece of languagemay, for different purposes, usefully be described as an utterance, a fixed expression,an idiom, a responseetc. From the classroompoint of view, teachers need to choose a limited range of terms, that learners "nrrr" understandthem, and then use thoseterms consistently. But it is essentialto
130
l-tnqunqe in the lexical approach
remember that leamers are learning a language, not information about language; describing the language is not itself language teaching. The sole purpose of description in the classroomis to ensure that leamers can notice featuresof the languagethey meet in ways which facilitate acquisition. They are languagelearners,not amateurapplied linguists. Some of the larger phrasal units are relatively uncontentious and familiar: quotations (A rose by any other name), proverbs (Too many cooks spoil the broth), and - providing we avoid the argument about prepositions and particles - phrasal verbs (The high cost put me off the idea). Some familiar terms do, however,need discussion,as different writers use them in different ways, so readers need to be constantly on guard against possible misunderstanding.
7.4 From idioms to idiomaticity Most teachersprobably think they have a clear idea of what an idiom is (Uncle George hasfinally kicked the bucket), even if they are in some doubt about how the term 'collocation' is used. Many may be surprised thar, at a 'collocation'ate often seenas similar,even more theoreticallevel, 'idiom'and overlapping,terms. In order for us to get a clear idea of collocation, we need first to consider it as part, not of idioms, but of the wider concept of idiomaticity. Whether somethingis regardedas idiomatic or not is not decided by a single factor; most linguistsrecogniseat leasttwo factors- its position 'invariant' and 'variable' as its end points, and a on a spectrumwith 'fixed' or secondspectrumrangedbetweensemantic'opacity' and'transparency'. The compilers of The Oxford Dictionary of Current ldiomatic English use the following categoriesto describe a cline of idiomaticity from most to least fixed: Pure idioms such as blow the gaff are at the most fixed end; they are almost invariant and have lost any literal interpretation,so are semantically opaqueyou cannot guess the meaning of the whole from a knowledge of the meaningsof the individual words.
mosl f,rxed smal can s in its perhz pafi descr wnte
Tt
he 5ll
to col
the
...J gra gra the
Wirhix traditic
Tha Wel Ise Thkt plal sigrt goin ave take ahe heat
Figurative idioms such as catch fire, a close shave are less opaque: in addition to their non-literal meaning, they are also still used in their literal sense;they are fairly, but not quite, fixed. Restricted collocations such as jog someone'smemot! have one element used in a non-literal senseand the other used in its normal meaning.
As exar show,ct observe
Open collocations involve elements which are (more or less) freely combinable, with each element having its literal sense.
Co wo
These examplesmake clear that two factors are involved in what we loosely think of as idioms - a cerlain degreeof fixednessand a certain degreeof nonliteralness,leading to more or less difficulty in understandingthe meaning of the whole expressionfrom an understandingof its component words. What
Chitra F academ lower en
Language in the lexical approach 131
tut Dle lce
)ey tA('
the md liar :ent Lble
nls
rubt ata jven Leed :of ded tlon rda , the east nost uethe ); m teral Tlent
reely rsely nonng of What
most teachersand studentsthink of as idioms are those which are both fairly fixed and non-literal. with a narrow definition like that, idioms are a fairly small part of the total lexicon, and from a languageteachingperspectivethey can safely be left to more advancedleamers.once we understandidiomaticity in its wider meaning - chunks which have some degree of fixedness, and perhaps some degree of non-literalness,it is clear that idioms are a central part of the lexicon and important for leamers at all levels. John sinclair, describing the early work by the team constructing the Cobuild dictionaries, wrrtes: The principle of idiom is that a languageuser has available to him or her a large number of semi-preconstructedphrases that constitute single choices, even though they might appear to be analysableinto segments....The overwhelming natureof [the corpus] evidenceleadsus to elevate the principle of idiom from being a rather minor feature, compared with grammar, to being at least as important as grammar in the explanation of how meaning arisesin text. ...Just as it is misleading and unrevealing to subject of course to grammatical analysis, it is unhelpful to attempt to analyse grammatically any portion of text which appearsto be constructedon the idiom principle. within this wider definition, all of the following, while not idioms in the traditional sense,exhibit some degreeof idiomaticity: That's neither here nor there. Well,I mustn't keepyou. I seewhat you mean. Thkeil or leave it. playing for time signed,sealedand delivered going bachuard and forwards a very cool reception take the earliest possible opportunity to . . . a heavy-handedapproach to the problem heavy rain As examples such as a cool reception, heavy rain, take the opportunity to show, collocation is part of the overall specftum of idiomaticity. As Sinclair observes: collocation illustrates the idiom principle. on some occasions words appear to be chosen in pairs or groups and these are not necessarilyadjacent. chitra Femando, whose book ldioms and ldiomaticity is perhaps the best academic survey of this area of language, states: "collocations are at the lower end of the idiomaticity scalebeing only weak realisationsof the idiom
131
L . . ; , : t t i c s e i r t t l t e I e . r i c a la p p r o a c h
prrinciple."Very strongcollocations,where you can hardly imagine any other use of one of the parlner-words, are a kind of idiom: We had a blazing rov,/argumenf. Some collocations permit very limited choice: The whole (and not much else).But the vast storlevent was tinged with sadness/regret part of the spectrumof idiomaticity, are not majority of collocations, although so restricted.Partner-wordsoften combine freely with many other words, and the slots in a collocation can each be filled in many different ways. The same group of words may, therefore,be treated as both an idiom and a collocation but the focus of the two descriptionsis rather different. Idioms focus mainly on the meaning of the whole, while collocation is concerned with combinations of words which do or do not occur. 'wotds This distinction is used in this book, but our main focus is firmly on and the company they keep', although it is helpful to remember that this is part of the wider question of idiomaticity. We look now at how the term 'collocation' covers many different kinds of multi-word items.
7.5 Collocation Collocation is the way in which words co-occur in natural text in statistically significant ways. It sounds an innocent definition, but one very imporlant point needsto be made:collocationis aboutthe way wordsnaturallyco-occur 'used language'. Collocations are not in what David Brazll brilliantly called 'put together',they co-occurnaturally,and words which we, in some sense, the first task of the language teacher is to ensure that they are not unnecessarilytaken apafi in the classroom.If words occur togethet, leanters need to notice that co-occuffence and, if they are to be recorded in a vocabularybook, the words should be recordedtogether,a point already made by severalcontributors. In most classeslearnerswill already know many individual words, so in these 'putting them together' in circumstances, they may need to learn about standardcollocations,but this is part of the necessaryartificiality of language teaching.It would unquestionablybe better if learnershad acquiredthe words together as a single chunk - a single choice - in the first place. If you learn initial reaction (one item) it is easyto split the chunk apart, and acquire initial andreaction, two more items. If you learn the two words separately,you must also learn a third item, the correct collocation. Separatingcollocations into their component words is easy; it is considerablymore difficult to put words together to form natural collocations. Peter Howarth has pointed out that knowing which words do go with which, and which do not is a major problem for learners: It may be claimed that the problem facing the non-native writer or speakeris knowing which of a range of collocational options are restrictedand which are free. ...[the] significance[of the data] lies in the way in which specific collocations might be predicted by
Lear Thel teach to be synol but t intror to no indici
When broke an ml becau The la of re-tr break even il terms Differi
If we d the del Cerlair recogn
7.ad 2. sttb 3. rad 4. exa 5. extr 6. reyi 7. the, 8.Top 9. a fet I0. tunt 17.awa 12.fire t 73.back 14.hooA 15. On tt 16.A sot
Language in the lexical approach 133
ner tn8 ole ,ast
analogy, but are arbitrarily brocked by usage,and clearly they are the kind of phenomenonlikely to confound leamers. ...It is the gaps in collocability that are arbitrary.
not md Lme .10n
LnIy vith rrds Lsis
introducingthe term 'blocked collocation'to leamers,and encouragingthem to note such 'impossible'combinationsby asking them to record and then indicatetheir non-acceptabilityby crossingthrough or ,cancelling,them.
effn
:a1ly rtant ccur : nOt and not rTIEIS
rna nade these :r' in luage vords learn 'nitial must s mto words .t that major r S
v
The larger the chunks are which learnersoriginally acquire,the easierthe task of re-producing natural languagelater. The messageto teachersis clear: don,t break language down too far in the false hope of simplifying; your efforts, even if successfulin the short rerm, ate almost certainly counterproductivein lermsoI long-termacquisition. Different kinds of collocation If we define collocation as the way words occur together,it is easyto seethat the definition is very wide, and will cover many different kinds of item. certainly, all of the following are colrocations in the sensethat we readily recognisethat thesegroups of words are regularly found together: l. a dfficult decision(adjective+ noun) 2. submit a report (verb + noun) 3. radio station (noun + noun) 4. examinethoroughly (verb + adverb) 5. extremelyinconvenienr(adverb + adjective) 6. revise the original plan (verb + adjective + noun) 7. thefog closed in (noun + verb) 8. Toput it anotherlr;ay (discoursemarker) 9. a few years ago (multi-word prepositionalphrase) I0. turn in (phrasalverb) ll. aware of (adjeclive + preposition) 72.fire escape(compoundnoun) 73. bachnards and forwards (binomial) 14. hook, line and sinker (trinomial) 15. On the other hand (fixedphrase) 76.A sort of . . . (incomplete fixed phrase)
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Language in the lexical approach
77. Not half! (fixed expression) 18. Seeyou later/tomorrow/on Monday. (semi-fixed expression) 19. Too many cooks. . . (part of a proverb) 20. To be or not to be .. . (part of a quotation) From the languageteachingpoint of view, many of theseare familiar and have formed a regular part of classroomteachingmaterials.The contributorsto this book focus almost exclusively on those kinds of collocations which are relatively new in languageteaching and which are only now finding their way into materials. There is extensivediscussionof types I to 7 in the above list, with some referencesto types 8 and 9, but relatively little mention of the older, familiar types of multi-word item. George Woolard earlier suggested 'collocation' reasons for restricting the use of the term for leamers to the newer kinds. [Seep 29.]
tent thin mea earl mak collr metz othe
Lexical and grammatical collocations Some writers distinguish between lexical collocations such as suggeston alternative, an evasiveanswer, and grammatical collocations such as aware of, step into. In this terminology, lexical collocations combine two equal lexical components (open class words), while grammatical collocations combine a lexical word, typically a noun, vetb or adjective, with a grammatical word (one open class word and one closed class word). Within this framework, phrasal verbs are neither more nor less than grammatical collocations. The main focus in this book is on lexical collocations, though it is worth noting that learnerswould often be well advisedto record more than simple two-word combinations.It is better to record phrasessuch asput the meeting off until. . , so they include both lexical words and grammatical words which are often used together. Similarly, recording grammatical collocations such as aware of, interestedin is unsatisfactory as these combinations are never used without at least one more word, so it makesmore (collocational) senseto teachcombinationssuch as awore of the problems, interestedinfootball, choosing typical examplesof how the words are used in a slightly larger context. Throughout this book teachers are repeatedly urged to encourage students to record language in larger chunks, and to keep at least part of the context in which the word actually occurred as part of what is recorded. A comment of Svetlana TerMinasova's (Language,Linguistics and Lift) is typical: Foreign leamers must keep in mind that they should learn words not through translationsof their meanings(that is, referenceto bits of reality and concepts),but in their most natural, habitual contexts, typical of the target language. Collocations are often idiomatic Some collocations appear superficially
'logical' - open the window, play
Did 1 is eas could strong
Becau when Howat have c combr: proble Sheha meanlr Swedis structu child; t closert baby is so that i learner.
Ter-Mir of Engll gate as the doa commer
Language in the lexical approach 135
iris lre ,aY rst, the ted the
an are lual ons 1
A
thin ical
;hir han the .ical din one ;uch :s of look le ln
vord Ter-
play
tennis, breakyour leg -butmany, although very familiar and which we easily think of as 'obvious' or 'sounding right', are conventional. Notice how the meanings of the verbs in the following differ considerably from the three earlier examples:open a meeting (why not start), play some music (why not make), break the silence (why not interrupt or explode).In fact, very few collocations are truly self-evident or literal; there is a partially non-literal, metaphoricalor idiomatic element to most collocations.This meansthat, like other idioms, they are not fully predictable from their componentwords.
TEsr Think of three nouns which can follow the verb answer which intermediate leamers are unlikely to know and which they probably would not guess. Think of three nouns which can be used with the adjective strong but where the meaning of strong is quite different in each case. How many things can yor open where the opening is not like opening a door?
Did you think of answeran enquiry,a letter,the door the chargethat . . .? rt is easy to seethat the translationsof theseexpressionsinto another language could very well involve a different verb in each expression.Similarly, with strong opinions, wind, coffee,cheese,or opening a bottle, a lette4 a meeting. Becausesomecollocations are so familiar, it is easyto think they are obvious when they are, in fact, highly idiomatic. In an article on phraseology,peter Howarlh refers in passing to 'completely transparent collocations such as have children' but although there may be little difficulty guessingwhat this combination of words means, it may present learners with considerable problems from a productive point of view. Note first the difference between she has a baby and she's having a baby; changing the grammar changesthe meaning of the verb. If you consider the expressionfrom the perspectiveof a Swedish leamer, for example, the first is Hon har ett barn mircoring the structure of the English exactly, although baru is closer to the English word child; bil the secondis Hon vcintabarn,literally she is waiting for (a) child, closer to English she's expectinga child, though even here she's expectinga baby is closer to the Swedish. Grammar and words are in complex interplay, so that apparentlytransparentcollocations hold many potential pitfalls for the leamer. Ter-Minasovagives anotherexamplefrom the perspectiveof Russianleamers of English: the introduction to the BBI Combinatory Dictionary seesopen the gate as a free collocation, allowing substitutions such as lock the gate, open the door, etc which should cause few problems for leamers, but she comments:
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Language in the lexical approaclt
Many word-combinations look deceptively free within their own language,and their non-freedom only becomesobvious when they have to be translatedinto anotherlanguage.The free, variable open the gate is, indeed free and variable within its own - English language.Howeverit looks much lessfree in the eyesof a Russian learnerwho tries to expressthe equivalentmeaning....TheRussian equivalent of to open is presentedby quite a variety of verbs in Russian-Englishdictionariesopen,discover cleat bare, reveal . . . and the Russian word for gate has only the plural form. The point for teachersis that even the simplestof collocationsmay contain difficulties for learners, and some comment to make leamers aware of problems, including the 'blocked' collocations discussedearlier, may be necessary.It may even be that unexpectedcombinationsof familiar words are some of the most important and useful collocations from a pedagogicalpoint of view. George Woolard makes the point that it is helpful to ask leamers which words they are surprisedto find used together.Teachersneed to keep in mind that they may be surprisedat what surprisestheir leamers. We note in passing that this has one very important classroomimplication 'know' a particular collocation is quite definitely asking leamers if they testing,not teachingsince the idiomatic nature of many collocationsmeans they cannot be predicted with confidence from knowledge of the individual componentwords. Teacherswho forget this risk frustrating learnersby asking questionswhich the learnercan only answerby guessing. One final potential source of confusion should be mentioned. In corpus linguisticsthe term 'collocation'tendsto be usedin a different way from the way it is usedin this book. JeanHudsondescribesit as follows: In corpuslinguisticsit is more often usedin the abstractsenseof a generaltendencyfor linguistic items to co-occur(not necessarilyin 'I didn't get that job, by the way. The immediate proximity): 'job' and 'application' application was in too late.' The words collocate quite strongly, whether or not they are adjacent. Much corpus work to date has in fact focused on reporting collocability and patterning, towards the ultimate goal of establishingthe most frequent collocatesof specific items, with information about the co-occurrenceprobabilities of words. This more abstractdefinition is used in this book onlv bv Michael Hoev. who is, of course,a co{puslinguist.
7.6 Colligation Although many teachers are just beginning to incorporate the explicit teachingof collocationinto their teaching,researchis also concernedwith the
more term. coliig (gran parnc pronc respo
Some but fo (direc out, lt
SuchI it has that rl malnti
man)' thanjL
Itisn StruCT gramn betwee degree are pc colloca colloca so gen( we cott Now th exceptl which explana
Instead languag fixedne rts own lexis, n principl are tr)/r generai they are pedagog English. explicit I
Language in the lexical approach 137
a1n of be are rtnt EIS
rep nely lns ual mg lus the
rho
icit the
more generalidea of colligation. Again, there are different ways of using the term. collocation is the way one word co-occurs with another word, colligation is the way one word regularly co-occurs with a particular (grammar) pattem, so, for example some verbs typically occur with a particular tense, or a noun might typically appear preceded by a personal pronoun, rather than an article (pass my/your driving test, It's my/your/our responsibilityto . . . , bil I'il take the responsibilityfor . . .). Sornedescriptivelinguists use the term 'colligation'not for word + pattern, but for the more generalpattern + pattern. An example is (verb of motion) + (directional particle), which covers all combinations such as run away. rush out, hurry down etc. Such terminology and researchmay seema long way from the classroom,but it has a serious,classroom-orientated purpose.It is now generallyaccepted that the separationof vocabulary from grammar was an artificial one, and maintaining it causesa greatdeal of confusion and, more importantly, means many interesting and helpful featuresof how words are actually used- rather thanjust 'what they mean'- are overlooked. It is now generally acceptedthat languagedoes not consist of a few ,big' structures with slots which are filled with individual words. The whole grammar/vocabularydichotomy is invalid. All language lies on a specrrum between what is fixed and what is variable, and there are many different degreesof fixednessand, corespondingly, different degreesof generalisation are possible. colligation generalises beyond the level of individual collocations, so a bunch of grapes/bananas/flowers ate three separate collocations, but the last one can be generalisedto a bunch of (flowers), and, so generatea bunch of roses/daffodils/(anyother kind offlower). In general, we commit (crimes), and until quite recently suicide was a crime in Britain. Now the law has changed,so the collocation commit suicide has become an exceptionto the colligation commit (crime).It is just this kind of fossilisation which produces idioms which, over long periods, seem to defy ,logical' explanation. Instead of a few big structures and many words, we now recognise that languageconsistsof many smallerpatterns,which exhibit varying degreesof fixednessor generalisability,eachbasedon a word; in a sense,eachword has its own grammar.It is this insight - that languageconsistsof grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised grammar - which is the single most fundamental principle of the Lexical Approach. It is within this framework that researchers are trying to find accurate descriptions of English. obviously, the more generalisablethe patterns they find are, the more useful, at least in principle, they are. But teachersare right to be a little suspicious,for description is not pedagogy.It is not self-evidentthat the best, most accuratedescriptionof English, will be the most pedagogicallyusefur, any more than the fullyexplicit scientific descriptionsprovided by relativity and quantum mechanics
138
Language in the lexical approach
would be appropriateto school scienceclasses.On the other hand, science teachersneed to be aware of these great theories, and of how and why the content of their classesrepresentsparticular simplifications of them.
Th To Th
Language teachersneed to accept and fully intemalise the idea that dividing the language into a lot of individual words and a few big structuressuch as the presentperfect and the passiverepresentsa discrediteddescription of any language, and a dangerous distortion of the true nature of language. The emphasisof classroommaterials should move flrmly onto the middle ground of language,the grammar of words. That means taking colligation seriously as a real attempt to provide insights, initially at least for the teacher.It also meansmaking collocation a centralpart of languageteaching for all learners now. [For more on colligation,seep 233.]
yol
7.7 Other multi-word expressions There are many kinds of fixed and semi-fixed expressionsin addition to collocations. Here, we look at some which may be new to readers but we begin with a simple extensionto a familiar term. 1. From adverbs to adverbials In traditional grammar 'adverb' was (with noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, preposition,conjunction)one of the word classes.Even then it was the most problematical class as it was used as the dustbin for all the words which did not seem to fit into the other, neater classes.As Stig Johanssonputs it: 'Adverbs are no doubt the most heterogeneousof the traditional word classes."It is difficult to seewhy all of frankly, almost, extremely,just, neve4 carefully all belong in the sameclass,especially as they have clearly different functions in examplessuch as: Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. He almost failed, so he was extremely pleased that, in the end, he just managedto scrape through. I never did anything more carefally in my lfe. Adverbs were recognised as having different functions such as qualifying a verb (do it carefwlly), intensifying an adjective (extremely pleased), or qualifying a whole sentence(Frankly, . . .). When we think of multi-word phrases- adverbialsrather than adverbs- we need to have different uses in mind in a similar way: On the other hand, there is a significant saving with the older model. I'll get it in thepost as soon &spossible. He expectedto pass easily, and he did pass but only by the skin of his teeth. Observationof real languageshows our mental lexicons are particularly rich in multi-word sentenceadverbialsthat areusedfor structuring what we say or write, what David Brazll neatly called 'talk about talk', as in theseexamples:
We spe
apt
rter lim
The mol Tea teac alm and caff
simi prep such have to dr 2. Nr
Anne spea spea expre largej 'state
chara the u: This r simila speak
The cl . func . lexic AS
.C
. seml These sort of
Her da separa
Language in the lexical approach
tnce 'the
The above examplesall seemto suggest. . . Tb go back to the point I made earlie4 . . . That may be so, but the point I particularly want to emphasise/stress/remind yow oJ .
ding has any The rund usly also ners
we immediately notice that the first seemsto be usable in both (academic) speech and writing, while the second two are typical of speech and not appropriate for writing. secondly, becausewe are dealing with multi_word items, thereis the possibility of one or more ,slots,whichlay ue filled by a limited number of alternativewords or phrases. The multi-word lexicon is more complex, with more possibilities, and often more restrictions, than traditional vocabulary teaching has recognised. Teachers need to be aware that unless they consciouJy avoid the trap, teaching learners 'new words' too often meansignoring the adverbial lexicon almost completely.If leamers are to have the ability to structure what they say and write, the importance of developing their multi-word adverbial lexicon cannot be over-emphasised. (In passing we may note that leamers need a similar extension to their prepositional rexicon; there are very few prepositionsof place and time, but an enormousnumber of multi_word items such as immediately opposite the . . . , earry in the New year, someof which have a strongtendencyto collocate with particular verbs.Again, teachersneed to draw thesemulti-word items to reaniers'attention,in context.t
nto rwe
t1ve, nost idid s rt: vord ?veti
)rent
just
nga ,or vord )s ln
eth. rich ry or rles:
l3g
2. Negotiating Ianguage Anne williams (Arena,Issue 19) has analyseda substantialcorpus of native speakersdoing simulations of negotiations.unsurprisingly, shehas noted that speakers regularly rely on a large repertoire of fixed and semi-fixed expressions.These have two main advantages:firstly their meanings are largely conventionalisedso they ensureall parties to the negotiation know the 'state of play' at any moment, and secondly,as they are largely pragmatic in characterandproducedasprefabricatedwholes,they free processing-space in the user's brain so (s)he can concentrateon the content of the negotiation. This may itself have a high percentageof standardcollocations which servea similar purpose. Such prefabricated language is frequently used by native speakerswho are in relatively complex situations. The chunks can be divided into three catesories: functional stems such as If we were to . . . , would be prepared to . . . lexical chunks linked to the specific subject matter she describes [which as 'of little interest'.Seecommentsbelow.Ed.l ' semi-lexicalchunkssuch as what sort of, somethingthat we. These last, she points out, are frequently used with interesting notns: what sort of p ercentage/timescare/benefit/discownt/movement/rep io; . Her data, therefore, reinforce the view expressedthroughout this book that separatmggrammar from vocabulary violates the nature of language, and a
140
Language in the lexical approach
makes the conversion of input into intake more difficult. She goes on to discussthe implicationsfor teachers: "Chunks may be prefabricated, but the chunks in my data are not grammaticallysimple: Whatsort of volumeare you lookingfor? If we were to give you that commitment,what sort of discountwould yowbe talking abowt? Even when the language is complex, however, it appears to require little processing- the chunks are simply used additively. The interest for teachersis that if we can teach studentsa restricted range of extremely flexible chunks, we can provide them with a tool to aid fluency when they are focussing on their negotiating objectives. Such chunks are of interestbecause: . They are short and manageable. . They are high frequency becausethey are often invariable forms (infinitives, modals, were to, eIc). . They can standaloneor be embedded,eg Thereis onepoint that I'd like to clarifi. . They combineflexibly: If you were to . . . , we'd be preparedto . . . . They allow avoidanceof grammatical decisionswhile concentratingon meaning,yet do not suggesta simplified grammar,eg We'd be lookingfor somesignif cant movement. . They encouragea focus on the richnessof de-lexicalisedlanguage,eg It's a side issue/ real concent." The only point which requiresa commentis her apparentdismissalof lexical chunks. Her article is specifically a discussionof the essentiallypragmatic chunks which facilitate fluency in negotiations. The lexical chunks are, of course,primarily usedto expressthe all-importantcontentof what is said, so learnersneed an adequatelexicon of this kind too. Her point is simply that all too often languageteaching concentrateson content languageand ignores, or the lexical chunks which all language users, at least under-emphasises, including native speakers,rely on to provide fluency. Using these frees processmgcapaclty, so you can think about what you are doing, rather than how you can say it. [SeeDeborahPetty's commentsp 96.]
Idc Idc
I rh
I v't yoLt
Self will effer then expr lmm are l unna lmpc will awar in thr
4.Cr
Coml studii rtem. groul punct cluste kinds I dort what' in the in the
Anne Williams' examples are taken from an apparently specialisedarea of spoken English, but the Longman G:rammarof Spokenand Written English shows that a very similar phenomenonexists in ordinary conversation.The grammar lists about 100 five-word clusters - seebelow - which are common
The ri conve provid text t)' this t1' for anc chapte if lean level.
English.Most of thesebegin with 1, and most in their colpusof conversational of the expressionsare what they term utterance launchers - expressions usedto introducethe contentof what you want to say.A small selectiongives an immediate feel for this kind of language:
Some identifi Ironica even b
3. Utterance launchers
Language in the lexical approach
l4l
I don't know what to I don't know whetheryou I rhink it might be I won't be able to you won't be able to
I don't know how you I don't think you can I'm going to have to I was going to say you seewhat I mean self-evidently, anyone racking an adequaterepertoire of these expressions will have trouble taking part in natural conversation. Note, too, that the effective use of these expressionsis intimately bound up with pronouncing them as units [as Jimmie Hill suggested,seep 55]. Although presentingsuch expressions is no guarantee that learners will acquiie and use them immediately - on the contrary,teachersare well awareof the factthatleamers are more likely to rely on tried-and-tested expressions even if these are unnatural - there is a strong case for presenting them, explaining their importance, and engaging in a little controlred pru.ii"" - not so that leamers will immediately add them to their productive language, but as part of the awarenessraising which does seemto contribute to tuming input into intake in the medium term. 4. Clusters computers are exfemely good at doing mindless sorting. Recent corpus studies have therefore provided us almost by accident *ltt u new kind of item, the cluster (called lexicar bundles in LGSWE). clusters are small groups of words which appear consecutively in text without regard fbr punctuation marks, or even changesof speaker.Needless to say, many such clusters are of little interest for the classroom,but it is interesting to note the kinds of phrasethat do occur. Here are a few reported in LGSWE: I don't know what I thought that was I think I might what's the matter with how do you know going to be a in the case of the it should be noted that on the basis of in the present study the way in which the extent to which
142
Language in the lexical approach
may not be immediately relevant to the classroom, they demonstrate for teachershow easy it is to be so focussed on the content of a text, that the phraseologywhich holds it all together- what we may call the text*grammar or discourse-grammar- is all but invisible to both teachers and learners. Increasedawarenessof the languageof which the text is composedwill help teachersto guide learnersmore effectively towards the languagethey need to notice, and which will almost certainly be unnoticed without teacher mterventron.
Thr
En
inc are
80(
7.8 Words The single most important insight provided by the new corpus-based descriptions of English is that the whole vocabulary/grammar dichotomy needsto be replacedby a spectrumof pattems which exhibit different degrees of restriction and generalisability.Words are used in patterns which learners need to notice; structures are subject to constraints which were frequently ignored in traditional EFL teaching; the new descriptions mean we need to revise our views of both vocabulary and grammar - words and structures. 'new words' in the same way is a It is increasinglyclear that treating all wholly inefficient way to expand leamers' mental lexicons; indeed, even 'new words' is unhelpful. While learners do need to thinking in terms of acquire new words, particularly through extensive (pleasure) reading, they also need to expandthe phrasal element of the lexicon, acquiring hundredsof useful combinations of familiar words. We have already seen that an adequatelexicon, in addition to individual words, involves large numbers of adverbialand prepositionalphrases,idiomatic expressions,collocationsand colligationalpatterns. Although the emphasis in this book is on the co-occurrence of words in collocations,it is also becoming increasinglyclear that regardingall single words as frindamentally similar is a grossly misleading over-simplification. Words from the closedclasses- pronouns,prepositions,questionwords etc 'grammar', rather than have traditionally been regarded as belonging to the 'vocabulary' of the languagebut analysis of computer-basedcorpora the reveals that these words are not different in kind in quite the way that has usually been assumed. Once again, the traditional vocabularylgrammar dichotomy breaks down; there is a spectrum upon which all words can be placed; how the words behave is a matter of degree, rather than different words belonging to clearly different categories. At one end are rare words - mostly nouns - which caffy a lot of meaning, and which have small collocational fields; at the other end are the most frequent words of the language which caffy very little meaning in themselves,but which are elementsin many different pattems- which is, of course,why they are among the most frequent words.
Ag rev( true coli wor mu( fielc and Do thes of it wor Trar higt
Cor 1.7
the mea is vr
Language in the lexical approach
) for t the rmar ters. help :d to cher
ased omy rees NCIS
:i'
)ntly
15a SVen
dto they is of tan rs of and ls in ngle t1on. than pora . has
The Cobuild data clearly reveal that most of the most frequent 100 words in English are what were traditionally thought of as 'grammar' words; they include as, which, these,our; most.Yery few of the 100 most frequent words are those traditionally thought of as 'vocabulary': time, people, man, little, good.
Tasr We can explore this idea from a slightly different perspective. Write down 10 adjectives that you think are likely to be used fairly frequently with each of these nouns: wit, plea, guest, position, idea. For which word is the task easiest, and for which almost impossible?
A glance at a dictionary such as The LTP Dictionary of Selectedcollocations revealsthat some words have many more collocatesthan others. It is broadly true that the less frequent a word's overall frequency, the smaller its collocational field, so it is easier to think of collocates of more common words. Many nouns which are frequent and which do not themselveshave much meaning - situation, idea, position, way - have huge collocational fields. It makeslittle sensewith suchwords to ask exactly what they ,mean', and even less to ask learnersif they 'know' the word; it is similar to asking Do you know the word 'to'? Although traditionally thought of as vocabulary, these words are more part of the grammar of the languagethan they are part of its lexicon. In each case there is a great deal to be leamed about how the word is used - the collocations and expressions of which it forms part. Traditional vocabulary teaching has largely overlooked the central role these highly frequent words play in the language.
Tlsr Different words exhibit different kinds of pattem, which implies different kinds of treatment in the language classroom. write two or three sentences for each of these words - try to think of examples which are 'typical'uses of the words: telescope,cat; speak, beautiful, strange, sometimes.
lmaI
which of the words do you think are easiest for learners to acquire and which are most difficult?
nbe lrent
Which do you think they are most and least likely to ask vou about in class?
and uent . but they
143
Commentary 1. Telescope.Perhapssurprisingly, the rarest is the easiestfor the learner and the teacher;once the leamer has understoodthe word - and in this casethat meansknowing the correspondingword in the leamer's own language- there is very little more to be said abouttelescope.
144
Language in the lexical approach
2. Car. But a relatively common noun like car is a different matter; it would be useful to introduce it togetherwith some of its common adjective and verb collocatessuchaspowet'ul, second-hand, family, hire, start, (not*begin), the car broke down. Nouns which are more common have larger collocational fields, so some collocatesshould be introduced from the earliest possible point in courses. 3. Speak. This verb posesdifferent problems;it is one of a group of verbs with similar meanings - say, speak, tell. The difference between these does not need to be explained, so much as explored, because the difference between them lies not so much in their meaning, more in the way they are used - in other words their different collocational fields. They should be introduced with a small family of real examples which show some typical collocations and their families compared and contrasted.[Compare the lists on pp 34 and 61.1It is important for the teacherto draw attention to patterns: say (actwalwords) : H ellolThank yoilS orry : t ell John/me/someone/theclass to (do something).The teachershould also provide the 'negativeevidence'of what is not actually possible: *say me/John/someoneto . . . . Say is not followed by a name, person or personal pronoun in this structure (although compareHe said John wowldhelp.) 4. Beautiful. This adjective is only the opposite of ugly in a small range of examples.The oppositedependson the following noun. 5. Strange. Here is a word with at least two very different meanings. Like most adjectives,as soon as it is taken out of context, much of the information about how it is used is lost. Such adjectivesshould be introducedas part of naturally occurring collocations, and possible alternative collocations should be explored with learners immediately and attention drawn to important blockedcollocations.As soonas simple word-for-wordtranslationsare in the learner'smind, acquisition of the patternsin which they are actually used will be impeded. 6. Sometimes. This apparently simple word presents a different problem again.One currently popularcoursebookteachesit on a scale: DVo............. never rarely
50Va........... not often
sometimes oJten
l00%o usually
always
but is this helpful? Write down two or three natural sentenceswhich contain one of neve\ sometimes or always. Now try substituting one of the other words.Try theseexamples: I sometimeswish I lived in France. xI never/alwayswish I lived in France. I've always wantedto live in France. (?)I've sometimeswantedto live in France. SometimesI think I shouldmove. *Never/AlwatsI think I should move.
It sc with sotT teac avol gran violz frust
Thin slmp and c notrc
So, r class in co after learni
One r dealt phras
7.9
Looki one fe the'u
Tradrt that o, many relatec at bes posse roof, t) produc the Kir
M C Ci Ci
frr
Language in the lexical approach
)uld /erb , the rnal ible :rbs loes are lbe ,ical lists rns: is to
'of
not ugh :of .ike l10n tof ruld lant the ivill lem
taln
.her
145
It soon becomesclear that the words are rarely substitutablefor each other without the sentence seeming odd, absurd or plain wrong. And does sometimesever suggest50Ea,and if it does, 50vo of what? As long as the teaching of grammar and vocabulary are separated,this kind of problem is avoided until the learner actually tries to use the language.vocabulary and grammar interact at every level, in language of all kinds; separating them violates the nature of language; it also helps introduce confuslon, eror and frustration into the whole processof learning a secondlanguage. Thinking about thesefew words clearly shows that telescope canbetaught by simple translation, but in all the other cases,some exploration of collocation and context is essentialif important featuresof how the word is used are to be noticed by leamers. so, different kinds of words require different kinds of treatment in the classroom,but rnost need to be met and acquired together with other words in collocations,expressionsor other chunks.words taught on their own will, after all, have to be put with other words if they are ever to form parl of the leamer's active vocabulary. one word above all others demonstratesboth that different words need to be dealt with differently and the importance of acquiring words in complete phrases.
7.9 The central role of o/ Looking at languagethough a narrow grammatical perspectivehas obscured one feature of English of staggeringimportance - the central role played by the 'word'of Traditional grammar has very few word-classes,so it was perhapsinevitable that of was classified as a preposition. Sinclair points out, however, that in many exampTes- aware of the problem, much of the time - of is closely related to the word which precedes it rather than the word that follows it, so at bestthe term 'preposition'is highly inappropriate.Nor is it typically about possession,althoughin a few casesthere is a deceptivesimilarity: the car's roof, the roof of the car. rn most cases,however,this kind of ,transfbrmation' producesbizane results;ffy it, for examplewith these:a breachof the peace. the King of Sweden,the price of a ticket.
Tlsr Make a list of a dozen expressions containing the word of. Can you find different pattems of use? Can you find one particularly important pattern? Can you see why of might be one of the most useful and most frequent words in English?
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In fact, o/is the secondmost common word in English, second only to the. This immediately suggestsit either has many different roles in English, or it has a use which is all-pervasive.Sinclair's corpus-basedstudiesshow that it does have different uses,but that its frequency is largely a result of a single use, unemphasised in large academic glammars, and almost completely ignored in pedagogic grammars and teaching materials. It is the single most important way of building a pafiicular kind of multi-word noun phrase, and therefore central to any considerationof collocation' Most traditional grammar lessonsinvolve patternsof the verb phrase,loosely 'the tenses'.Traditionally, little or no attention has been paid to the grammar (nonof the noun phrase. However, examination of naturally occurring narrative) texts shows that one of the defining features of such texts is the preponderanceof complex noun-phrases: in the managementof financially sensitive Recenttechnologichldevelopments information have demonstratedthe importanceof finding ways of controlling the meansof accessto such information. Knowledge of data managementis essentialfor graduates of any discipline who hope to work in those areas of the economy which currently have the greatestchanceof growth during thefirst half of the next decade. Look back at those examples; does one word jump off the page? The (6). examplescontain 65 words, the most frequent of which areof (9) and the There it is, staring us in the face, the most common word in the examples the second most common in the whole language, hardly mentioned in traditional ELI grammar teaching; o/ is the key to the construction of noun phrasesin English. Sinclair gave a clear explanation of the function and importance of of in Corpus,Concordance,Collocation" The simple structureof nominal groups is basedon a headword which is a noun. Determiners, numerals, adjectivesetc. come in front of the noun and modify its meaning in various ways. Prepositional phrases and relative clauses come after the noun and add further strands of meaning. The function of of is to introduce a second noun as a potential headword: this kind of Problem the axis of rotation the botrle of Port Each of the two nouns can support pre-modifiers' 'zones' As I write this, there is a heated debateabout the name of one of the of London's Millennium Dome; religious gloups did not like the name spirit that zone,so it was changedto thefaith zone.This promptedsomecomplaints
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Language in the lexical approach 147
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it soundedas if one faith had priority - the faith, so the organisershave settled on the ungrammaticalnamefaith zone,although when anyoneasksfor it, they will presumably say Where is the faith zone? The ambiguity, and hence the problem, could have been solved by calling it the zone of faith, precisely becauseo/ separatesthe two nouns so that each is separately available for pre-modification without ambiguity. Although LGSWE rightly points out that noun phrases are made in many ways, and that such noun phrasescan be very long, it also endorsesthe view that different kinds of phrases containing of are one of the largest subcategoriesof noun phrase.Here are a few of the dozen or so types of phrase they list: speciesnouns: quantifying collectives: comparableto genitives: nouns with -/z/:
thesekinds of questions a set of books the brutal murder of a child a mouthful of food They also list well over a hundred short phrases- lexical bundles - which contain of, and which are typical of academic writing. This small selection gives a flavour of how central such phrasesare to this kind of writrns: as a result of as afunction of from thepoint ofview of in the case of in tenns of in theformation of in the direction of in the case of a in a number of ways in the context of the similar to that of with the exceptionof at the time of the at the level of at the time of writing It is worth noting that this languageis precisely the kind of languagereferred to earlier which is likely to be invisible to learners,whose attention is much more likely to be focussedon difficult content words. If they are to write well, they need to add both kinds of lexical item to their mental lexicons. This will probably not happenwithout proactive intervention by the teacher.
7.10 Grammar Sinclair has arguedthat once we have sufficient corpus-basedevidencewe
of this book. es' LrLt hat
Although there is considerabledisagreementabout what categoriesare most appropriate for different purposes,the consensusof opinion among applied linguists is that the separation of grammar ,and vocabulary as distinct categoriesis simply wrong. As long ago as 1990,Sinclair claimed:
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Language in the lexical approach
The evidencebecomingavailablecastsgravedoubtson the wisdom of postulating separatedomains of lexis and syntax.
realis there
In similar vein, the authors of the monumental LGSWE observe in their introduction:
natl\/l
Syntax and lexicon are often treated as independent components of English. Analysis of real texts shows, however, that most syntactic structurestend to have an associatedset of words or phrasesthat are frequently used with them. There is generalagreementthat there is a spectrumbetweenwhat is particular and what is general; single words, sffong collocations,certain idioms and fixed expressions are invarianl, or at least almost invariant, while open collocations, colligations and traditional grammar structures represent varying degrees of generalisability. In other words, we do not simply rememberevery bit of languagewe have ever met and list it; we also sort it in aboutit. Michael Hoey has commented: someway and make generalisations Grammar is the product of the colligationsyou have noted in the language and Sinclair claims: Grammatical generalizationsdo not rest on a rigid foundation, but are the accumulation of the pattenxsof hundredsof individual words and phrases.Implicit in thesecommentsis the importanceof learners meeting large amountsof input which they can use as the basis for their own generalisations.Equally, of course, this view denies that when learners producecorrect sentencestheseare basedon abstract'rules'the learnerhas been taught;the rules are neither more nor less than various provisionaland partial generalisations,based on understanding and breaking down in different ways and to different degrees,input which is essentiallylexical. Grammar often over-generalises Different 'levels' of languagegeneraliseto different degrees.We have seen that words do not occur with other words at random, somewords regularly cooccur with other words - lexical collocationssuch as stronglysuggest,prove conclwsively. Sometimesgrammaticalfeaturessuchas articlesor prepositions may be part of a pattem - grammatical collocations such as take the opportunity ro. Colligations are even more general - they relate word to pattern,or patternto pattern:I'll seeyou (time expression);There'sno need b (asUwarn/tell/remind etc) (John/your mother/me/etc). Grammar sffuctures generalisefurther, but here a word of warning is necessary.We have already met the idea of blocked collocations; although such collocations are grammatically well-formed and could be sanctioned by the native-speaker community, they are not. A sourceof frustration to learnersand teachersalike, they are arbitrarilydeemed'wrong': Wedon't say that.At leastthis is familiar to teachers,but there has been a tendencyto believethat the generalisations of grammar really are true generalisations;Chomsky claimed that a grammar should produce 'all and only' the coffect sentencesof a language.We now
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Language in the lexical approach 149
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realise, however, that grammar frequently over-generalisesin the sensethat there are many possible grammatically well-formed sentencesto which the native speaker'snatural responseis You could say that, bwt you wowldn't. Although these sentencesmay be 'correct', and are what we may call 'potentialEnglish', they do not seemto be part of the languageas it is, or at leasthas been,actuallyused. Many recent studiesof used languagehave shown that some of the long-held generalisationsprovided by grammar are in practice over-generalisations,and that many supposedlygeneralpattems are subjectto restrictions of somekind - the pattem is only used in a particular genre,or is typical of only a restricted set of verbs, or is almost invariably used with, for example, a personal pronoun, occurs naturally in first person sentencesin speech,but hardly at all in secondor third person, or some other similar restriction. Looked at as an actual utterance rather than a sentence,it is difficult to make grammatical generalisations from I'll seeyou tomorrow -varrations such as You/He'll see me/you/him tomorrow, although 'coffect' are not entirely convincing as what people do, rather than what they might, say. This is true of many utterances beginning I'll, where the 'equivalent'with loz seemslikely only if tagged:I'll bring it on Monday.Yow'llbring it on Monday,won't you? The current theoretical position is representedby thesetypical commentsby Peter Skehan(A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning): It is likely that the growing existence of large corpora together with ...increasinglysophisticatedtext analytic software ...will for the first time reveal ways in which there is a lack of regularity and rule much more of the time than previously thought. DouglasBiber and his colleagueshave analysedmany different sub-corpora of different registers and draw the general conclusion that: [These] show many generalisationshave limited domainsof applicability.
7.ll Lexis Within the traditional grammar/vocabularydichotomy, teaching collocation emphasisesvocabularyrather than grammar,but this is the wrong way to look at the issue.The dichotomy is invalid; languageis fundamentally lexical, and languagepattems are arrangedon a spectrumfrom thosewhich are absolutely fixed and non-generative, to those which provide a high degree of generalisation,though usually with somerestrictions. A more'grammatical' approach We may summarisesimply by saying that words are more generativethan was realised earlier, and structural pattems are more restricted than traditional EFL rules acknowledged. Every word has its own grammar; teaching collocation means giving attention to a much wider range of patterns which
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those of any suffound individual words; this meansmany mole patternsthan 'gfammatical' more is a it respect, traditional structural syllabus. In this it avoids approach than the traditional structural syllabus precisely because the problems which arise from separatinggrammar from vocabulary"
7.L2 Collocation and testing than we have It is now clear that any learner's mental lexicon is larger items rather previously recognisedand that much of it consistsof multi-word is true' As this more the level, than individual words. The higher the student's and a know, to Michael Hoey remarks in his chapter,there are a lot of words is more lot to know about eachword. If the size of the leatnet's mental lexicon we than knows learner the to do with the number of phrasesand collocations in ways the have previously recognised,it is clear that we need to reconsider which vocabularYis tested. is being As Peter Hargreaves' paper clearly demonstrates, collocation in element an as boards examining recognised increasingly explicitly by Cambridge the as such assessinga leamer's overall proficiency. Examinations (cAE) and First certificate (FCE), Certificate of Advanced English Proficiency(CPE),nowencoulagethestudyofcollocationaSpartofthe exampfeparation'Here,forexample'a.tresomecommentsfromtheFCEand CAE examiners: Learningcollocationsisausefulprepalationfor[Paper3]sincethese arefrequentlytested....Itisalsovaluabletostudythedifferences trip and between words of a similar meaning such as voyage,iowrney, excursrcn. just an It is in fPaper 3] that knowing a whole phrase rather than to know individual word is particularly important. candidates need and example) for gerund or what structurefollows a verb (an infinitive whatprepositionitgoeswith.Collocationsarealsoanimportant goeswith feature of Part 3. It is useful for candidatesto know thatreach agreementor tell wrth lies, for example'
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Recommendationfor candidatepreparatlon This is particularly relevant to Question 1 [in CAE] in which an extensiveknowledgeof collocationis a greatasset' recognisethe Bearing in mind the enormousvocabulary load which we now in collocations individual leaming leamers need, it is clear that rather than idea' whole to the for the exam, learnersneed a clear introduction preparation -rt they also tt"y are to gain maximum benefit from any languagethey meet, Testing collocations. record and need to acquire the ability to notice collocationis superficiallyeasy,using questionssuchas:
Even betwe gener know
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7.13
Language in the lexical approach 151
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But if such testing is to avoid arbitrariness, simply demonstrating that the leamer either does or doesnot know a particular collocation, stepshave to be taken to ensure that the test items are devised in principled ways. As Peter Howarlh has observed: One drawback (of finding out how many subjects know a given collocation) is the difficulty of establishing the validity of any predehned list of target collocations, since, as many EFL teachers might agree,this componentof a learner's linguistic competenceis one of the least predictable, making it hard Io generalizefrom subjects' knowledge or ignoranceof a small number of individual items. In chapter 10, Peter Hargreavestakes up the question of how difficult it is to test collocation in principled and sustainableways. Teacherswho devise their own tests need to be conscious of the danger of simply making the lexicon seem like a confused mass of arbitrary word combinations. Two possible ways forward are to use test items which ask leamers to recogniseboth acceptableand unacceptablecollocations, or to use test items which require learnersto write either a specifiednumber or asmany collocates as they can for a particular word. Here are example test items of both types: 1. Which of the following are acceptable: My a) car b) health c) income d) marriage e) holiday was damaged. 2. Which of the following contain correct usesof the verb break? a. I have broken my watch. b. It broke his confidence. c. A suddencry broke the silence. d. You said you'd help.You can't break your promise! e. Shall we break the meeting now? 3. How many nouns do you know which can go immediately after these words: a. market (research,price, penetration,etc) (rise, stability,promise,etc) b. price c. football (match, stadium, player, etc) (timetable, ticket, crash, station, times etc) d. train Even with items of these types, however, care must be taken to distinguish between testing what has been formally taught in the course, and more general testing. Care must also be taken to ensurethat the words chosen are known to be appropriateto the learners'level.
7.13 Necessityfor change This chapterhas been about language,and in particular about recent changes in the way we describelanguage.corpus linguistics and computer corpora are
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powerful tools, and regularly produce new, and unquestionably better, descriptions of English than we have ever had before. Competent teachers need to be up to date with thesedescriptionsin the sameway that a competent doctor needs to know about new drugs and treatments. But it is not selfevident that improvements in description necessarily imply changes in methodology. In the earlier years of this descriptive revolution, Henry Widdowson wrote: Swchanalysis provides wswith facts, hitherto Ltnknown,or ignored, but they do not of themselvescartj any guarantee of pedagogic relevance.Guy Aston has pointed out that basic factors such as availability, teachability and classroom needs are at least as important in designing language courses as strictly linguistic criteria. Ron Carter, deeply involved in new descriptionsof the spokenlanguage,has similarly observedThereis a tensionbetweentruth to the langwageand pedagogicjudgement. He goes on to argue,for example, that there may be a case for specially designedlanguage teaching materials 'real' language;such materials may which simulate some of the features of be more effective than real material, or materials which replicate exactly the linguistic featuresrevealedby accuratedescription. In an article assessingthe importance of corpora and the descriptive insights they offer for all languageteachers,Ivor Timmis writes: Where corpora seem to be telling us something about the nature of languageor the nature of languageprocessing,I feel it incumbent upon us to take this on board. If the evidence is accumulating that it is not tenableto make a sharpdistinction betweenlexis and grammar and that speech involves, to a large degree, the assembly of prefabricated chunks, this must affect the way we approachour teaching. Maggie Baigent, writing of her experiencein trying to implement a lexical approach(Modern English Teacher,Vol. 8 No. 2) suggestsvarious activities of both the opportunitiesand and concludeswith a very balancedassessment difficulties presentedby our presentunderstandingof the nature of language: Michael Lewis says in Implementing the Lexical Approach that what we actuallydo in the classroommay not changevery much as a result of our own change in thinking about the centrality of lexis in the languageand the languagelearning process.Unfortunately, to an extent he is right, aslong aswe are constrainedby coursebooksand syllabuses based primarily on a list of discrete grammar points with vocabulary sectionswhich are little more than lists of single words. However,good teachersalways adapttheir coursematerials and I would like to believe in the 'cumulative effect' of small but unremarkable changes in classroom practice which Michael Lewis also hopes for in Implementingthe Lexical Approach.I would like to think that we can bring about a gradual changein learners'perceptionof the language
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and lead them towards greater autonomy in identifying multi-word chunks in language they are exposedto, and making these more and more part of their communicativerepertoire. Teaching colrocation does not mean a radical upheaval, but it does mean a radical change of mindset for the teacher, *irirt proar"", many small changesin the activities they focus on in the classroo-. L"urrr"rs do become better at noticing' storing and using lexical chunks. We must hope that in due coursesyllabusesand textbookswill change and the constraintsmentionedby Maggie Baigent will become less. Lexis the merging of gru--u. unc vocabulary, or better still, a refusal to separate them _ has more to ofl,er learners than any sylrabus based on a limited list of structures and lists of single words.
7.14 Summary We may summarise the position: given that we now have much better descriptionsof English than we have everhad before, and,thatthisrevealsthat many of the 'rures' previously taught are either wholiy pur,iuirv inaccurate, things in the classroommust change- no changer, ", noi un option. This is precisely the position proposed sorneyears ago in The Lexicar Approach, but in a recent article Scott Thombury (Moderu English Teacher;yor. 7,No. 4) complains that The Lexicar Approach does not have a coherent leaming theory. In many ways, this is true and the implications are taken up in the next chapter,but a lexical.viewof languagedoespoint to a numberof deficiencies in conventionalsyllabuses.As Karr Fopper hu, ,o conclusivelyshown,there is fundamental asymmetry betweenproof and disproof; we can never,even in principle, prove general statement, to be true, but we can, often with comparativeease,demonstratetheir untruth. change una p.ogr;rs are based on disproving the currently accepted view, prompting new theories and experiments,which will provide further evidence urri n"i" theories,which in their turn will be disproved. It is not by any meansclear how best to mcorporatelexical views into books or courses;at the sarnetime, teachersneed to be wilring to engagein mini_ actlon researchprogrammes,which the the holy grail of a ,comprehensive l, providing leamers with a more effecti, before. The improvement may be subr changeis not an option. This Lrookis specificallyabout teaching, rather than describing,collocation. we must, then, ask what rnay o. -uy not make material more or less teachable,and more importantly still, what aids or impedes leaming. So far we havelooked at the useof new descriptions of English but, rike Timmis, we shall suggest that there are considerable imprications for classroom methodology.That is the subject of the next chaoter.
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DiscussionQuestions Do you usually teach new words alone, in collocations or in complete contexts?Why do you follow the procedureyou do? Do you think a different proceduremight be more effective or more efficient? Which of the following do you regularly draw to leamers' attention: new words, traditional (opaque) idioms, fixed expressions.grammar structures, collocations,clusters? 'Description is not pedagogy.'What implications, if any, do you think the phrasal nature of languagehas for your classroom?
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Learning in the lexical approach 155
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Chapter8 Learning in the lexical approach Michael Lewis This chapter considers what we know what circumstances learners are most meet, both in class and outside. It intr learning. It emphasises the importanc recognised on many-.teacher trainirrg .oo.."r,' ;"Jil;r;;*'ri"'r"u"t ability to select and direct rearners'atiention to particurar r.i.ra. or exampres ".,,is ideas of syllabus and level. It emphasises the I mor: than once, and, perhaps to the r,e unimportance of controlled practice. understanding of learning suggests real and how collocation is central to these
8.1 Introduction over the last ten yearsor so, the analysis of computer-basedcorporahas given us better descriptionsofEnglish than have ever been availabrebefbre but, as we noted in the previous chapter,it is not self-evident that thesedescriptions impinge directry on the languagecrassroom, and if they do, it requires careful thought to determine-howbest to modify cunent crassroomprocedures.once again,it is herpfur to begin by thinking ctearty about terminology, particularly the area covered by the broad terms 'knowredg"' unJ-:i"arning, and r two kinds of knowledge _ declarative
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and complexity - which contribute tL the overall idea of ,level,. we shall also consider the non-linear nature of acquisition, and the rmptications of feedback for the acquisition process. Fa, f.om unnecessarytheory, a clear understandingof these ideas provides an essential framework for teachers who wish to develop their own understanding. Teachers sometimes dismiss theory on the grounds that they know from experiencethat something works. Henry widdowson trus irsr"o rwo potent challenges ro this posirion - firstry, even if-something *";il,;"* do you know something else wourd not wtrk better? Secondli ,f y; io not know why somethingworks, you may be unable to replicate the success,or shareit
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Leaming in the lexical approach
with others.So thereis a strongcasefor understandingwhy someclassroom activities seem to be more effective than others. Everything that happensin class should be consistent with what we know about the nature of both languageand learning; equally importantly,nothing which happensin class should violate the nature of either. The previous chapter looked at what we now know about language; this chapter looks at what we now know about learning i.n general,and languageleaming in particular.
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It is comparativelyeasyto study what teachersdo in classand specify what particular activities are intended to achieve.It is, however, difficult to know what use learners, individually or collectively, make of the language they meet in class and almost impossible to evaluate the effect any particular activity has on learners' long-term language acquisition. However much teachers dislike the idea, the relationship between teaching and learning remainsmysterious.Some,like Krashen,even questionthe value of explicit leaming. Less controversially, it is clear that no teaching can guarantee acquisition.As Diane Larsen-Freemanhas so eloquently expressedit, we constantlyneedto remind ourselvesthat teachingdoesnot causeleaming.
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We also need to lemind ourselvesthat teaching is never an end in itself; its sole purposeis to facilitate acquisition. Is traditional languageteaching likely to achieve this end? If not, what teaching strategiesare likely to be rnore successful? Teachertraining coulses often examine what the teacherdoes,but if we want to understand what is most effective in the language classroom, it is with learning,not teaching,that our analysisshouldbegin.
8.2 Two kinds of knowledge We look first at knowledge in its widest sense. Two different kinds of knowledge have long been recognised - declarative and procedural knowledge. The first is knowledge that, and involves stating facts or rules the date of the Declaration of Independence,the exchangerate of the pound againstthe dollar, the pastparticipleof go. The secondis knowledge how to, the ability to actually do something- selve at tennis, drive a car, give a short, witty speechof welcometo a group of visitors.
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The two kinds of knowledge are different in important ways. With declarative knowledge,you either know it or you don't; you can rememberit (correctly or incorrectly) or forget it; you need to look it up or be told it, directly or indirectly, by someone else; there is nothing to understand, it is simple information, eachitem separatefrom eachother item. Importantly, the lack of a single piece of such knowledge may be frustrating, or make you look slightly silly, but it will not render you unable to do what you want - if you say Ever since the Declaration of Independence,whenever that was, seventeenwhatever,America has . . . ; or I think the companyhas goed on the
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wrong line this year . .. , your messagemay be badly expressed, but you still, in a more global sense,achieveyour purpose. Procedural knowledge is about global ability; each bit of learning is not added to what you already 'knew', but is integrated into your earrier knowledge, modifying it in some way. procedurai knowleoge rs not simple discreteitems, but, as its name suggests,sets of comprexpiocedures. New proceduralknowledge,once properly acquired,is not;forgttten' in the way we can forget a date or a new word. Lack of procedurarknowredge is likely to leave you unable to do something;if you cannot ride a bike, no amount of declarativeknowledge about how to ride a bike will help. you cannot look up such knowledge,and no one else can tell you or explain it to you in a way which ensuresyou wil|know'it. watching someoneelse ride may help; but in the end, you have no altemative but to get on, try, fall off, try again and, slowly, you will acquire an integrated set of skills which are to do with balance,speedand so on. once you have acquiredthe ability to ride, you cannotforget it - it is yours,part of you. The two kinds of knowredgeare not totally separated,but the ways in which we acquire them are. In the examples earlier, the date of the Declaration of Independenceis declarativeknowledge, why America decrared independence at that time is complex procedural knowledge; learning why in High School rs declarative;understanding why and relating that undersianding to a wide knowledge of American history and politics is procedural. similarry, the exchangerate on any day is a matter of fact; understanding the movementsof the currency market is procedurar;the past participre of go is a simple fact, but understandinghow it is usedfluently and accuratelyis procedural. Stating a grammar rule is declarativeknowledge; the ability to useit is procedural. As this last examplemakesclear,you can 'know,the rule but be unableto use it or you may have masteredthe point without being able to state the rule.
Thsr Can you give three examples of procedural knowledge you have and explain how you acquired the knowledge? How does this knowledge differ from the ways you reamed decrarative knowledge?
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intrinsically procedural. Any discrete bit of language which is leamed purely additively cannot contribute to, indeed is not part of, the leamer's 'known', it is not availablefor use. mental lexicon; althoughin some sense This immediately brings to mind Stephen Krashen's distinction between leaming and acquisition. Learning and acquisition ln The Natural Approach Krashen introduced the distinction between language learning, which is conscious, and language acquisition, which is unconscious. He has controversially claimed that only language which is unconsciously acquired is later available for spontaneoususe. He claims acquisitionis essential,and leaming hasno value,as what is leameddoesnot contribute to what is acquired.We shall examine this view in somedetail, but 'learning' is used only in the senseof what for the rest of this chapterthe term 'acquired' is confined to language is consciouslylearned;similarly the term to which the learner has immediate accessfor purposesof comprehensionor productiveuse. If Krashen is right, formal teaching, which is explicitly directed at conscious learning, is effort wasted. Even if he is wrong, and formal presentationand practice of specific items doesaid acquisition, our new awarenessof the sheer size of the mental lexicon raises immense problems. Any suggestion that 'teach' a lexicon which runs to many tens of teachers could formally thousands(or, for competentnative speakers,many hundredsof thousands)of items is clearly unrealistic. If each of 20,000 items took 2 minutes to teach, that is already over 600 classroomhours, more than the total duration of many learners' entire formal languageinstruction. This new understandingof the size of the learners'lexical task implies radical changesto the teacher'srole. Either teachersmust selectand teacha restricted lexicon - but on what criteria, for studentsof generalEnglish? - or they must adapt classroomactivities so that, rather than teaching individual items, they provide learners with strategies which ensurethe leamersget the maximum benefit from all the languagethey meet in and, mote importantly, outside the formal teachingsituation.
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8.3 Acquisition and noticing The basic position of all the contributors to this book partly agrees with Krashen's position, and partly modifies it (in a way he would not accept). Acquisition is acceptedas of central importance, but it is suggestedthat the conscious noticing of features of the language that learners meet does facilitate acquisition. These ideas need to be explored in more detail.
Learning in the lexical approach 159
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understanding messages,provides a clear starting point from which to examine our presuppositionsabout how leamers do learn - in the loose sense - language.His position is that a learner's interlanguage(the learner's total mental representationof the target language at any moment) is modified by meeting new language which lies on the edge of what the learner already 'knows' in such a way that it is incorporated into the learner's interlanguage so that it is availablefor spontaneous use. Not very long ago languageteaching emphasisedgrammar structuresand to a lesserextent vocabulary('new words'). The fundamentalassumptionwas that you first neededstructuresand, having masteredsome central structures, you would move from accuralebut halting production, to more fluent speech and writing. communicative approaches rightly tumed this system on its head. The fundamental emphasis of communicative approacheswas and remains that language is about the expression and communication of meaning. This emphasison 'communicating'inevitably values fluency above accuracy,so the order of priorities is reversed.while this is unquestionably a step in the right direction, it has one unintended side-effect, unless the teacher is exceptionally careful - it places great emphasison the languagethat learners produce, so it has a tendencyto encourageproduction, particularly speech,at all times, even in the earliest stagesof a course. At the risk of being badly misunderstood, I must point out that you cannot acquire a language by producingit. Acquisition involves taking in new material and incorporating it into the knowledge or skills you already have. Producing language - speech- may make you more confident or may make your speech more automatic or routinised, but that is not the sameas expandingyour languageresources;that involves integrating new language into your intergrammar and mental lexicon. From input to intake
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In addition to introducing the leaminglacquisition distinction, Krashen has further claimed that there is only one way in which learnersacquirelanguage: The central hypothesis of the theory is that language acquisition occurs in only one way: by understanding messoges.(The Naturar Approach). while there may be much truth in this, it is also true that if you wish to turn the languagelearnersmeet - input - into languagethey acquire and have access to for spontaneoususe - intake - they almost certainly need to notice the linguistic wrapping in which the messageis delivered. Exactly what this 'noticing'might involve, and what may help or hinder input becoming intake, is perhapsthe most important of all methodological questions.
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Tnsx Every teacher knows that some of what you teach seemsto be acquired very easily by leamers but some things that you teach again and again still cause problems for learners. What factors do you think influence whether input becomes intake? Do you think it depends mostly on the input language or mostly on the leamer's current knowledge? How important do you think factors such as motivation, tiredness, age or the temperature of the room play?
In this chapterwe are mostly concernedwith the kind of languageinput which is needed. It is important to realise that the input which is used in the comprehensionof the messagemay differ from the input which is the raw material for the acquisition of language. Many applied linguists and most teachersbelieve that, at least to some extent, focussing leamers' attention explicitly on some aspect of the linguistic form of the input is helpful in acceleratingthe acquisition process.We need to examine this belief in detail. You probably make a daily journey from your home to your place of work; the route is completely familiar, and you could give someoneelse directions for the journey. But do you know the names of all the streetsyou drive or walk down? In all probability you know the route, but you have simply not noticed the names of some of the sffeets- they are irrelevant when you can achieve your global purpose without attending to such details. The global purpose of languageis the communicating of messages;but the medium for doing it is language items - words and phrases - which may need to be noticed if they are to be acquired. In normal language use, we are usually so predisposed to focus on the message,that the languagein which it is delivered is frequently ignored, or, if presentedin writing, transparentto the point of being invisible.
Tlsr What sorl of language which would be useful from an acquisitional point of view do you think your students might fail to notice unless you provided guidance?
Experiments have shown that even quite advanced and motivated learners often do not seethe difference between their own effective but inaccurateor unnatural language and a similar correct, natural version which expresses exactly the samecontent. If they do not notice - seeor hear - the differences between the languagethey used to expresssomething and the correct natural version expressing the same content, then that input cannot contribute to intake. Activities which encourase learners to notice certain features of the
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Learning in the lexical approach
161
mput probably contribute to the value of the input specifically from the language acquisition point of view. It is essentialto remember,however, that the belief that deliberate noticing helpsis by no meansan establishedcertainty; the current-uin.t."u- position is that it probabry has at least a facilitative, helpfur effect. Explicit noticing is a necessary,bur nor sufficienr condirion ro ensurethat input becomes ,or?J.::tt
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Second Language Acquisition researchers are somewhat divided over preciserywhat factors influence what part of input becomesintake. There is a broadconsensusthat ranguagethat is not noticeddoesnot b""o-" intake, but there is no agreementon the precise meaning of the word ,rroir."o,. Even in the most traditional grammar-orientated crassrooms, leurn".s acquire vocabularywhich must result from accidentar, or at reastincidental,noticing. For example, while ostensibly studying a structure,rearnersacquire some of the vocaburaryused to exemplify and p-ractise the grammar.Equally, teachers are only too aware that formally teaching a number of *ordr, or requiring studentsto 'learn these words for homework' is not sufficient to ensure that such items w'l be committed even to short-term, much ress long_term, memory. Noticing is not quite the straightforward matter it might seemon first meeting the tem' In everydayuse,the word can refer to both accidentalawareness and also to the results of.deliberate focussing of attention. It is also the casethat sometlmeswe are able to recall what we accidentally noticed, ,'t il" on oth", occasronswe cannot recall something to which we paid a"tiu.rut" attention. Awarenessof the potentially wide mJaning of the word, shoutc mate us very wary about attaching too much importanc! to any particular kind of noticing in the languageclass.As always, caution and an open-mindedwillingness to experiment, and revise our vlews on effective methodology,is essential. Given the presentstageof our knowledge of acquisition,it is likely to be helpful to make learners explicitly u*urJ of the Lxical nature of language (without using that terminology). This means helping leamers deverop an understandingof the kinds of chunks found in ttre teits ,rr"y -""r, and the kinds of prefabricatedgroups of words which are the prerequisite of fluency. This is one part of the teacher'stask in encouragingrearnersnot to break the languagethey meet down too far. Discussingthe value of instruction,of which noticing is a part, Diane Larsen_ Freemancomments: [severalresearchers]have pointed out that explicit grammar instruction will not likery result in immediate mastery of specific grammatical items, but suggestneverthelessthat explicit instruction does have a value, namely, facilitating input.
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'grammar' instruction, they Although her comments relate specifically to Sulelyapplyequallytoinstructionwhichensufesleamersnoticeanykindof patteming in the inPut theY meet. Sorting and describing the A word of caution, however. There is a world of difference between Being you notice? teacheraskingDid you notice . . . ?, andasking What did different from able to describe - verbalise - what you noticed is completely
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giving the (supposed)rules. It would be a tragedy if further time was wasted u"rtatitlttg complex descriptionsof lexical patteflrs,especially when there is no evidence that such descriptions would help acquisition. It could well be that concentrating on such descriptions is an activity which may appeal to teachers, but which is of no benefit to, and indeed may intimidate and confuse, learners.Noticing language helps; sorting it into categoriesor pattems may help (see below); describing the categories almost certainly doesnot. Directing learners' attention Despite any doubts about precisely how noticing helps, it is safe to say that learners frequently do not notice the precise way an idea is expressed' sometimeseven if their attention is drawn to it' Some training in the sorts of chunks which make up the texts they read or hear increasesthe chance of them noticing useful language, rather than many other features which are irrelevant from an acquisition point of view. In A Cognitive Approach to LanguageLearning, PeterSkehanobserves: Input contains many alternative features for processing, and the learner's task is to extract relevantfeatureswhich can then be focussed on fruitfully. ...Instructioncan work ...by making salientless obvious aspectsof the input, so that it is the leamer that doesthe extracting and focussing, but as a function of how he or she has been prepared' Reporting a major study of noticing by Richard Schmidt, Skehancontinues: The consequenceof Schmidt receiving instruction was that what had been unstructured, undifferentiated input (but whose nonunderstanding had not impeded understanding very much) became noticeable and analysable,leading to future progress' In his article (The Role of Consciousnessin SecondLanguage Learning, Applied Linguistics Vol. 11 No.2) Schmidt points out the crucial difference
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163
between information that is perceived and
information that is noticed: When reading, for example, we are normally aware of (notice) the content of what we are reading, rather than the syntacticpecutiaritresor the writer's style,.ihe style of type in which the text'is set, music playing on the radio in the next ioom. ...However, we still perceive thesecompeting stimuri and may pay attention to them if we choose. After a long discussionof the role of conscrousness he concludes(the bold is mine): I have claimed that subliminal language learning is impossible and that intake is what rearners notice. This'requirement of "ottr"io.,Jy noricing is meant to equalry to all aspect, or rungffi (lexicon, lqlv phonology, grammatical form, piagmatics)-,and can u-" ii"orpo.ur"o into many different theories of second language acquisition. ...What learners notice is constrained by a number of factors, but incidental leaming is certainly possible when task demands focus attention on relevant featuresof the input. ...Incidental leaming in another sense,picking up target language forms from input when they do not carry information crucial to the task, appears unlikely^foradults. paying attention to Ianguage form is hypothesised to be facilitative in aillases, and -t;-";""essary for adult acquisition of redundant grammatical features. ...Recent psychologicaltheory suggesrsthat implicit learning t forriOr", Urt i, best characterized as the gradual accumulation of associations between frequentry co'occurring features, rather than unconscious induction of an abstractrule system. rut which they do not understand,but rg leamers toward the input language onal point of view; the more aware text is made, the more likely that the (e.
8.5 The importance of examples Noticing examples of language in context is central to the acquisition of language, which raises the difficult question of what we mean by good examples.
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You arepresumablyfairly confidentthat you can identify a chair whenyou seeonebut canyou define,uihuir,Z Do you think your definition is precise, so that it includesat chairs and excludesbenches,stoolsand other things you might sit on?
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'chair'than othersand Somechairs seemto be better examplesof the category between you almost certainly found while doing the task that the boundaries at what closely ,ilnlt* categoriesare alwaysfttzzy.It is worth looking more 'good examPle'. we meanby a categorisationwas until the mid-2oth century, it was generally assumedthat aproblem-freeprocedure'butitisnowrecognisedasaprincipalsourceof the later work confusion and error in many disciplines. Philosophers,notably Previously it was of Wittgenstein, amply demonstrated why this is so' group of characteristics; a assumedthat all the members of a category shared or class was thus a these could be listed, and membership of the category could be made' matter upon which definite and indisputable decisions the concept of considering wittgenstein demonstratedthat this was not so by 'a game'. What is 'a game'? patience,solitaire' chess'poker, golf, Most of us happily agreethat SoCCer' games. It is difficult, baseball and Tomb Raider (a computer game) are all satisfy all the probably impossible, to make a list of criteria so all the games 'games'' activities the all call to criteria; despite this difficulty, we are happy the members of a The difficulty arises from our initial assumption,that all In fact, a class is classmust shareall the defining characteristicsof the class. morelikeafamily;allthememberssharesome,perhapsmost,ofalistof d e i i n i n g c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s : i t m a y e v e n b e t h e c a s e t h a t t h e'game" ymustshareoneor for with more or the characteristicsto count as a member of the class. between played is it rules, are example, criteriainclude: you can p|ay it, there score' a two individuals or teams,it is played in a specialplace' there is a one result, and a winner. We immediately see that some games' which no implication The criteria. these of more doubts are games,do not fulfil one oI is that not all members of a category or class are equal; some are better 'game" perhapssurprisingly, exemplarsof the classthan others.In the caseof the only criteria all games seem to fulfil is purely linguistic, you play all of themaccording to rules; the only necessarycharacteristicsare collocational! In general,a classis a collection of items all of which shareenough of the list of defining characteristicsto count as members of the class; but some are better examples than others, some of the characteristicsmay be essential, some important but not essentialand some of relatively marginal importance' The most important fact we need to note is that membershipof a class is not the simple matter earlier analysessupposedit to be' In the early days of the Cobuiid project Sinclair wrote: grammatical generalizationsdo not lest on a rigid foundation, but are the accumulation of the patterns of hundreds of individuai words and phrases....The main simplification that is introduced by conventional grammar is merely the decoupling of lexis and syntax'
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Learning in the lexical approach 165
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Peter skehan endorsesthis view when he suggeststhat the more we examine corpora, the more we realise that the generalisations which we thought could be formulated as 'rules' tend to be more parlial or more restricted - perhaps to a particular genre - than has usually been believed. colligations are parlial generalisations; collocationsexhibit pattems,but the blockeJcollocation is an important reminder that even quite modest linguistic generalisations need to be treated with caution. Description of a category - a rule rarely apply as widely as you first think. Learners (and teachers)need to acceptthat the best we can hope for are helpful but provisional descriptions. Similarry,,typical, examplesneed to be given with both care and caution. The languageis more complex, with more sub-palterns than we like to think, so truly typical examples are elusive, unless they are typical of only a very small subcategory. The difficulty of choosingtypical examples,should not, however,be usedto justify inventing examples- as Sinclair has remarked, one does not study all of botany by making artificial flowers.
Tnsr 'As
far aspossible,teachersshouldtry to avoid inventing examplesin class."Do you agree? What justification can you offer for inventingexamples?
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Language examples for learners Sinclair has pointed out that, parado patterns are, in fact, difficult to ident frequent.This is becausethe words ar and what is a good example from on different types of texts. Unfortunately, languageteachinghas a history of inventing examplesto fit the supposedrules.The more we know abouthow ranguag" i, a"tuaity used,the more unsatisfactorythis processseems.It is increasingly clear that teachers need a sensitivity to examples,so they can direct l"arrreisi attention to natural, often spoken,exampleswhich are most rikery to promote acquisition.
Tlsr Write down each of the following: i. a good example of the present continuous. 2. a good example of the present perfect. 3. a common expressioncontaining I'm going to. 4. some verbs that go with the noln exam. 5. some examples to show the difference between speak, talk, say. What makes you think that your examples are good examples?
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Learning in the lexical approach
In doing the task, did you go and find real examplesor did you invent them? After Sinclair's warning, surely you didn't invent them? If you did, what makes you so sure that they are good examples?It is almost certain if you invented examplesconsisting of a one-clausesentencethat they are very poor examples,particularly those which exemplify grammar structures.It is also very likely that for the structure examples you chose untypical vocabulary, and for the vocabulary examples you chose untypical grammar. If this judgement seems harsh, use a computer concordance and compare your examples with their authentic examples. Even with authentic examples, howevet, choosing exampleswhich are the most appropriatefor a particular group of leamers is not easy.You will become better at it with experience particularly if you pay attention to the co-text which surroundsthe language point you are interestedin. The importance of real examples also has implications for what language shouldbe recordedin learners'notebooksand how this shouldbe done. Recording examples From a classroom point of view, we have to remind ourselves that collocations are not words which are put together, they are words which 'build' collocations in the language naturally occur together; when we classroom the process is artificial, the reverse of how language is used in normal circumstances.This meansthe teacherneedsto be alert to the fact that the larger the unit she can identify, and which leamers can be encouragedto notice and fecord, the more likely it is that this languagewill becomepart of the leamers'intake complete with certain grammatical features, accessible for future use. If the intake is accurately noticed and stored, certain grammatical eIroIS afe likely to be eliminated, or at least their number reduced,in the learners'own output. When language is used naturally, grammar and words interact in complex ways; both teachersand learnershave a sffong tendencyto take new words out of context - the emphasis is on understandingthe meaning. But taking words out of their natural context leavesbehind important information, not concerned with what the word means, but with how the word is used. Every word has its own grammar, and, therefore, separatinggrammar from vocabulary is unwise. Sinclair puts the position clearly and strongly: Many of those people who are professionally engaged in handling languagehave known in their bonesthat the division into grammar and vocabulary obscuresa very central area of meaningful organisation. The decoupling of lexis and syntax leads to the creation of a rubbish 'idiom', 'phraseology','collocation'and the like. ... dump that is called The evidence now becoming available casts grave doubts on the wisdom of postulating separatedomains of lexis and syntax'
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Learning in the lexical approach
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167
People are most comfortable in the company of friends and acquqintances, much less so surroundedby strangers;words are very similar. words do not co-occur in random ways, but in pattems which exhibit varying degrees of regularity and generalisation.Around each word there is, in sinclair,s phrase, 'meaningful organisation'.This meanslanguagedoesnot needto be _ indeed should not be - 'cleaned up' before being recorded by learners and, if for some reason the teacher manufactures an example, every effort should be made to ensureit is a natural example which simulatesreal use,rather than an easily-madebut highly artificial EFL example with which we are all familiar. Astonishingly, the best known students'grammar appearsto consist entirely of manufacturedexamples. Examples given by the teacher If teachers find it necessary to create an example in class, it should be automatic for them to create a context for the use, probably following the route from word (usually a noun) to collocation - perhapsverb + (adjective) + noun - to a complete phrase which evokes a situation, and then for the teacher to draw attention to the most typical group of words, including grammatical collocations such as prepositions and articles, which leamers then record. Storing phrasesin this way builds the learners'mentallexicons much more systematicallythan simply learning ,new words'.
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somebody to do something ne generalisations from real-world examples which become abstractions which most of us have never actually heard. Assuming that such generalisationscan be taught as the basis for innovative
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Learning in the lexical approach
8.6 Acquisition is non-linear If understandinginput and noticing elementsof the input sufficiently often are the two defining characteristicsof the way we improve our linguistic ability, there are radical implications both for syllabus specification and classroom methodology.We consider first how the nature of acquisition challengesthe conventionalidea of a sYllabus. Non-linear phenomena The history of science,andparticularlyof its essentialtool mathematics,was, until20 yeals ago, exclusivelythe story of solving linear equations.This was inevitable, as linear equations could be solved by analytical methods, while non-linear equations could not. The advent of computers meant non-linear equationscould be solved and a whole range of new questionscould therefore be tackled. Many phenomena such as population changes' the spread of diseasesand predicting the weather ale now recognised as non-linear; nonlinearity seemsto be nature's notm. Before the computer revolution, mathematiciansproduced idealised versions of a problem so that the equationswefe linear, and could therefore, at least in principle, be solved. Often the answels were good enough to be of enofmous practical use, but, and this is the crucial point, although they were powerful and useful approximations, they wele not accurate descriptions of nature' Mathematics professor Ian Stewart describes the situation in mathematics until very recently as follows: In classical times, lacking techniquesto face up to non-linearities, the process of linearization was carried to such extremes that it often occurredwhile the equationswere being set up. Few askedtbemselves what the long-term future might be for a method which - to be brutal 'Give me an answer!'is the demand.So solyesthe wrong equations. linear theory obliges, hoping that nobody will notice when it's the wrong answer....Today'sscienceshowsthat natureis relentlesslynonlinear. ...So ingrained becamethe linear habit that by the 1940s and 1950smany scientistsand engineersknew little else' Traditional teaching and syllabuseswere linear. Later the syllabusesbecame 'cyclicaf in the sensethat some gfamma.rwas explicitly visited more than once,but this is only a different form of linearity - a predeterminedseqluence, followed by the teacheron the assumptionthat the leamers are following the same sequence.Like the scientists of the 40s and 50s, language teachers wanted a syllabus, and could hardly imagine anything other than some form of linear syllabus; after all, teaching is linear, going from lesson to lesson, week to week, term to term. But what if acquisition, which after all is another natural process,is fundamentally,irredeemablynon-linear?
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Learning in the lexical approach
169
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The simplest way to get an idea of non-linearity is to think of systems in which feedback is an intrinsic part of the phenomenon- objects slow down becauseoffriction; the speedis affectedby friction, but the friction is affected by the speed,which is affectedby the friction and so on. The behaviour of any systemwhich has in-built feedbackis difficult to analyseand predict, but such systemsare all around us, and languageacquisition is self-evidently a natural processin which feedbackplays a centralrole. chaos theory is the modern disciprinewhich studiesnon-linearphenomena, and it provides some surprisescomparedwith classicalscience.Among its surprises is one of particular interest to us - although you may be able to predict the macro-behaviourof a system,you may not be able to predict the micro-behaviour of the samesystem.we can, for example,predict the climate with considerable accuracy, but we cannot predict the weather fbr next weekendwith anything like the samecertainty; the big picture is clear, but the smaller,more local picture is much less subjectto accurateprediction. It now appearsincontrovertible that acquisition is a non-linear phenomenon_ what you acquireis a function of the intergrarnmaryou have alreadyacquired, what you notice in the languageyou meet, which modifies your intergrammar, which affectswhat you notice and so on; feedbackis intrinsic to the process. Even this description is oversimprified, for we must add factors such as forgetting, misunderstanding,successfulguesseswhich were not based on what the learnerhad fully acquired,and so on. If acquisitionis non-linear,no linear syllabuscan be adequate. Sometimesteachingis conductedon the (covert) assumptionthat examples such as: It could have been a lot worse, if it had happeneclduring the night. I don't understandhow it could have takenthreeweeksare assembledbitrby_ bit from a knowledge of bits of grammar such as ,uses of could, and 'understanding the present perfect' but this assumptionis, at best, very questionable A more plausible explanationis that the individual learner meetsa number of could have + past participle examples and understands,or partially understands examples of that colligation used in context. Slowly, an understanding of the nature of colligation itself begins to develop, and alongside this, increasing awarenessthat it can be broken down. simultaneously, the leamer has a developing understandingof other multiword chunks which involve could, and other chunks which contain have + past participle.The leamer begins subconsciouslyto analysesome or all of these;over a period, with both increasedunderstandingand backslidingcoexisting, the leamer acquires the ability to analyse several different chunks, and to syntactisise,so that, in due course,there is a permanentchangeto the learner's interlanguage.Gradually, languagewhich was part of the formulaic memory-based element of the leamer's knowledge is transferred to the
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Learning in the lexical approach
analytic, rule-basedpafi, thus becoming available to genelatenew language basedon syntactisisation.At this stagereal acquisition has taken place. This non-linear model, which is almost certainly still an over-simpliflcation, is much more likely to representacqursition than any linear, oI even cyclical 'everything affects everything else', progression.It could be summarisedas gradual ro ii is as far aspossiblefrom any linear model. This kind of model of in but permanentchangein complex phenomenais curently discussed many fields. In the study of language itself, it is now a commonplacethat when a language is used, it changes; the phenomenon can be summarised in the phraseWhenyou play the 7ame,you changethe rules' As Ian Stewart reminded us, fol centuries mathematics solved the wrong in equationsbecauseit clung on to linear models of phenomenawhich were' fact, non-linear. It now seemsincontrovertible that acquisition is a non-linear phenomenon, so only a non-linear model of acquisition has any chance of representingit adequately.The implication is that linear teaching can neverbe with non-linear acquisition, explaining Larsen-Freeman'sdictum "ong-"rrtearlier that teaching does not cause learning. She discusses the quoied relationship of non-linear systems and language acquisition in an extended paper (Ciaos, Complexity,Science and Second Language Acquisition in Applied Linguistics,vol. 18,No.2). Her commentslargely endorsethe above: The purpose of this article is to call attention to the similarities u-ong complex non-linear systems occurring in nature and languageand languageacquisition. while the value of the analogy 'you don't seesomethinguntil may be only metaphoric, sometimes you have the right metaphor to perceive it'' It is my hope that learning about the dynamics of complex non-linear systems will discourage reductionist explanations in matters of concem to secondlanguageacquisition researchers' Further, learning linguistic items is not a linear process learners do not master one item and then move on to another.In fact, the leaming curve for a single item is not linear either. The curve is filled with peaks and valleys, progressand backsliding' 'rules'often represent As we saw in the previous chapter,traditional grammar similar to the phenomenanoted by gestaltpsychology' over-seneralisations,
'see' the above In order to process information, you will be tempted to diagrams as a circle and a square,but careful observationshowsthey are both incomplete. In order to process information we have a natural tendency to
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totalise, and thereby simplify our perceptions.This is highly efficient, but it ignores details and implicitly assumesthat the details are unimportant. In an attempt to explain everything with a few big generalisations,grammar rules often encourageus to ignore variations which corpus linguistics increasingly revealsare important featuresof how the languageis actually used.In Corpus Linguistics, Doug Biber, reporting the results of a massive corpus-based researchprogramme,observes : ... a finding that is common in corpus-basedresearch:that overall generalizations of a language are often misleading, because they average out the important differences among registers. As a result, overall generalizationsare often not accuratefor any variety, instead describinga kind of languagethat doesn't actuallyexist at all. The kind of over*generalisationfamiliar in grammar is very reminiscentof the powerful, but ultimately unsatisfactory mathematical simplifications describedabove by Ian Stewart.
8.7 Which is fundamental- lexis or structure? Syllabuses were traditionally structural, and later the multi-syllabus was introduced, usually basedon grammar,vocabulary and skills, but our current understandingof languageand learning suggestswe may need to re-evaluate the role of grammar in the syllabus. Our present understanding of the sheer size of the mental lexicon of a competentuser of English is deeply dispiriting from the point of view of the leamer (or teacher) of English as a second language. It seems the leamer needs not several thousand words, but at least tens of thousands of combinations of words and mini-patterns.The task seemsoverwhelming, the more so when we considerhow much languageproductionseemsto be based on memory, rather than the ability to generate from a few general rules. Within this framework it is essential to re-evaluate what is both oossible. helpful and efficient in the classroom.
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It must be immediately apparent that any attempt to formally teach and practise the lexicon item by item is impossible, and any attempt to do this would completely overwhelm learners.Fortunately,this is not what a lexical approachsuggests.Traditional grammar teaching, with a strong behaviourist streak, emphasisedrepeated practice as a way of fixing pattems; a lexical approach suggeststhat it is repeated meetings with an item, noticing it in context, which convertsthat item into intake. Communicative competence is dependent on two parallel systems, a formulaic exemplar-basedone and an analytic one, based on generative generalisations or 'rules'. Scott Thornbury,(Modern EnglishTeache4Vol. 7, No. 4), joining the debate on how best to implement the Lexical Approach, says:
I72
Leaming in the lexical approach
A lexical approach provides a justification for the formulaic, unanalysedffeatment of a lot more language than has been the case since the advent of the high-analysis era. ...Clearly, the Lexical Approachis work in progress...more researchneedsto be undeftaken, particularly with regard to the part memory plays in second-language learning, and whether (and under what conditions) memorised languagebecomesanalysedlanguage. He is correct in asserting both that little is yet known about what turns unanalysed language into analysed language, and that this is an important question.What does seemclear is that any analysisperformed by the learner is basedon inductive generalisationon the basis of languagewhich is already part of the learner's unanalysed intake, rather than formal descriptions or rules. Earlier in the samearticle, he criticises the Lexical Approach: Phrasebook-type learning without the acquisition of syntax is ultimately impoverished....Fossilizationis likely to occur when the learnerbecomesdependenton lexicalisedlanguageat the expenseof engaging the syntactisization processes. ...In short, the Lexical Approach lacks a coherenttheory of learning and its theory of language is not fully enough elaborated to allow for ready implementation in terms of syllabusspecification.
Tnsr Imagine an intermediate learner talking to a native speaker who has no experience of teaching her native language' Now imagine yourself talking to the same learner. How would the language you use be different from that used by the inexperienced native speaker? Which would be of most benefit to the learner? Why? If you have been teaching for some time, do you think you have got better at changing your language to make it more useful to learners? If so, how have you changed your language? Do you think the language you use to learners is very precisely targeted or do you use a rather broad range of structures and vocabulary? How important is paraphrasing and recycling new words and collocations in helping turn the input you provide into intake?
It is an act of faith to assumethat it must be possible to specify a syllabus in linguistic terms; indeed, because of the non-linear nature of acquisition discussedabove,I do not believe it is possible to do so in any other than very broad terms - the input needsto be (largely) comprehensibleand the learners need to be engagedrather than intimidated by the languagethey meet. It is, I fear, difficult to be more specific than that, bearing in mind that learnersin the
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Learning in the lexical approach 173
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sameclass are all at different levels and that they make differential use of any input. This suggestsKrashen is broadly right in suggesting that it is the quantity of roughly-tuned input which is the key to acquisition, and that this is in itself the best we can do in specifyinga linguistic syllabus. It is also worth reminding ourselvesthat most learnersof a secondlanguage never progressbeyond some sort of intermediate level. In other words some of their languageis, and always will be, fossilised- a repertoireof useful standard prefabricated items together with other language which may be communicatively effective even if it contains 'grammar mistakes'. The fact that their syntactisisation processeshave not been fully and successfully engaged,rather than invalidating the Lexical Approach, merely acknowledges the inevitable.A combinationof islandsof reliability'which canbe usedwith confidence [see p 1751, and language which is communicatively effective even if defective, is surely better than anything any structure-basedapproach has been able to offer. Not only does the lexical nature of language and the non-linear nature of acquisitionchallengereceivedviews of syllabus,however,it also challenges many widespreadideas about methodology.It is to thesethat we now turn.
8.8 The lexical challengeto methodology The challenge to conventional syllabusesis based mainly on the non-linear nature of acquisition, while the challengeto methodology is basedmainly on the lexical nature of language. Accuracy and fluency
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Perhapssurprisingly, the lexical nature of languagerepresentsa considerable challenge to conventional language teaching. Traditionalists value grammar rules and accuracy,believing more or less explicitly that fluency results from the ability to construct first accurately, then accurately and increasingly fluently. An acceptance and understanding of the enormous number of prefabricated chunks of different kinds, implies fluency is based on an adequatelylarge lexicon, and that grammar 'rules' are acquiredby learnersby a processof observing similarities and differencesin the way different chunks work. This reversesour traditional understandingcompletely - first you need a sufficiently large number of words and larger chunks; this allows some ('rules'). This situationcontinuesfor a very fluency and somegeneralisations long period, and thoserelatively few second-languagelearnerswho do finally achievea very high standard- that is, they achieve 'accuracy'- do this late in their leaming careers as a result of being able to break down chunks into components,and reassemblethis in novel ways.This involvesboth respecting the generalisationsrepresentedby the rules and avoiding over-generalisations - many sentenceswhich are grammatically well-formed are not sanctionedas acceptableby native speakers,so accuracy involves knowledge of what is
174
Learning in the lexical approach
'ought' to be but, in fact, is not. The inevitable sanctioned and what conclusionis that accuracy is based on fluency, not, as was believedfor so long, the other way round.
8.9 What do we mean by 'level'? Fluency and accuracy have traditionally been seen as the two components '1eve1'.Communicative approaches,which are the within the idea of unquestioned standard in many places, rightly recognise that accuracy is inevitably late-acquired, so learners are encouraged to communicate effectively, albeit defectively,and then to set about improving their production so that it becomesmore accurate. 'proficiency' suggests,however, Recent,more preciseanalysisof the idea of the more proficient leatner uses language which exhibits three rather than two distinct characteristics:accuracy,fluency and complexity.
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The recognition of complexity gives teachersa framework within which to ask How can I best help my learners to improve their language? It is immediately clear that different emphasesmay be appropriate for different leamers. Firstly, awarenessof the phrasalnature of the mental lexicon also modifies the idea of a leatner's level. An increasedlexicon involves different elements:
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. Adding new words. . Expanding knowledge of the collocational field of words already known (including awarenessof blocked collocations)' . Increasedawarenessthat 'a word'may havemore than one meaning,or be usable as, for example,both a noun and a verb. This correspondsto awarenessthat a word may have severaldifferent, overlapping or even independentcollocational fields. . Knowledge of more colligational pattems - that is, greaterknowledge of the grammar of the word, and a correspondingly greaterability to use it fluently, accuratelyand in more complex pattems.
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Secondly, the ideas of prefabricated language in speechand complex noun phrases in writing are parlicularly helpful in improving the complexity in quite different ways at different levels. Improving complexity in speech Modern computer-basedstudies of spoken and written language confirm, indeedemphasise,what we havelong suspected- that fluent speechconsists largely of rapidly produced short phrases, rather than formally correct 'sentences'.This is as true of relatively formal, educatedspeechas of any other variety; it is characteristic of all (unscripted) speech,and in no sense substandard.Many of the phrases are relatively fixed, prefabricated lexical items. Access to a comprehensivemental lexicon of such prefabricatedunits
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Learning in the lexical approach 175
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is the basis of fluency in speech.This means learnersmust be exposedto an adequateamount of natural spoken language.Fluency needs to be based on spoken input, and it is the quantity and quality of that input, not language which learnersthemselvesproduce- which is the basisof an adequatelexicon of essentialphrases,providing, as we have already seen, that the language chunking is noticed. Formulaic chunks have been called 'islands of reliability' by several commentators.Chunks which leamers are sure are accurateand convey the central meaning of what they wish to say are immensely reassuring, especially when contrasted with the intimidating prospect of constructing everything you want to say word-by-word, on every occasion.Initially, then, the prospect of the lexicon being much larger than we previously thought, is intimidating for learnersand teachersalike. However, if teacherscan reassure learners,and encouragethem to seethe value of larger chunks - (semi-)fixed expressions,sentenceheads or frames for the pragmatic element of speech, and collocations for the central information content of both speech and writing - theseislands of reliability provide important psychological support both in helping leamers express themselves within their present linguistic resources, and, equally importantly, as starting points in expanding their mental lexicons. The activity described on page 91 provides a detailed classroomprocedurefor building on theseislands. Knowledge of fixed items also means additional brainspaceis available, so the leamers are more able to processother language,which enablesthem to communicate more complex messages,or simple messageswith greater fluency or accuracy. Improving complexity in writing
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At more advanced levels good writing, in particular the kind required of tertiary level students,is characterisednot only by accuracy and fluency, but also by complexity. This is largely dependent on the writer's ability to construct noun phraseswhich are high in informational content. This, as we saw in the previous chapter, implies the text will contain a relatively high number of nouns, which in turn implies frequent use of the word of, the single most powerful tool in constructingnoun phrases.This is clearly demonstrated by a few sentencesfrom Brian Magee's confessions of a philosopher; rhe passagecontains172 words,including no fewer than 13 usesof the word of Near the heart of the mystery of the world must be something to do with the nature of time. Neither the time of common-senserealism nor the time of Newtonian physics is given to us in experience,nor could it be, since it stretchesforward and backward to infinity, and nothing infinite can ever be encompassedin observation or experience,Any such time has to be an idea, something thought but never observedor experienced,a construction of our minds, whether it be a mathematical
l7 6
Learning in the lexical approach
calculation or an imaginative assumption presupposed by the deliveranceof our senses.The sameconsiderationsapply to space:the space of common sense, stretching as it does to infinity in all directions,is not a possibleobject of observationor experience- it too is a projection, a construct of some kind, as must also be the threedimensionalEuclidean spaceof Newtonian physics...The time and spaceof our experiencedreality are forms of our sensibility, and it is in that capacity that they appearas dimensionsof experience. Notice that most of the afphrases would be entirely absent from or overlooked in regular EFL classes,including those for English for Academic Purposes.Traditional grammarhas concentratedon the verb-phraseto such an extent that the construction of complex noun phrases has been largely ignored. It must be self-evident that for many more advancedlearners, the study of noun phrasesand expressionswith of of the kind discussedin the previous chapterare at least one of the keys to learnerswriting both more fluently and at a greaterlevel of complexity. Competence 'competence'and 'performance'in discussing Chomskyintroducedthe terms how the human mind masters and produces language. Performance was language actually produced by people, and thus subject to empirical investigation. Competence was a rather mysterious ability involving knowledge of the rules of (the grammar of the sentencesof) a language. Chomsky claimed all performance was basedon competence,an abstraction reminiscent of the 'pure forms' of Greek philosophy, and by definition not directly accessibleand not subjectto empirical investigation.It is astonishing that he got away with inventing a supposedlyscientific distinction, one half of which was, by definition, not a scientific concept.(To be scientific,an idea must be testable,and therefore, at least in principle, falsifiable.) At the beginning of 'the communicative age', Hyams pointed out that language was not an abstract system to be studied by grammarians, but a symbolicsystemused by real peopleto achievereal, non-linguistic,purposes. Language was a communicative tool. Both words are important - it is a tool in the sensethat its purposelies outsideitself, it is a means,not an end; the end is communication.If you can communicateanything you wish to on every occasion and do not in the process also communicatethings you do not intend, you may be said to possesscommunicativecompetence.This is a feature not of the language,but of people or, in classroom terms, learners. Communicative competencecan be analysed,specified and form a basis for pedagogicaldecisions.It replaces Chomsky's rarefied abstractionwith a concept which is entirely concreteand practical. We can now go one step further, and ask What is the basis of communicative
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Learning in the lexical approach 177
competence? This is an alternativeversion of the question what do we mean by (very) advanced learners - people who can communicate anything they wish, without communicating things they do not intend. Such learners produce languagewhich is fluent, accurateand stylistically appropriate.This involves the learner having a sufficiently large and sufficient phrasal mental lexicon, where many single choices are multi-word items. Jimmie Hill has called this ability collocational competence.
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As we have already noted, proficiency in a language invorves two systems, one formulaic and the other syntactic, and unless the learner can break down input language (analyse) and re-assemble it in novel combinations (synthesise,or syntactisise,using a knowledge of syntax), the rearner's languagewill remain 'impoverished'. The argumentin favour of collocational input is that it is easier to break down groups and learn to reassemblethem, than to start from isolated words which then have to be combined.As we have already seen,however,languageacquisitionis a non-linearprocess,so any idea that we 'start' with groups, and then 'break them down' and then 'reassemble' them, is very unlikely to be anything other than a partial description of part of acquisition. In the article on The Lexical Approach quoted earlier, Thornbury complains that Lewis does not have a comprehensivelearning theoty, and to some extent the criticism is fair. I suggest,however,that few peopledo. StephenKrashenhas,but it is rejected by everyoneto at least somedegree.It is also the casethat the greatestdamage to human understandinghasnot been causedby thosewithout comprehensive theories, but by those with comprehensivetheories which turned out to be wrong. A certain humility is required - we simply do not know precisely how language is acquired, and no so-called comprehensivetheory is more than speculation.we do, however, have partial theories and evidencethat certain things do not work. As Thombury suggests,we need more research; meanwhile we must avoid turning the limited knowledge we do have into a comprehensive theory prematurely. we must guard even more carefully againstturning theory into dogma. 'Acquisition' almost certainly involves a non-linear combination of acquiring new words, acquiring new multi-word items, becoming more proficient at breaking large wholes into significant pafis (words into morphemes,phrases into words etc), combined with developing awareness- whether explicit or not is a subjectof heateddebate- of the 'rules' of permittedre-combinations and the restrictions which exclude certain re-combinations.
8.10 Teaching paradigms The Present-Practise-Produce(P-P-P) paradigm remains a central part of much teacher training. rn The Lexical Approach I suggestedthe alternative observe-Hypothesise-Experiment paradigm,and many of the suggestionsin this book endorseand expand this paradigm.
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Learning in the lexical approach
Present-Practise-Produceis intrinsically incoherent as a learning theory. Presentation is done by the teacher; Practice by leamers, moving from controlled to free practice under the direction and time-consffaints imposed by the teacher; Production is wholly within the learners' domain. The implicit assumption is that teaching does cause leaming, a view which we have already seenis mistaken. Any paradigm should, as a minimum requirement,statewhat the learners are doing at different phasesof the process.The non-linear nature of acquisition means that different parts of the plocess may be occurring before' after, or simultaneously with other parIs, with different parts of the process being applied by different learners to different parts of the input at the same time. Within this framework, any adequateparadigm is a simplifled idealisation of how any individual leamer may be dealing with somepart of the input in any given phaseof the lesson.However unnerving that is for teachers,or teacher trainers who urge teachersto plan lessons- hence the attraction of the P-P-P paradigm - that diversity is what is happening at any moment in a language class; any theorising to the contrary simply ignores the nature of either languageor acquisition. With those explicit caveats,it is clear that learners do experiencea sequence which may be summarisedas meet-muddle-master. This is essentially the same as Observe-Hypothesise-Experiment.Observe: new languagemust be met and noticed. It is precisely on this point that we differ from Krashen's Natural Approach. Hypothesise: means sorting the input on the basis of appafently significant similarities and differences- as we have seen,this can be done without necessarilybeing able to describe the categoriesor sorting processexplicitly. Experiment: involves using the languageon the basis of the learners' current intergrammar (that is, his or her current best hypothesis),thereby stimulating new input at the appropriatelevel to provide examples which confirm or contradict some part of the learners' current hypothesis. Mastery happens - if ever - when new input serves only to confirm the leamers' intergrammar' Within this paradigm, the importanceof noticing the difference betweenwhat 'correct'is clear'Leamers is communicativelyeffective,and what is formally who believe their output is completely successfulwill seeno leason to modify any of their current intergrammar. Unnoticed deviancy may confirm rather than modify leanters' culrent intergrammar. In addition' teachers have a valuable role to play in predicting problems and providing the negative evidence necessaryfor effective hypothesis formation, as we see when we consider how the teacherintervenesto direct leamers in ways which they are unlikely to use without helP. Teacher intervention The fact that text - spokenor written - consistslargely of multi-word chunks
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Learning in the lexical approach 179
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of different kinds, doesnot stop teachersaskingAre there any words you don,t understand?This question- at least implicitly directing leamers' attention to individual words - is misguidedfor threereasons: 1. It encourageslearners to believe that language consists of structuresand words, and that single words have unique meanings (and implicit within that is the idea that word-for-wordtranslationis possible). 2. rt treatsinput as if comprehensionis the whole story, although as we have already noted, input for acquisitional purposes may differ from simple message-catrying input. 3. It means learners frequently do not invite teacher intervention when that intervention would be immensely useful. considering the first point, nothing done in the languageclassroomshould violate the nature of either languageor learning,and this questionis, as we saw in the previous chapler, based on an out-dated and misguided understandingof the nature of language.It also implicitly encourageslearners to approachboth text and 'leaming'in an unhelpful way. The learners' intuitive belief that single words are the units of meaning and the frequently mistaken belief that if there is a single word for something in one language,then there must be a single word for it in another,means that unless noticing chunks is explicitly taught, learners left to their own devices are likely to break the text into single words or into chunks which are smaller than the optimal units neededto convert input into maximally useful intake. If learnersbreak the text down into individual words, which they then store as individual words, they make re-encoding much more difficult than it would have been if they had storedthe languagein larger chunks from the start. This is also true in the areaof pronunciation; twenty years ago Gillian Brown (Listening to SpokenEnglish, p 49) suggested: There is a certain amount of evidence that native speakersrely very strongly on the stresspattern of a word in order to identify it. It is suggestedthat we store words under stresspatteflls, so if a word of a given stresspattem is pronounced,in processingthis word, we bring to bear our knowledge of that part of the vocabulary which bears this pattern. we are now more likely to speak of phrasesthan individual words, and of a phrasalmentallexicon,ratherthan someone's'vocabulary',but otherwiseher commentsremain valid and relevant.It is very likely that one important way in which we store and accesslexical items is by the ,shape'of their stress patterns. Short phraseswhich have patterns and can be stored with a ,tune,, are thus likely to be more memorable than patternlessmonosyllables. This counter-intuitive insight, that larger chunks are more useful and easierto store than small chunks, lies at the heart of every idea or activity discussedin this book.
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Leaming in the lexical approach
Moving on to the second point, as every classloom teacher knows, it is difficult to move the lesson forward if learners do not undefstand, so understandingis impoftant. For languageto contribute to acquisition it must be (at least pafily) understood.But the purpose of input is for it to become intake, and that in turn, must be available for productive use. The ultimate pulpose of input is learner output. From this pelspective, it is clear that understanding, though necessary, is not sufficient; in addition to understanding the input the leamer must notice the chunks which carry the meaning.Each chunk is a single choice of meaning; if chunks are not noticed as chunks, they cannotbe storedin the way which facilitates their availability as output. If input is to become optimal intake, understanding and noticing the chunks are both necessary (though perhaps still not sufficient) conditions. Which brings us to the third point - teacherinterrrention.Understandingthe lexical nature of language makes it increasingly clear that some aspectsof language learning ale countel-intuitive: phrasesare easier to remember than single words; breakingthings into smallerpiecesdoesnot necessarilymake them simpler, and, as we have just seen, understanding is not enough to ensurethat input becomesintake. This meansteachersneed to be proactive in helping learnersdevelop an increasing understandingof the lexical nature of the language they meet and be more directive over which language is particularly worth special attention. This point was exemplified earlier by MorganLewis[p l8l. When a patient visits the doctor, the task of diagnosis is exclusively in the hands of the professional. The patient's role is to describe his or her symptoms honestly and clearly, and to take responsibility for following the doctor's advice by, for example, taking the prescribed medicine at the appropriatetimes, perhapseven choosing between alternativetreatments,but the choice of medicine, the choice of which alternatives are offered to the patient is exclusively the responsibility of the professional. So it should be with the languageclassroom- by all meansadopt a leamer-centredapproach, encouraging learners to take responsibility for their own learning, and allowing choices, but teachers cannot, or at least should not, abdicate responsibility for the syllabus, for deciding which languageis worthy of the learners' attention in a particular piece of input, which should in turn have been chosenas suitablefor that class.After teacher-directedlanguageactivity, it may be appropriate to ask Is there anything else you would like to ask about?,but the questionAre there any words you don't understand?should be banishedfor ever from the classroomsof competentteachers. Negative evidence Because generalisations may be subject to restrictions, language which 'wrong', may be non-standard learnersmay think is possible,if not actually
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or markedly 'foreign'. It follows that leamersneed to know not only what is acceptable,but also what is not. Knowing the restrictionswhich apply to some pattem or generative rule is an important part of exploring and understandingthat rule. At the beginning of many paragraphs of Michael Swan'sPractical English (Jsagehe givesexamplesof typical mistakes. Some of theseare traditional grammar mistakessuch as *one if my friencl is a pilot, but othersare more like collocational errors: +I oftenfellyeste"rday when I was skiing. *Let's have one drink and then I'Ir bring yow back home. Similar problems apply to collocation; learners need to know both what is possibleand what is not. As we saw in the previouschapter, a major problem is the blocked collocation,the one learnersthink ,ought'to be correct,but which is not in fact acceptedby the native speakercommunity. No amount of meetingEnglish naturallywill provide evidenceof what is not sanctioned, so teachersneed to predict problems and once again be proactive in providing this negative evidence,warning learnersof blocked coilocations, particularly those they anticipate by (false) analogy with their own language.
8.11 The Lexical Approach and the Natural Approach Both of these approachesvalue large quantities of comprehensible input. where they differ is that in the Natural Approach Krashen claims that consciousactivity doesnot aid acquisitionand thereforethat noticing doesnot help. we believe that noticing featuresof the input, in particular the nature of the component chunks of the text, has a facilitative vaiue. Noticing language aschunks,aids storageas chunks.It thereforeaids acquisition,as some ofthis prefabricated language is then available to the learner both for use as prefabricateditems and as raw material for syntactic analysis,raw material for the learners' intergrammar.without guidance from a teacher, learners may miss much that is of value from this acquisitional point of view. Ensuring that they do notice certainlanguagemay (but will not necessarily) help. Both the Natural Approach and the Lexical Approach are in complete asreement that formal practiceof what is noticeddoesnot contributeto acluisition (exceptthat it may, of course,incidentallyresult in noticing).
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If there is such a thing as standardpractice at the moment, it is probably the case that most teachers believe in presenting a particulu, gru---u, pornt, usually a feature of sentencegrammar; then encouraging some sort of both controlled and free practice. opinion is divided on whether some fbrmal statementof a 'rule' is helpful, and among those who do believe rules help, some teachersgive a rule and examples as part of the presentation, while others summarise,or ask leamersthemselvesto summarise,refospectively, after they have practisedthe point in question.Theseprocedures are basedon a number of more-or-lessexplicit assumptions,including at least these:
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Learning in the lexical approach
1. Important featuresof what learnersneed to know are often exemplified within a single sentence. 2. It is possible to selectwhat (all of a group of) leamers are going to learn next. 3. Practising a particular bit of languagehelps learnersretain it. 4. A formal description of a languagepattern helps learnersto seeit. And for those who believe in rules: 5. A formal description of a pattem helps learnersretain the pattem in such a way that it becomesavailable for their own use. It is now clear that all of these assumptionsare either untrue, or at best very limited half-truths. If classroom procedures are to be changed, we need to understand why these assumptionsare wrong, and establish a clear set of principles, the basis for a leaming theory.
8.12 Towards a learning theory 1. Grammar and vocabulary are not separablein the way assumedin most language teaching materials. Observation of real language data reveals that languageconsistsof many more pattems than was previously believed. Many of thesedependon the genre of the text and extend over sentenceboundaries - they are discourse grammar, not sentence grammar. Many pattefirs are intimately bound up with specific vocabulary - they are word grammar, not sentencegrammar. One of the implications of the new descriptions we have at our disposal is that simply lumping together half a dozen examplesof, for example, the present perfect, because they are examples of the present perfect, may violate the nature of language,bringing togetheritems which are not similar in the way the teacher assumes.At the same time, this emphasis on structure may discard information which is an essentialpart of the real pattern. Taking language out of context in order to teach it, may, paradoxically, make it less available for acquisition. In general,learnersare more likely to acquirenew languagein such a way that it is available for spontaneoususe if it is incorporated into their mental lexicons as an element of some comparatively large frame, situation or schema.Presentinglarger units in class,such as a completetext, an episode of a soap opera or a self-containedpart of a dialogue increasesthe possibility of learners transferring items to their mental lexicon within these global organising schemata.In contrast, it is increasingly clear that the tradition of presentinglexis as individual words, or practising individual decontextualised sentencesis at best inefficient, and at worst actively unhelpful. Grouping those sentencesaccordingto somearbitrary linguistic feature seemsalso to be counterproductive, as it in no way mirrors what we know about the organisationof the mental lexicon. 2. Acquisition is not a linear process; at any moment learners in the same group have different intergrammars;different learnerswill make different use
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Learning in the lexical approach 183
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3. Although using language may help the learner retain it, this is not necessarilyso. Using language is stressful - in speech, it involves the difficulty of articulation, working under time constraints, the possibility of error and many other factors which take up brainspacein ways which may make the brain less able to processlanguage,so that it is moved from shortterrn to long-term memory. communicative approacheswere intended to focus on meaning, but have often been interpreted in ways which have emphasised production, particularly speaking, from the earliest stages of language learning. This runs directly counter to what we know about first
learner's confidence; they do not acquire new languageby speaking,but by listening and reading, subject to making good use of the input they meet. successful production may, indeed probably does, help retention, but input not output is the key to long-termimprovementin learners'ability.Successful production does not even guarantee retention, as anyone who has hit a wonderful tee-shotwhile learning to play golf knows. However good the shot was - perfect production - it does not ensure that you can reproduce the performance ever again. classroom activities which ensure that leamers notice input in ways which convert it, or help to convert it, into intake, are more likely to be valuable in the long-term. The Present-Practise-Produce (P-p-p) paradigm is unrealistic unlessthe time frame is weeks or months rather than a single lesson or day. Teachersused to the traditional P-P-P paradigm may feel uneasywith the concentrationin this book on awarenessraising and noticing activities, and the comparativelack of productivepractices,perhapsasking - so when they've noticeclit, what do they do with it then? In this book all the contributors accept that helping learners to notice useful language accurately, helping them avoid wasting their time on unhelpful activities, guiding their choice of materials and activities, and maintaining motivation may be the principal contributions the teacher can make to learners'acquisition.This is what is meant by seeingthe teachernot as an lnsftuctor, but as a leaming manager.Teacherswho feel unhappy with this view may like to consider the way a sports coach operates- it is precisely by accurate observation of a player's performance and the ability to make the player more aware of his or her performance. Sports, like language,involve proceduralknowledgeand the ability to 'put it all together'underreal-world conditions and time-constraints, so that there is often too little mental
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Learning in the lexical approach
processingspaceleft to observeyour own perfomance - hence the need for coaches.Knowing what is important, to that playerflearner,and ensuring that the playerflealner notices what is most likely to benefit him or her at that particular time is a real and valuable role. 4. As we have already noted, understandingthe messageis not sufficient to ensure that input becomes intake; learners can fail to notice the chunks of which a text is made. Ensuring that they are familiar with the idea of chunks, and developing their ability to identify the chunks they need to expand their lexicons at that particular point in their leaming, will help turn input into intake.It is no1.however.necessary to give a formal descriptionof anypattem - it is sufficient that learnersnotice the words, in the correct chunks. 5. Explicit description of the pattems is not necessaryand indeed a great deal of time could be wasted labelling patterns. We can all recognise a huge number of colours and sort them into families without necessarilybeing able to name the families in any precise way. Sorting into finzy-edged categories is both all that is needed,and probably all that is possible.The mental lexicon stores items in patterns; more than the few traditional EFL structures,fewer than a vast number of separatelexical items we know - a large number of comparatively restricted pattems. This is done by noticing similarities - we earlier quoted Michael Hoey's observationthat grammar is the product of the colligations you have observed.Sorting, consciously or unconsciously,is essential;the ability to describethe sorting categoriesis not.
8.13 Summary In this chapterwe have noted severalimporlant featuresof acquisition: . Meeting and (at least partially) understandingthe samenew languageon
. .
.
.
severaloccasionsis a necessarybut not sufficient condition for acquiring the new language. Noticing the languagechunks which make up the text is again a necessary but not sufficient condition for tuming input into intake. Noticing similarities, differences,restrictions and examplesarbitrarily blocked by usageall contribute to tuming input into intake, but formal description of the categoriesinto which input languagemay be sorteddescriptive'rules'- probablydoesnot help the processof acquisition,and may hinder it by intimidating some, perhapsmany, learners. Acquisition is not basedon the application of formal rules which generate correct examples,but on an accumulation of examplesabout which everchanging provisional generalisationsmay be made by the individual learner.These generalisationsmay be the basis for the production of languagewhich is novel for that learner,but all such production is ultimately the product of previously-met examples,not formal rules. No linear syllabus can adequatelyreflect the non-linear nature of acquisition.
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Learning in the lexical approach 185
for that that rt tO sof nks, heir rnto tem
These factors, together with the lexical description of language already discussed,give a clear indication of the teacher's role - it is to constantly facilitate the accurateobservationby learnersof appropriateparts of the input they meet. Put simply, teaching should encourage learners to search constantly for many different small patterns,rather than repeatedlypractising the few large patternsof traditional grammar.This servesto remind us that, as we saw in the previous chapter, the Lexical Approach is in important ways more grammatical - that is, pattern-centred - than traditional structural syllabuses.
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Is there one idea in this chapter which is new for you and with which you strongly agree? Is there one point aboutwhich you stronglydisagree? How often, in your experience,do leamershave to meet a new bit of language before you can be fairly sure they will have acquired it? What role, if any, do you think controlled practices,particularly of grammar points, play in aiding acquisition? Thinking of your own teaching, to what do you think you will give a) more b) less emphasisas a result of reading this chapter?
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Materials and resources
Chapter9 Materials and resourcesfor teaching collocation
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Michael Lewis This chapter explores the importance of choosing texts with the right type of collocational input for particular groups of learners. It also provides a simple introduction to language corpora and concordancing for teachers new to these tools. Although recommending the use of real data, it suggestscaution is needed, particularly if learners are to be exposed to raw data. Finally' the chapter comments briefly on dictionaries, particularly collocation dictionaries, as a resource for learners.
9.1, Choosing texts Collocation is to be found in texts of all types, but different kinds of text have radically different collocational profiles, so two of the teacher's most important skills in the teaching of collocation are choosing the right kinds of text, and then guiding the leamers' attention so that they notice those items likely to be of most benefit in expandingthose particular leamers' lexicons. In general, fewer words of written English are needed to expressthe same content than are needed in the spoken mode. This is partly becausewritten English containsmany more complex noun phrasesand phrasesusing o/such as The choiceof textsof dffirent typesis conditioned. . . . Collocationsof a small number of key nouns tend to re-occur throughout discursiveprose text such as academic writing or a magazine or newspaper article. Newspaper reports (as opposed to articles) contain large numbers of often quite large collocational groups, but many tend to be largely confined to journalism. Although there are motivational advantagesto using stories, narratives such as novels or readers are much less collocationally dense, so the use of narrative texts is often an inefficient way of expanding learners' mental lexicons. Speech,naturally richer in semi-fixed expressionsand multi-word adverbials, contains comparatively few of the verb + (adiective) + noun combinations which learnersneed if they are to write essaysor reports, and indeed recent research (see particularly the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English - referred to below as LGSWE) suggestsmajor differencesnot only between speech and writing, but between different genres of speech, or different geffes of writing. If learnershave immediate specific needs,far from needing a 'balanced' diet of different types of text, the texts to which they are exposed should be skewed in the direction of their needs. For learners of general English, a balance of different text-types is of major importance in
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Materials and resources lg7
building their mental rexiconsin a balancedway; no one .type, of English is remotely adequateto representthe whole. when choosing texts for leamer_ input, it is important to choosenot only from an interestpoi.rt of ui"*, but also for linguistic, and specificallycollocational,reasons.
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Readeachof the following texts and: . Ask what kind of text it is. . Underlineany items which you think are probably storedand producedasmulti-worditems. . Now, refine that selectionto include only thoseitems suitablefor drawingto the attentionof a particularclassthat you know well. Text 1
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Hoverspeedretail director David King said: .,with duty rates on alcohol and tobacco continuing to rise in the uK, the market for cross-channel shopping is growing all the time. our first store in Scandinaviaalso demonstrates that we will be looking to expand in other markets where differential tax regimes continue to provide a major incentive for travel retail opportunities.', If duty-free sales are abolished within the EU next year, the firm plans to accelerateits expansion into shops located near ports. plans for outlets in ostend' Belgium and Fredrikshavn,Denmark are already well-advanced, and the company expectsto expand its retail operation, with additional outlets in Calaisand Dieppe. Text2 It was a bitter winter. The stormy weather was followed by sleet and snow, and then by a hard frost which did not break till well inio February. The animals carried on as best they could with the rebuilding of the windmill, well knowing that the outside world was watching them and that the envious human beings would rejoice and triumph if the mill were not finished on time. Text 3 The key to understandingthe modem analysis of advertising is to understand its functions as a purveyor of messagesand information. it is important to distinguish between adverts which provide specific information and those 'image adverts' which present what may be termed non-informational messages.Specific information may relate to price, physical characteristics or other aspects of goods or services mentioned. Such adverts are obviousry information-providing. some adverts, however, such as Marlboro Man, are not generally perceivedas providing information except in the broadestsense, but they may still have an important role to play in the marketplace, particularly in relation to the competitive process.
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Materials and resources
Text 4 After an unsuccessfulattempt to win the vice-presidentialnomination on the ticket of Adlai Stevensonin 1956, Kennedy beganto plan for the presidential election of 1960. He assumedthe leadershipof the Democratic party's liberal wing and gathered around him a group of talented young political aides, including his brother and campaign manager,Robert F. Kennedy.He won the nomination on the first ballot and campaigned with Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas as his running mate, against Vice-President Richard E. Nixon, the Republican nominee. The issues of defense and economic stagnationwere raised in four televised debatesin which Kennedy's poised and vigorous performancelent credenceto his call for new leadership.
9.2 Genre If you instantly identified theseextracts,it can only be becausedifferent types of text - genres - have markedly different linguistic profiles, even if it is difficult to say exactly what makes the profiles different. If learners are to acquire effective and balanced mental lexicons, the range of types of input text to which they are exposedis clearly of great importance. Text 1, with its mixture of reporting and quotation, luseof job + name- retail director David King - and explicit detail, is typical of newspaperreporting. Text 2 is a shofl paragraph from Animal Farm. I am indebted to Chitra Femando for drawing attention in ldioms and ldiomaticiQ to something George Orwell wrote in 1946 in Politics and the English Language: This invasion of one's mind by ready-made phrases (lay the foundations, acquire a radical transfonnation) canonly be preventedif one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetises a portion of one's brain. Considering Orwell's strictures about the use of clich6, it is amusing to note that in as unusual a work as Animal Farm he cannot avoid collocations and fixed expressions:bitter winter, stormy weathet a hard frost, carried on as best they could, the outside world, finished on time. The point is simply that theseitems, despite apparently consisting of severalwords, are in fact single choices in any mature native speaker'smental lexicon - even Orwell's. In short, there is no other convenientway of expressingtheseconcepts,however 'creative'you may wish (or claim) to be. Even the famouslycreativeopening line of l9B4: It was a bright, cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen, while undoubtedly creative, is based on the collocation the clock struck. Collocation is a feature of all kinds of text, both spoken and written, though different kinds of text contain different kinds of collocation. Text 3 is obviously from an information-bearing, text. It includes: . lexical collocations: the modern analysis of advertising, the competitive process
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. grammatical collocations: what may be termed, such adverts . longer expressions:The key to understandinp. . . , It is important to distinguish between. . . All of these linguistic features are typical of the genre, as are collocations such as modfu the theory. In an article on collocation peter Howarth observes: lexicar collocations of the type transitive verb + object areJ a smalr part of the whole framework, but of considerabre imptrtance from the point of view of the propositional content of an academicafgument. Text 4 is from a computerencyclopaediaentry of only just over 100 words. It contains at least the folowing useful colrocations foi arryon" who needsto write aboutpolitics: assumethe leadership of . . . the liberal wing lend credenceto vi gorows/poi sed p erfo rmance on thefirst ballot callfor change campaign with . . . as (his) running mate an unsuccessJulattempt to win the nomination The samplesclearry show that the language of fiction and newspaperreports are largely unsuited as input for leamers, except, perhaps those at the very highest levels. Factual, information-bearing texts a'e much more suitable. LGSWE, in which fiction is one of the four geffes, crearly endorsesthe view that a simple distinction between written and spoken English is wholly inadequateas a basisfor choosingmaterials; at leasi u, i-po.i*t is the genre of a piece of writing. Factuarwriting, including n"*rpup", u.ticles rather than reporling,is most suitable.Fiction is the least suitable_ it is easyto seewhy. Effective language is a combination of familiar, prefabricated chunks and more novel, innovative combinations created by the language_userfor a particular occasion.The advantagesof prefabricated chunks"are"thatthey are very precise, require little processing by the listener/reader, and comespondinglycarry rittre danger of being misunderstood.unsurprisingly, creativewriting such as novels may contain many non-standardcombinations of words, as the author literally creates character and mood by creating new, or at least unfamiliar, combinations of words. In contrast, in academic writing, where the focus is almost exclusively on accuratecommunication of information' among colleagueswith a shared backgroundin a particular topic, standard words, phrases, colocations and other chunks are an essentiar prerequisite for effectivecommunicalion.
9.3 Subject-specificIanguage Everyone who changesjobs or has to read in an unfamiliar disciprine quickly realisesthat every discipline has subject-specific language.Sometimessuch
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Materials and resources
'jargon'but in fact it is a preciseand languageis dismissivelycharacterised as necessarytool for anyone who uses English for a specific purpose; such language should be criticised only if used to non-specialists.The following specification of businessgoals and strategiesfrom a company document is in no sense jargon, but note that the whole content of both the goals and strategiesis expressedin 2- or 3-word collocationswhich are both concise and precise. Goals Increaseprofit margins Improve cashflow Reduce overheads
Strategies Introduce more added-valueproducts Tighten credit terms; reduceaveragecollection period Review stock levels; outsourceseruices
Put simply, it is clear that no amount of English literature will help you write 'academic a good paperin economics,and,lessobviously,a coursein general English' will be of very limited use to studentswho have to read and write in a particular academicdiscipline. In a fascinating paper at TESOL Intemational1999, Patricia Watts described the difficulties of teaching studentsfrom different cultural backgrounds the useof sourcematerial'in your field in the US'. Firstly, sherecognisesthat the conventionsdiffer from subjectto subject; secondly,that the conventionsmay be US-specific. Two other obserrrationsare, howevet, of particular interest. Shepoints out that in her experiencenon-US studentshave a sffong tendency to over-quotation, so their assignmentsare dominated by source materials rather than the student's own ideas. Fufihermore, that what is plagiarism in one culture may be a compliment in another- as one of her studentsobserved: In my country it is a complimentto the author to usesomeone'sexactwords. Most interestingly from our point of view, however,is the observationthat all learnershave trouble introducing quotation or citation. This is becausethey have a wholly inadequate repertoire of the kind of fixed and semi-fixed expressions which are used in these - often subject-specific - academic genres;it is a highly specific lexical, collocational deficiency. SvetlanaTer-Minasova(Language,Linguisticsand Lfe) observes: Teaching communication for special purposes must be based on the previous linguistic analysis of special texts resulting in recommendations for teaching those grammar forms and structures which are most characteristicof thesetexts. The store of units of this kind (prefabricated blocks) form a certain stable system of linguistic means which are constantly in use in the processof scientific communication, which form a sharedcode of the participantsof the communication. Despite the difficulties faced by applied linguists in Russia, particularly during the Soviet period, they recognisedlong before EFL in the West that the
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conceptof 'academicEnglish'might be no more than a language-teachers' fiction, and that something more specific to the kind of texts studentsof a particular discipline met regularly, may be required. The time when teacherswere restricted by the texts in their text books has long gone. It is now easy and cheap to find material which will presentfully contextualisedexamplesof collocations relevant to writing about a particular subject.As Michael Hoey points out in detail, any factual text is a disguised concordanceof someof its key words; such texts are now readily availableon almost any subject,at the click of a mouse [Seebelow].
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Although the idea of collocation in linguistics goes back at least 60 years, much of the current interest for languageteachersbegan about 1990 with the pioneering work of John Sinclair and his team at Cobuild. Sinclair describes the background to this work in Corpus, Concordance, Collocation and the three ideasare closely linked. All three are well worth exploring in the context of teaching collocation; they provide potentially powerful tools for the language teacher, but unless used with proper discrimination, there are potential pitfalls which may confuse rather than help leamers. Corpus size and balance Cobuild's purpose in developing the first really substantial computer-based corpus of real texts, both spoken and written, was lexicographic - to make a data-driven dictionary, where every example was taken from the corpus as a fully attestedexample of 'real English'. It was essentialto build a cotpus which was sufficiently large to give useful information about rarer words. In addition, many rarer words are almost exclusively confined to the written language,so large amounts of written data were neededif the corpus was to provide adequateevidenceof the use of such words. Other publisherslater establishedtheir own corpus-based projects,usually as a basis for their own dictionaries. Any corpus which is to be used to define and exemplify words in a dictionary, needsto be very large - at least several million words - if it is to provide sufficient examplesof rarer words to ensure that its information and examples are both comprehensiveand typical. This 'based has lead to publishersproclaiming on a corpusof x million words' as part of their promotional material. This has left many people with the impression that the larger the cotpus, the better the information it provides. While this may be true if your purpose is lexicographic, from a language teaching perspective,this is, at best, a rather misleading half-truth. The primary purpose of such massive corpora was to be the basis of descriptionsof English which in turn would form the basis of comprehensive referenceworks. It is the purposefor which they were devised,and this alone, which meant the corpora neededto be so large.
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Materials and resources
In a similar way, the lexicographic corpora are often describedas 'balanced', but a moment's thought reveals how careful the reader needs to be when coming across the term. It is again essential to ask for what purpose the corpus was designed; any idea of 'balance' is intimately bound up with the purpose.Supposethat 90% of all English produced is spoken and l)Vo is written; how should a balancedcorpusbe designed?Perhaps90% spokenand 70Vowritlen to mimic the relative frequency of the two modes of language use? Or would 50Vo-50Vobe a better balance so each mode is equally represented?If you want a balanced cor?us of spoken English, how would you decide on the relative proportions of, say, informal conversation,formal lectures and business meetings; and what about the age groups to be represented?Corpora need to be constructedfor specific purposes,and for languageteaching purposesa huge balancedcorpus is, surprisingly perhaps, often not the most appropriate,as Biber points out below. In 1990, in Corpus, Concordance,Collocation Sinclair statedunequivocally: We are at a very primitive stage of understandingthe character of corpora. Since then, considerable progress has been made and small scale corpora investigating particular genres,or comparativecorpora such as those used as the basisfor LGSWE have been developedand analysed.What is essentialfor language teachers,however, is an understandingthat only when the corpus, the way it is analysedby the software and the purpose for which it is being used are 'in harmony', willit be the powerful tool it can and shouldbe.
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Corpora for learners Learners are not amateur applied linguists and raw unedited corpus data is likely to overwhelm many ordinary learners. If teachers are going to use cor?us data with their leamers, they may need to edit by making a suitable selection of examples. At the same time, they must not edit the examples they do include. The whole point of using naturally occuring examplesis to ensurethatthe examplesreally are examplesof how the word is used; editing or 'cleaning up' destroys the value of using corpus-basedevidence.The difficulties of choosingexampleswas discussedearlier.[seep 163] One warning is necessary whenever you are reading about corpus-based evidence.In the talk at the 1998 IAIEFL conferenceon which Chapter 11 is based, Michael Hoey consistently said: My corpws shows On one occasion he explicitly reminded the audience and in my corpus - it is important to emphasise that it is only the evidence of my cotpus Unfortunately few lecturers or authors are as careful as this. A typical (deliberatelyanonymous)example is: . . . will show a simple numerical listing of the most commoncollocations of the word you are interestedln. This quote is taken from a serious commentary on corpus-based materials. I have explored the materials in question, and can assurereadersthat they did not provide 'the most common collocations' of the words I was interestedin. A
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Materials and resources 193
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194
Materials and resources
Think of the subjectmattel - chemistsregularly describeprocessesunder the conffol of the experimenter,while studentsof fine alt tend to describe longterm historical plocessesoutside the control of any individual; a supelficial functional similarity - describing plocesses- masks a significant difference of lexical and glammatical content. Such differences are reflected in the languagewhich is typical of the particular discipline, so the differencesfrom subject to subject are much more important than previously recognised.
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This question can now be investigated empirically. All that is needed is a comparatively small computer-basedcorpus of the kind of texts the chemistry studentswill need to understandor produce during their course, and a similar corpus for the fine arts students. Both corpora can be balanced to take account of what the students will need to do - read academictexts, attend lecturesin their special subject,write an extendeddissertationor whatever.A concordancingploglam will then reveal in a matter of minutes, the words the learnersmost need and the patterns in which those words typically occur in texts related to the particular subject. It will also reveal whether the needs 'academic of the two groups of studentscan be best met using general English' materials or whether the groups would benefit considerably more from materials particular to their own field of study'
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Biber and his colleaguesleport just such a study, comparing researcharticles in ecology and history. They introduce the results by commenting: To this point, the analyses in this book have made use of existing corpora to analyzegeneralregister categories,such as conversationand academicprose. For studies in ESP, however, a broad sample of texts from academicprose is too general. Their analysis shows that both academic article-types differ considerably from general fiction, and both share certain features compared with fiction, but it also revealsmany important linguistic differences,for example: history articles are more narrative than ecology articles. This meanshistory texts use more past tenses and ecology articles mole plesent simples (for stating generalisations).Ecology articles use mole impersonal style, but certain parts of history articles also use impersonal style. Their analysis reveals many more details, but in summary it shows that good ESP coursesdo need 'academic English' is indeed a language to be subject-specific,and that teachers'fiction. It would be professionally incompetentto offer studentsstudying English for specific or academic purposes a diet of general English. It is equally incompetent (though, sadly,it remains not uncommon) to offer them material 'popular' science, archaeology or whatever. A from magazines devoted to decadeor more ago John Sinclair statedunequivocally:At present,selections tof ESP textsl are made on an intuitive basis, and there is no guarantee that afragment of a text is representativeof the book or paper it camefrom. Quite
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Materials and resources 195
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often, what appears to be introductory motter is offered as typical technical text-He was criticising the useof introductoryratherthan bodj text, precisery becausethe two are linguisticalry so different. It is seriously worrying to find that, a decadelater, popular joumalism on academicsubjeciswhich is even more different from real academic writing than the introductory part of an academic article - is being offered to students of a disciprine as suitabre preparationfor their studiesof authentic discipline-specific Lxts. Professor Steve Jones who is both a highly esteemed scientist and a regular contributor of scientific articles to the Daily Telegraph newspaper,advises competitors (Daily Teregraph,Dec g 1999) in the paper's competition for young writerson science: The rules of sciencewriting differ utterly from those of writing about science. To a scientist, alr that matters is to convince an audience trained to pick holes in his argument.Every sentence must be weighed not for style, but for accuracy, every "if' matched with a ..but,,. Tersenessis all and elegancemuch frowned on. ...Writing about sciencedemandsskills that most of the subject'sactuar practitioners neverbolherto acquire. An expert at both sciencewriting and writing about science,he makes clear that the two genresare radically different. Any teachers temptedto use writing about scienceas input material for sciencestudents need to ensurethat they use authentic sciencewriting instead.It should now be abundantly clear that the only suitable material for such studentsis material which resembres as closely as possibre the kind they will have to understand or produce themselves. Focus on osub-technical'collocationfor ESp learners Mark Powell has pointed out, from extensiveexperience with learners with specialistbackgrounds,thal they frequently know the technical vocabulary of their subject in English, but may welr not know the sub-technical vocabulary. This means medicar students who know cardio-vascurar and.antcyrosing spondylitis may not know collocational items such as straighten your arm, easethepairz.They may alsoneedto be wamed of impossible collocatessuch as *trecttthepain. This sub-technicalvocabulary lies between generalEnglish and the technical vocabulary of a particular specialis-, Jrd is of great importance to ESP learners,as it is precisery this ranguage which they need to communicateabout their speciarismto non-specialists, such as patients, supplieror customers. Building a corpus for your learners The solution to the ESp teachers'problem is nowadays rerativeryeasy.A comparatively small corpus consisting of research articles in the same discipline can be gatheredby asking departmentalmembers to supply a recent
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Materials and resources
paper on disk. As little as a dozenarticles will probably reveal key words, and some of their most common collocates in that genre' and thus provide an excellent basisfor expansion.This can be done by the teacherproviding other collocates, with the help of a lafger, mole general, corpus, a collocation dictionary, or conscious scanning of other subject-basedmaterial. Later, studentscan add further examplesfrom their subject-specificreading. While searchingthe intemet for material on the Lexical Approach, I found a site listing prepositional phrasesfrom a colpus of material on fine art. Again' a brief sample demonstrateshow useful a relatively small subject-specific coryus can be in identifying languagethat studentsof that subject will need: IN in common,in comparisonto, in contrastto, in ffict, in private, in progress, in search of, in stYle
fil
rh qr
Sr H
ea
SO
CC
to 1o l^
utr
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ON attentionon, debateon, ffict on, emphasison, eyeon,focus on, impact on, influenceon, relianceon, sectionon, serieson, on display, on exhibition, on show, on loan Such languagewill probably not be noticed by learnersin their reading unless they have been trained to recogniseits importance for their own wdting. It is also clear that many of the items would have benefited by being quoted with one or two more words of the original context. It is a good maxim to rememberthat there are more chunks than you think, and the chunks are often bigger than you first think. If learners of general English have a particular interest, it is comparatively easyto download a reasonablequantity of text relating to that interestto form a small corpus, and then use the sametechniquesto provide a core lexicon of wofds, collocations and expressionsrelevantto both the particular subject and the particular leatner. In time, learners can be trained to do this themselves. 'vocabularyteaching'which equipsleamersto expandtheir Here is a kind of individual mental lexicons in a way which is relevant, personal and a skill which can be taken away as a tool for life.
Fa pal c7a of are dlc
1nc
sat,
Caution is needed with raw data
Tei
A corpus provides incontrovertible evidenceof language which has actually been used but such data needs to be interpreted and used with caution, particularly when used for language teaching. If teachers are going to encoulageleamersto use corpora themselves,training and evenmore caution are both needed.One principle of enormousimportance is that teachersmust become so familiar with authenticexamplesthat they can selectout unhelpful examples - however interesting or amusing these might be to the teachers themselves- and direct their learners' attention to a selection of authentic examples chosen with a particular pedagogic purpose in mind. By all means introduce learners to authentic examples, but select such examples
SAI
m0
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Materials and resources 197
and ean )ther
first, so leamerscan explore without being overwhelmed.Avoid 'cleaning up' the examplesyou do select and, above all, do not present learners with vast quantities of unedited data without careful preparationover a period of time.
rtlon ater,
Sorting a corpus
nda Ialn, cific eed:
nless It is with mto rften ively form cn of t and :lves. their skill
ually rtlon, lg to ut10n
must dpful chers Lentic ly all nples
Having assembleda co{pus, it needsto be sorted to provide evidenceof how each word is actually used. This posestwo problems - what do we mean by 'each word' of the language,and how do we carry out the immense task of sorting a corpus? The second task only became feasible with the advent of computerswith sufficiently large memoriesand sufficient processingcapacity to sort a huge amount of data. The computer still needsto be programmed to locate and list together every occurrenceof a particular word, which involves deciding what we mean by 'a parl'icularword'. Is hit 'a word'? What about close?Someexamplesmight help: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
The Beatles'firsthitwas . . . He was hit by a motorist who failed to stop. If you hit ittoo hard, you'll break it. If he hits it too hard, he'll break it. There'sno point in hitting it like that - it's alreadybroken. Only close friends of the couple . . . We close at 8pm on Sundays. Bull's-eye?- No wayl You weren't evenclose. He's impossible- he's got a completelyclosed mind. Far from helping, the examplessimply make you less sure what the phrase 'a particular word' means. corpus linguistics introduced two new terms to clarify the situation: the term word form, is used to mean every occurence of exactly the same group of letters, so the first three examplesof hit above are examplesof the sameword form. A lemma is different word forms which are all related to the same 'underlying' word, so examples 1-5 above are all included in the lemma 'hit' and all of save, saves, saved, saving, savings, saver,sayersare includedin the lemma 'save'. Teachersneed to be aware that it is quite possible that different parts of the samelemma may show different pattems, so it may be necessaryto look up more than one word form in exploring a single 'grammar point'. If you look up feel you will inevitably find examples of the present simple, not continuous;to find the latter you will need to lookup feeling, which will also find examples of the word as a noun. corpus evidence of the word form should could be very helpful for leamers, but it is also potentially very confusing unlessthe teachershas selectedthe examples,and in particular has selectedout ('zapped') any exampleswhich will only confuse.The advantage of a corpus is the range and naturalnessof the examples,but that doespresent problems if used without due care.
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Materials and resources
9.5 Concordances Nowadays computer concordanceprograms which find and display all the examplesin a corpus of a particular word are widely available and relatively cheap. The most common use the so-called KWIC (Key Word In Context) systemto display results. Each line displays an example of the selectedword, with the text arrangedso that all examplesof this word are printed under each other in the centre of the screen.Text is displayed on either side of the key word, and often arranged alphabetically according to either the word immediately before or the word immediately following the key word. [There are exampleson pp. 40142.1 Using concordances with learners This format allows the user to explore the collocates and colligations of a word with comparative ease. It is usually most helpful to draw learners' attention to the words which immediately follow a word they have selectedas of particular interest.If the key word is a noun, howevet, it is also likely to be helpful to note any adjectivesor verbs which occur within a few words to the left of the key word. With adjectivesor verbs, words to the right of the key word often show grammatical collocations such as a typical preposition or adverb. It may be helpful to note that a particular verb is always, or nearly always, followed by a time phraseor some other grammatical feature. The two main benefits of concordances for the classroom are that the examplesare always contextualisedand, most importantly of all, Ieamerscan see a large number of examples of the same item very quickly. Research suggestthat we need to meet a new item severaltimes - somewherearound sevento ten times - with at least parlial understandingbefore it is acquired. In normal reading or EFL textbook vocabulary recycling, it may take weeks, even years, before a leamer meets a particular lexical item, particularly a multi-word phrasal item, seventimes. With wisely-used concordancing this can be achievedin a couple of two-minute sessionsin consecutivelessons. Some caveatsare, however,in order. Someprograms show words as collocatesif they occur within a small number of words (usually about five) of the chosenword. While this can be revealing to a researcher,it can confuse learnersunnecessarily.Consider,for example, these collocates (in the broad, descriptive linguist's senseof that word) of CASE:
He said he wasjust netvoLts,in case things did not turn out as he expected. Just in casethings don't turn out as we expect. . . I'm just doubtful that, in this case, it is the best way to . . . I'm doubtful,and just in casethings do go wrong . . . There are severaluseful patternshere:just + (adjective), in case. . . , the fixed phrasesjzsr in case,in this case andthe clusterin casethings.It seemsmost
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Materials and resources 199
the rely )rd, ach key ord Iere
unhelpful, however, to present all of theseto learners at the sametime in an indiscriminate, albeit authentic, list of real examples.Teacherswill need to edit concordancesfor all except advancedleamers. Many leamers still find it difficult to skim text without stopping at every word, and such learnersneed to be taught dictionary skills so they can find a particular meaning of a word. working with computer concordances is
that learnersare not overwhelmed. rfa ;I
S
las rbe the key tor rly the can Lrch und
Brian Pooledescribesusing concordances with a group of universitystudents: I find that the use of computer concordancesof key verbs, in addition to improving their knowledge of subject and object noun collocates, seemsto improve their 'feel' for the finely-differentiated sensesof a verb, and hencethe range of nouns with which it can co-occur....The great virtue of concordancesis that they provide leamers with the opportunity to seelots of examplesof a particular word all at once- not something available in day-to-day target language exposure- and to derive from this not only an awarenessof frequent collocatesbut also the kind of lexical word with which it has the potential to combine. while cautioning that somelearnerswill find concordancing,too dry and the problem-solvingaspectnot to their taste,,he concludesthat:
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iof 'd.
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This view endorsesthe suggestion in chapter g that noticing examples in context without formal practice helps turn input into intake. Using concordancesin this way has severalbenefits: ' They often answer straightforward questions such as .what word usually follows dffirent? Is it to,from or than?, ' They sensitiselearnersto the fact that text does consist of chunks and that noticing theseaccuratelydoes help them produce languagemore easily, fluently and accuratelythemselves. ' The processboth confirms your intuitions and, more disconcertingly, causesyou to revise statementssuch as I've neverheard/seenit. ' observing real data should quickly persuadeyou of the danger of taking examplesaway from the natural contexts in which they occur and, even more, of the danger of inventing examplesin the classroom. [seep 167]
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Materials and resources
Teacherswho are interestedin using coryora and concordancingwill find an extensivediscussionof the issuesin Biber's Corpus Linguistics,which also has an extensive list of commercially available co{pora, analytical software and on-line senrices. There are three major websites at the time of writing which are relevant to teachersinterestedin concordancingin the classroom: . An extensive bibliography on classroom concordancing on Tim John's website:htp:/isunl.bham.ac.uk/johnstflbiblio.htm. . Free sample concordanceson either of: The British National Corpus (BNC) at http:II info.ox.ac.uk/bnc/ COBUILDd ir ect at http ://www.cobuild.collins.co.uk/direct info. html
9.6 Referencematerials Teachers interested in teaching collocation may like to look again at the dictionary they recommendto their leamers, asking themselveshow, if at all, it deals with collocation. Dictionaries are usually used for decoding - finding the meaning of unknown words - but there is no reason why such books cannot be designedto be useful as encoding tools too. Most of the standard EFL dictionaries provide information about collocation, sometimesexplicitly aspafi of the definition, more frequently aspart of the examples.This is often of limited help becauseonly a few collocates are given, and these are often the most frequent, and thereforethe ones learnersare most likely to have met in their languageinput. 1. Conventional EFL dictionaries We testedthe main EFL dictionaries available from Cobuild, CUP, Longman and OUP using the following questions: 1. What do you call the paper you need before you can drive a car? 2. What verb goes with exam to mean you did well and the opposite? 3. What verb goes with time to say you did somethingin a good, quick way? 4. Can you say very magnificent?If not, what is the corect expression? 5. Is it say the truth or tell the truth? And what is the opposite? 6. Is there anotherverb which means about the sameas admit (a crime)? 7. How do I use the verb confess? 8. What is the usual verb before a confession? All of the dictionaries provided some help and quite often the answersto our specific questions were contained in the dictionary entry. Unfortunately, however, the information was often difficult to find, as the entries could be very long and the specific information was often buried late in the entry in one of the examples. None of the dictionaries answered question four, highlighting again the importance of the teacherbeing proactive in providing nesative evidenceof this kind.
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Severalfeaturesof the dictionary entries became apparent: ' The emphasiswas very clearly on helping the learner understand unknown wordsor expressions. ' rncreased awareness in modern dictionaries of the phrasal nature of language means entries contain long lists of phrases containing the headword.while this is helpful for decoding, it inevitably makes finding a particular bit of encoding information more difficult. Try, for example, to find whether you should sayto spare time or to save time by looking up the headword time. ' Searchingfor a specific piece of information to help you produce the corect expression involves patience and the confidencl to ignore a lot of information not related to your query. often, the user also ieeds to think in a rather abstract way about ringuistic relationships. All the dictionaries allowed us to find driving ricence, but onry if you-realised you neededto look up not drive but crriving, which was not always an immediately adjacententry. ' unsurprisingry, the dictionaries are no help in answering questionssuch as How do you say 'nycke| in Engrish? For this sort of qr-"riion, a bijingual dictionary is needed- you need to know the name in bnghsh of a concept you have in your own ranguage(nycker= key).In the ri-" *uy that the dictionaries do not help when you do not know the word, they do not help when you do not know the kind of medium-strength rexicai collocations which learnersare most likely to need. ' The examples,while natural and helpful, tend to give the most frequent collocations which are often those which rearners are most likely to know already.They are much less good at giving those medium-strengthlexicar collocations which are one of the keys to expanding learners, mental lexicons effectively. In shorl, the conventional dictionaries provide help, but it is frequentry difficult to accessthe information you want and the most usefur information - medium strengthlexicar collocations - is unlikely to be there. It is worth mentioning that the sampler on the cobuild website mentioned above provided answers to an the questions except number six, and the sample of exam did not provide an exampre of faii an exam. For the first question,as with the dictionaries,it was necessary to look up crrivingrather than drive. Most usefulry from a reamer's point of view, however, its failure to come up with very,magnificent or say the truth provides vefy sftong negativeevidencethat thesecollocations are not sanctionedby usage. 2. Production dictionaries The LongmanLanguageActivator,describedon its cover as ,the world,s first production dictionary', tries to solve this problem. But it proved no more
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Materials and resources
successfulin our tests than the conventional dictionaries. The main problem was accessingthe information, which involves a fairly sophisticatedview of semanticfields. The later Longman Essential Activator, which has a comprehensive alphabetical index, proved a great deal more successful and provided the answersto most of our questionsquickly and easily. It also begins to provide important negative evidence so that, for example, the entry fot true contains 'Don't sayshe'ssayingthe truth. Sayshe'stelling the clearly markedwarning the truth.' Once again, however, it is less successful in tackling the allimportant area of medium-strength lexical collocations. For these, the relatively new collocation dictionaries are much more useful. 3. Collocation dictionaries There are now two collocation dictionaries which provide evidenceof words which co-occur. They are of most use to leamers who wish to activate languagewhich they half-know as they fulfil a role similar to the way native speakersuse a thesaurus- the printed lists serve to remind you of potential altematives to your original word. The dictionaries are, therefore, similar to concordancesin that they need to be skimmed rather than studied, with leamerstrained to ignore unknown words and to searchfor words which they recognise but which have not yet passed into their active lexicons. This processis endorsedby Skehan(A CognitiveApproach to LanguageLearning) when he suggests: It is proposedthat very often the pedagogicchallengeis not to focus on the brand new, but insteadto make accessiblethe relatively new. Of the two collocation dictionaries currently available: The BBI Combinatory Dictionary (BBI) places mole emphasison the total lexical and grammatical environment of a word, which can make the entries look rather intimidating. It is thereforeprobably more useful for more academicleamers who are used to using referencematerials and for whom grammatical acculacy is a priority. The LTP Dictionary of SelectedCollocations(DOSC) focuseson precisely the noun + verb, adjective + noun, verb + adverb lexical collocations which havebeenreferred to so often in this book. Its layout resemblesa conventional thesaurusand is designed to help learners activate half-known items in the way Skehansuggests.[For a sampleentry seep 38'] Celia Shalom of the University of Livetpool, in a survey review of thesetwo collocation dictionaries (Modern English Teache4April 1999) writes: If we are in favour of a more coherent approach to the teaching and leaming of collocation, we need to go beyond incidental treatment in the language classroom and help the learner really become familiar with collocations. I think such familiarity develops best when the learner is consciously aware of this tendency of words to go together' Explicit teaching about collocation can help studentsto develop a feel
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for it. ...There is still a long way to go in the teaching and learning of collocation. [Some recent] researchon collocational awarenessfound that half of a sample of English teachersin Switzerland talked about collocation to their studentswhile only gvo taughtit explicitly. The publication of these collocation dictionaries marks an exciting moment in the teaching of vocabulary: one in which the company words keep is being put firmly on the agendafor teacher and student alike. In contrast, one colocation resource which I have found disappointing is cobuild's English collocations on CD-R)M. It lists the twenty most common collocatesof 10,000 headwords.The user can suppress some grammatical collocates such as the, is, in, bfi even having aone that, the program only shows the 20 highest frequency collocates,which often include words such as any, own, new. A furtherproblem arises if you look up a word with several different meanings such as order or right, as all uses of the word form [seep r97l are dealt with together.This means you may onry get one or two high_ frequency collocates for any particular use and very few medium-strength lexical collocates.Finally, the examples,although ,"u1, huu" not been chosen for classroomuse, so they are sometimesless than helpfur for learners.
9.7 Summary If learners are to move off the intermediate plateau, they need substantial lexical input. This win be predominantlycollocational. This means: ' Texts need to be chosenwith their collocational content in mind. ' Learnersneed to be trained to search authenticmateriar for key words, usually nouns,and to notice the collocationalfeatures of the .t-r"*,. ' Leamers need to be taught the particurar importance of medium-strength lexical collocations and shown how to use the texts they meet. the examplesin conventionaldictionaries, collocation dicti,onaries and electronic resourcesas sourcesto enrich their own productive language.
DiscussionQuestions what percentageof the input in your crassesis written English and what percentageis spokenEnglish? Do you think the current balanceis right? what kinds of different listening activities do you use? what use do you make of the tapescriptswhich are often printed at the back of coursebooks?Do you use them as spokeninput, even though they are printed in the book? What kind of narrative texts would you consider using for input? If leamers need a rot of spoken input, do you think you shourd increase teachertalking time? If not, how can you ensurethey are exposedto enough spokeninput?
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Materials and resources
Can you see a use for corpora and concordancingin your classes?If so, in what way do you think you would need to preparethe material? In what way would you need to prepareyour leamers? Once learners can use a resource such as the COBUILDdirect sampler,they can check many things for themselves which they have previously had to consult the teacher about. Can you see your own role changing so that you train students to use such resources even if it means you spend less time 'language teaching' in the narrow sense?
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Collocation and resting 205 SO; 111
Chapter10
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Collocation and testing Peter Hargreaves Peter Hargreaves is head of the English as a Foreign Language part of the university of cambridge Local Examinations syndicate, responsible for the EFL exams administered by the syndicate. rn this paper he examines the relationship between a learner's vocabulary and a learnerts level, and its implications for testing. He explains how the Syndicate is using a corpus of scripts produced by learners to ensure that vocabulary testing in the exams is appropriate to the learner's level. He explains how extending chomsky's idea of deviance can give a clearer picture of what we mean by a language item being 'unacceptable'. The paper is more theoretical than most in this book and shows how the establishment of valid and reliable tests is a complex matter, in which collocation now plays an important role. Readers new to the theoretical study of vocabulary 'level'and testing may find it helpful to read peter's summary on page22I before reading his detailed discussion ofthe issues.
10.1 Introduction Those who come into contact with language learners, whether in the classroom - their teachers- or outside the classroom - for example, their employers, need to have as accurate a picture as possible of the learner's languageability or proficiency. This language 'proficiency' actually consists of many different but related abilities, such as the ability to read texts for particular purposes,the ability to listen for factual information, the ability to write letters of a formal or informal nature, the ability to respondto enquiries on the telephone,etc. A formal examination system such as the cambridge Main Suite Examinations attempts, through a series of question papers at five different levels, to gather enough information about a candidate'slanguageabilities to be able to relate them (through the award of graded certificates) to what is expectedof learnersar eachof those five levels. This immediately suggestsa seriesof important problems: . How do we assessa learrer's level? ' Do items which test particular items of vocabulary or particurar points of grammar give a representativepicture of leamers' generallanguagelevel? ' Do more 'global' forms of testingsuch as testsof spokeninteractionor continuous writing provide us with enough information about learrers' abilities? ' Do specific tests of vocabulary give an accurateand precisepicture of a learner's vocabulary resource,and, equally importantly, how do such
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Collocation and testing
measuresrelate to what a learner can actually do if required to use languagein real situationsoutside the classroom,for example, at work? Such questionsare part of the everydayconcernsof my staff at the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES) who are responsible for the five Cambridge Main Suite Examinations ie the Key English Test (KET), the Preliminary English Test (PET), the First Certificate in English (FCE), the Certificate in Advanced English (CAE) and the Certificate of Proficiency in English (CPE). In this article I want to discuss some of the factors which influence how levels of language ability can be differentiated, particularly in the area of vocabulary,and questionssuch as what it meansto 'knows' a word. In the process,I will demonstratethe increasing say a learner importance which collocation plays in differentiating language ability at the upper levels, not just in relation to formal examinationssuch as the FCE, CAE and CPE, but also for teachers who work with students in the area of vocabulary, prepare studentsfor examinations,and may themselvesneed to construct tests of vocabulary.
L0.2 How do we define different levels? A leamer's level of language proficiency can perhaps be described most usefully for 'lay' users such as employers, sponsorsor parents, in terms of what the learner can do with the language at different levels, for various purposesand acrossthe different languageskills - listening, reading, writing, speaking.A great deal of work has been done on the general definition of language levels under the auspices of the Council of Europe (see, for example, Modern Languages: Learning, Teaching,Assessment.A Common European Framework of reference- Council of Europe, Strasbourg 1998), and someof theselevels are already well-defined by detailed specificationsof languageobjectives,ie the Waystage,Threshold,Vantagelevels. As a tool for the comparisonof levels of proficiency acrosslanguages,and as an aid to the 'lay' user, a series of CAN-do statements are being developed by the Association of LanguageTestersin Europe (ALIE). These CAN-do statements cover typical language functions in three categories: Social and tourist, Work and Study. They encompassthe four languageskills - listening, speaking,reading and writing, and spanfive levels of languageproficiency from ALTE level 1, correspondingto KEI to ALIE level5, correspondingto CPE. Below is an example of a typical set of CAN-do statementsdeveloped by ALTE (still in the processof being validated) covering a specific level for a particular domain and function. This set is for level 5 in the domain of Study and the function of essay-writing: Can write an essay that shows an ability to communicate with few difficulties for the reader. The essay shows a good organisational
t
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Can presentand support argumentswell. rs unlikely to make more than occasionar errors of grammar, vocabulary or punctuation. can write with understandingof the style and content appropriate to the task. can produce text which is proof-read and laid-out in accordancewith the relevantconventions. when it comes to assessingformally whether a leamer has achieved a target level of cAN-do in the language, statementslike the ones above have to be broken down into standardisedtasks, so that it is possible to generalise from performance on such tasks the extent to which, for example, the learner is 'unlikely to make more than occasional errors of grammar, vocabulary and punctuation'. From a linguistic analysispoint of view, rather than that of the 'lay' user, the learner's language proficiency can be characterised by reference to a set of interrelated competences: communicative, lexico_ grammatical, socio-cultural, strategic, etc. How ,proficient' the language learner is can be translatedinto: where does the leamer come in a range of defined levels for thesecompetencesappropriateto the use of the language for particular purposes? In the cambridge Main Suite EFL examinations ,knowledge and control of the languagesystem'are viewed as underpinning the learne-r'sproficiency in the different language skills and are tested explicitly - at the upper levels through a separateuse of English or English in use paper - in addition to any implicit testing of knowledge and control of the language system in skills_ basedpapers such as Reading and Writing. what exactly (or even inexactly) is involved in 'knowledge and control of the language system' at different levels is not simpty an interesting psycholinguistic question; it is a crucial one if, u. un E*u-inations Board, you are attempting to make generalisationsabout the extent or level of a language learner's 'knowledge and control' on the basis of what words that user either recognisesor producesin carrying out certain test tasks. In investigating this whole area of vocabulary testing we are fortunate at UCLES to have access to the cambridge Leamer corpus (cLC), a joint project with cambridge University press (cup), foi internal research purposes.The cLC is a corpus of written material produced by cambridge EFL candidates of several different nationalities irom Europe and Latin America in responseto tasks in the composition or writing papers in either FCE, cAE or cPE from 1993 onwards.At the time of *.ltl.rg,it consistsof over 8 million words with additions planned. The corpus subanalysed "u'L" by level of examination (FCE, cAE, cpE), and also by candidates, first
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Collocation and testing
language.Becausethe CLC cunently has more scripts from CPE than either CAE or FCE, and more from FCE than CAE, frequencies quoted in this article have been weighted to facilitate comparison. Invaluable though the CLC already is - and we expect it to become increasingly more useful in the future - it is important to bear in mind at all
Test infor reso fhc
o
times that the data has obvious limitations. Firstly, it is entirely basedon what studentshave produced, not what they can recognise. Secondly, even as a sample of what studentshave produced, it is constrainedby the fact that the scripts are a responseto specific composition tasks, which inevitably have a strong influence on the languageof the topic areas.
CLC knon learn Mair learn relat'
10.3 Testing vocabulary knowledge
Hou knou
At the lower levels of proficiency, there may be somejustification for a simple quantitative approach to defining levels of 'knowledge and control' of the language; that is, you could simply count the number of grammatical constructionsand headwordsthat a leamer is expectedto be familiar with in terms of recognition or production at a given level. So an elementary level leamer might be expectedto be familiar with, say, 1300 words such as a good vocabulary book might present and practise, while an intermediate learner might need these 1300,plus perhapsanother 1200 or so 'more difficult' (ie less frequent or more complex) words. The simple quantitativeapproachmay be studiedby comparing the frequency of occurrenceof headwords acrossCPE and FCE in the CLC and also with large corpora based on native-speakeruse. These comparisonsreveal some obviousfacts: . CPE studentsuse significantly more different words than FCE students. . CPE studentsuse more low frequency words than FCE studentswhere 'low frequency' relatesto citations in native-speakerbasedcorpora. 1. Counting headwords Perhapsmore interestingly,however,the conclusionsthat can be drawn about learners' lexical knowledge at different levels from simple frequency of occurrence of headwords are distinctly limited. A search of the CLC for a number of randomly chosenwords which occur at either CPE or FCE level in the CLC and have a low frequency in native-speakercorpora (designation, unfavourable, snag, circulate, whine, stretcher, earthy, lik(e)able, puny, barmaid, self-supporting, pin-stripe) reveals the following: three occur at both FCE and CPE level (unfavourable, stretcher and lik(e)able) and seven occur only at CPE level (designation, snag, whine, earthy, puny, selfsuppofting and pin-stripe) bttt two occur only at FCE level (circulate, bannaid) - which perhaps tells us more about the social habits of FCE studentsthan about their vocabulary level!
2.Pa
Even u,het gam as de CPE (with cavea learnr to dal
The I the g occur claint refere
Or se A Hr rel
Ifale in bor Bearir respo the lei
Analv follou and nr
-Collocarion and testing )e)
rer lls
ne all rat i a he ,
4
r1e he :al ln ^l cl
od reI
nit ne
Testing familiarity with a number of different headwordscan provide us with information about the 'quantity' of headwords in a l"ur.r".,s vocabulary resource,and even somelimited information about the learner,sknowledge of the grammatical significance of those words. At ucLES we will be using the cLC to develop the quantitative aspectof the characterisationof vocabulary knowledge further as part of the definition of what is typicalry expected of learnersat a given lever. we will also continue to include testsin the ucLES Main Suite examinations which are designed to probe how extensive the learner's knowledge is in terms of knowing cumulatively more headwords related to the appropriatelanguagefunctions. However, there is crearry much more to the jigsaw of a learner,svocabulary knowledge than simply familiarity with more or fewer headworos. 2. Parts of speech in vocabulary knowledge Even on the lever of simple familiarity with headwords, it is possible to probe whether the leamer has acquired some vocaburary knowLdge which has grammatical significance. Take, for example, words in th" ,a-'" family such as deny anddenial.In the cLC, the weighiedfrequencies of denyat FCE and cPE levels respectiveryarc 46 and,720;deniat(s) occurs onty at cpE revel (with a weighted frequency of 2). From this we might deduce,with the usual caveatsabout the sampling limitations of the CfC, that both FCE and CpE learnersare familiar with what is meant by ,denying,but there is no evidence to date that FCE level learnersare able to produce the nominal form deniar. The leamer'sknowredgeof what 'part of speech, a word is - whetherit has the grammatical property of being a verb (deny) or a noun (deniar), or occunence as either a noun or a verb depending on the co-text (for example, claim) - can in fact be tested directly without, of course, involving any referenceto terminology such as noun or verb, as in this example: only one of the folrowing words can occur in both branks in the sentencebelow. please circle the appropriate letter:
ruI of ' a 1n rfi.
1'r: at
en
:r
A assert
B claim
He had the nerve to repudiated t h a t . . .
C insist
D presume
. . . that we all agreedwith him, but I totally
If a learner's answerdemonstratesthat (s)heknows that only craim can occur in both slots, what does this tel us about her/his vocaburary knowledge? Bearing in mind that we would need to have the evidence of a number of responsesto such items before making any generalisation, we can deducethat the learner's knowredgegoes beyond simple familiarity with the headword. Analysis of citations in the FCE and cpE subcorpora in the cLC indicatesthe following weighted frequenciesfor verbal (craim, craims, craimed,craiming), and nominal forms (claim, claims)of the ,word, claim:
210
Collocation and testing
Weighted CLC Verbal forms of claim Nominal fonns of claim
FCE 38 2
CPE
(She
r32
OCC
18
cltat
On the evidence of the large native-speakerbased corpora, verbal uses of claim appearto be about one and a half times as frequent as nominal usesin the writing of native-speakers.As can be seen from the above table, in the CLC the nominal uses of claim arc generally much less frequent than the verbal useswhen comparedto the native-speakerdata,but are also much rarer at FCE level than CPE. The evidence suggeststhat we might expect leamers at CPE level, but not FCE level, to be able to use and recogniseclaim both as a verb and as a noun. One of the many caveatsthat needsto be mentioned here in connection with derivationally related words like deny and denial is that there can be no assumption of priority of one particular grammatical form of a word over another grammatical form. For example, because the noun form denial is found in CPE citations of CLC, one could not automatically deduce that forms of the verb deny world necessarilybe found or be more frequent - or 'less difficult'- than the noun form deniaL Looking through the CLC for forms of the verb insinuate, and the noln insinuation, which I will be referring to later on, I noted that only the form insinuating is found in the CLC, and at CPE level. This minors the fact that in large native-speaker corpora insinuating is more frequent than any of the other verb forms of insinuateor of the noun form(s) insinuation(s). 3. Dependent grammar patterns in vocabulary knowledge The grammar of words clearly extendsfar beyond the basic level of whether a word occurs as a verb or noun or both; it also involves the word's dependent pattems and constructions, and this is one of the most significant areas in differentiating a leamer's knowledge of vocabulary at various levels. At the risk of stating the obvious, I am distinguishing here, on the one hand, the knowledge of a grammatical pattem oI construction (eg how to form a thatclause) from, on the other hand, the knowledge that a particular vocabulary item occurs with that pattemor construction(eg thatclaim occulswithathatclause).The latter is what I mean when I refer to knowledge of the grammar of words. We already know that familiarity wtth claim as a noun but not as a verb is a likely distinguishing feature between FCE and CPE leamers in the area of production at least. We might now wish to probe whether there are grammatical pattems which occur with claim as a verb which might provide more subtle distinguishing featuresof the knowledge of the word claim. CLC evidenceindicates thaL26of the 38 weighted occuffencesof the FCE citations of claim as a verb have a following that-clartse, (They claim that road conditions aren't safe) b:ut only 2 have a following ro-infinitive construction
Kno item
C il
-i q
S Simi retlte
such
o bl A
SN SI S1 The CXAIN
sin-ei CUML!
by re prope accep This i 15 not
items betu'e as har SuchI profic which includ item r, is like patten with b dread
Collocation and testing lll
(she claimed to have afish bone in her throat). These figures contrastwith 6g occuffencesof claim + that-clauseand l7 of claim + ra_infinitive in the cpE citations. Knowledge of these two grammatical patterns of claim courd be tested in items such as the following: only one of the following words can occur in both of the blanks in the two sentencesbelow. please circle the appropriateletter: A believes She . . She . .
B tends
C boasts
D claims . that she is more accuratethan her sister in her work. to be more accuratethan her sister in her work.
Similarly, words with more comprexpatterning, such as the three patternsfor remember,which all occur at cpE level in cLC, could be tested with items such as: only one of the words in A, B, c, D is appropriatein all three of the blanks in the three sentencesbelow. please circle the appropriate letter: A remember
B agree C suggest D admit She didnot. . . . . . . . posting rhe letter. Shedid not. . . . . . . . topost the letter. She did not. . . . . . . . rhat shehadposredthe lerter. The difference between multiple co-text test items such as those in the example above and traditional test items based on choosing a word to fit a single sentence,is that the implicit assumptionthat knowlJge of a word is cumulative as the leamer reachesa higher level is made explicit. This is done by requiring the leamer to demonstrate greater knowledge of a word,s propefties and patterns, signalled by selecting or producing a word which is acceptablein a range of different co-texts. This is not to underestimatethe fact that testing pattems in depth in this way is not entirely straightforward. Take, for example, the question of level. Test rtems constructedfor a particular level of examination need to discriminate betweenlearnersclustered around that level with a view to classifying them as having adequate,good, exceptional, etc ability in relation to that rever. such testsare not designedto discriminate acrosswidely separated levels of proficiency. Hence, sinceclaimfollowed by a that clause is a feature of claim which is expected to be known at FCE level, it is probably redundant to include this pattern as a cpE lever test item. For a cpElevel test, a vocabulary item which occurs in cLC only at cpE and cAE levels and not at all at FCE is likely to discriminate better. For example, knowledge of the grammatical patterns of the verb dread, which is found in cLC at cpE and cAE levels with both to-infinitive (old people dread to go) and with verb + ing (I even dread thinking about the winter), might be testedinstead of claim:
212
Collocation and testing
Only one of the following words can occur in both of the blanks in the two sentencesbelow. Pleasecircle the appropriateletter: D hesitate C dread B refuse A avoid
(
d
I. . . . . . . . to contemplatethe future. I . . . . . . . . contemplating the future. The beneficial effect on vocabularylearning of suchitems is the way in which they illustrate the layers of grammatical patterns which make up knowledge of the grammar of words. An equally important teaching point that should be made is that it is comparativelyrare for apparentlyparallel constructionsto be freely interchangeablewithout some change in meaning or some restriction on use.An obvious example,repeatedfrom above,is the difference between She did not rememberto post tke lettef Ske did not rememberposting the letter, andShedid not rememberthat shehad postedthe letter,wherethe first entails that she did not post the letter, in the second it is an open question whether she postedthe letter or not, and the third entails that she did post the letter. There are also more subtle differences associated with grammatical properties, to which I shall return when discussing collocation below. For example, when dread is followed by ro-infinitive the verb in the infinitive is usually in the semantic field of imagination such as contemplate,see, think and under the control of the subject of dread. For something out of the control of the subject such asfall ill, the verb + lrzg construction with dread seemsmuch more natural. For example: ? I dread to fall ill while I am travelling. I dread falling ill while I am travelling. There are practical problems associatedwith such test items with regard to sustainability,by which I mean the difficulty of constructing such items over a sustainedperiod, so as to ensure consistent and adequatesampling of the learner's knowledge of the grammatical properties of words, and not just testing what is relatively easy to test. 4. Collocations and vocabulary knowledge So far I have dealt with three important pieces in the jigsaw of the leamer's lexicon - simple familiarity with a quantity of headwordsused in connection with the functions and topics appropriate to a particular level of language proficiency, and two aspectsof familiarity with the grammatical propertiesof words: their word category and dependentpattems and constructions.That still leavesa lot of unchartedor unpredictableterritory in the jigsaw, and this is where collocation entersthe frame. 'collocation' has been well established in the description of The term 'colligation' as languagesince the days of Firth. It is usually contrastedwith in the definition in Robins (1964:234):
To rl to-rn colli
Alth xnpc The spec a gra we el end r
At th gene refer 1965 'gran
(1
Chon borde t'l \ !
(11
The 1 deviar illustr
(3r (31
Accor of wot becau have t the rig but hz subjec
The dr rules i involv Chomr
Collocation and testing 213
Groups of words considered as members of word-classesrelated to each other in syntactic structureshave been called colligations to be distinguished from collocations which refer to groups of words consideredas individual lexical items irrespectiveof their grammatical classesand relations. 'hich edge ld be to be ltron teen i the
frst stl0n it the tical For r,e is think f the tread
To illustrate the distinction, consider the examples discussedearlier: verb + /o-infinitive is a colligation, dread + think a collocation which exemplifies the colligation. Although the colligation/collocation distinction is a valid and useful one, it is important to keep in mind that there is no sharp dichotomy between the two. The description of English involves very general rules at one end of the spectrum,which we call grammar, and from thesevery generalrules there is a gradual move through a continuum of more and more qualified rules until we end up with particular statementsabout words at the lexical or vocabulary end of the spectrum. At the grammatical end of this continuum, the gradual move from highly generalisedrules to more qualified rules can perhapsbe usefully illustrated by reference to chomsky's discussion of deviant sentences (chomsky I965:l52tf). Having spent 40-50 pages of the densest analysis on the ' grammatical' sentence: (1) Sincerity may frighten the boy. chomsky then discussesthe sentencesin (2), which he describesas havins ,a borderline character':
rd to OVET
f the Just
net's ctron uage es of That I this nof n'as
(2a) The boy may frighten sincerity. (2b) Sincerity may admire the boy. The fact that these sentenceshave a 'borderline'
rather than a ,clear-cut' deviancy is explained by chomsky in terms of hierarchy of ,violation' illustratedin (3): (3a) Sincerity may virtue the boy. (3b) Sincerity may elapsethe boy. According to chomsky, (3a) is most 'deviant'becauseit involvesa violation of word category-virtue is a noun wherea verb is needed.t3ul is lessdeviant becauseelapse is a verb but it has the wrong syntactic feature as it does not have the pattern verb + noun (object). (zb) is least deviant becauseadmire is the right word category (verb) with the right syntacticfeature (+ object noun) but has the wrong 'selectionalfeatures' becauseadmire only occurs with subject nouns which are human, such as boy, not abstractones like sincerie, The degreeof 'violation'becomes less as we move from the highly general rules about word categoriesor parts of speech to the more qualified rules involving what chomsky refers to as 'selectional features'. However, chomsky's 'hierarchy of violation' does not deal with the vast area of
214
Collocation and testing
'deviancy' resulting from using unacceptable collocations which ale not coveredby violations of'selectional featufes'. Just becausea verb has the 'selectional feature' of occurring with abstract subjects and human objects, this does not mean that all abstractsubjectsare appropriatewith such verbs. As can be seen from the examples below, both seize and consume,unlike admire, do occur with abstractsubjects,but not, it seemswith sincerity:
Th
the
Fear may seizethe boy. ? Sincerity may seize the boy.
Bo col \\o an
Envy may consumethe boy. ? Sincerity may consumethe boy.
u'h
While vocabulary knowledge may involve a number of qualified rules of the 'selectionalfeatures',which excludesomecombinations kind Chomskycalls of words, most of that knowledge involves simply having acquiredor leamed specific combinations of words - collocations - which are acceptable,while others are not. A secondpoint to note in relation to the colligation/collocation distinction is that knowledge of a collocation, if it is to be used appropriately,necessarily involves knowledge of the pattenis or colligations in which that collocation can occur acceptably. 'individual lexical items When Robins (see above) refers to collocations as irrespective of their grammatical classesand relations', he is highlighting a key characteristic of collocations which is that they can cut across grammatical relations. So, for example, the collocation slow-walk is equally evident in the colligation: verb + adverb, walk slowly, as it is in the colligation: adjective+ noun, slow walker. However, it is important to keep in mind that the colligational options for a particular collocation are not unlimited, and vocabularyknowledge includes knowing what the options and limitations are. For example, the collocation short-walk as in he went for a short walk, doesnot occur acceptablyin the colligation verb + adverb- ?walk shortly or with the -er form of the noun as in ?he is a short walker. To suggest that there is a different walk here from the walk in slow walk merely begs the question as to what constitutes the meaning of a word and what role collocation has in defining that meaning. It is particularly evident that many noun collocations are consffained with respect to whether they occur in subject or object relation to a collocating verb; many nouns collocate with particular verbs or subclassesof verb either as subjectsor as objects,but not both. Hence,as they developtheir knowledge of collocations, leamers need to be aware that this knowledge must include the grammatical patterns or colligations in which the collocatescan occul Referring again to the verb claim, with few exceptions this only collocates 'human', reflecting the real-world situation that with subjectnouns which are 'people claim things', not the other way round. it is generallythe casethat
tll4
OC(
cor COT n/n r""
cla coi
10 AI \\ 1t
- f 'oc
cas
A " bot re\ ran co{ 'nu
uhl pro
COI",
fror
The
eXtc
I
Collocation and testing /lJ OI
te iq
)s.
he NS
ed ile 1S lv
0n
NS I
A
ISS
llv he 1n
rot nd 'a tlk 3SI
he r1e ith no
u*i :_
tug
IC \
hrar nd.
There are, however, exceptionssuch as these based on examplestaken from the CLC: There were many things that claimed my attention. . . . plague and tuberculosis,which claimed many lives . . . Both of these examples, as it happens, illustrate the extended nature of collocations. In the first, we fail to record something significant about the word claim if we note simpry that it occurs with thing"asisubject noun; it is an important fact about the collocationar characieristics lr chim that inanimate subjectssuch as thing canoccur in subjectrelation wrthcraim only when claim occurs with the noun attention as object. In other words, thing occurs as subject with the extended collocation ctaim_attention (cf the comparabre extended collocations: merit-attention, deserve_attention, command-attention).Similarly 'diseases' and other ,ills, substitutablefor plague and tuberculosis collocate with craim as nou, ,rbi*s only when claim is in the extended collocation craim-rrfe (ct tne comiarable extended collocations: take-life, account for_ life).
10.4 Grammaticarpatternsand corlocations in testing ; able to produce a particular collocate rishing separatemeaningsof that word o be shorthand for somethins like:
cases alsoconerare withdisrinc,,"".";T::;;in:["rTons'
whichin som"
A word rlke correspond, for example, has (at least) two distinct meanings _ both attestedin the cLC - 'exchangeletters' and 'match,, a factwhich is revealed by the occurrenceof the word correspond withtwo very different ranges of colligations and associatedcollocaiions. with its first meaning correspond can occur in the progressive form and is typically restricted to 'human' collocates: The two frieirt, hor" been corresponding for some time, whereas with the second meaning correspond typicalry does not have a progressive form but has a greater variety of collocaies exemplified correspond to/with (the) truth/needs/advertisement/reality/expectationsin: (all from the CLC). The distinctive features of a word rike correspond couldbe used to test the extent of a leamer's knowledge of this word at different levels: Fill the blanks by using each of the following once only: A correspondwith C correspondto B correspond D are corresponding l' I am happy to say that things have quietened down in the hostel now that Louisa and pablo . . regularly again. 2. It is interesting that your views and mine . . much more closely now than they ever did in the past.
216
Collocation and testing
3. You can hardly call yourselvespen friends when you eachother about once aYear. 4. It's handy that your expectationsof what you will get from a g o o dh o l i d a y. . . . . . . . m i n e . Apart from such examples where colligation and collocation features can distinguish basic meanings of a headword, it is the distinctive andlor overlapping ranges of the collocating items with each word which map the detailed contours of knowledge of that word. Above I referred to the continuum from grammatical to lexical information about words. At the lexical end of the continuum there is also a gradation of relationships that collocating items have with a word - a gradation which moves from loose to close or vice versa. This is brought out in an articleby Howarth (1998):Phraseologyand Second Language Proficiency and illustrated in the table below, based on nativespeaker data. Using a variety of formal criteria, Howarth categorises collocations according to their degree of restrictiveness,thus identifying degrees of conventionality, in particular the use of a verb in figurative, technical or de-lexical sensesor according to the degree of limitation on permitted substitutions.He stressesthe imporlance of seeingthe categoriesas forming a continuum rather than discrete classes' combination
category
COMPARE EMPHASISE INFLUENCE
behaviourl levels, results, size autonomy, concept, link, rights content,culture.groups
free collocations
INTRODUCE
bill, amendment,motion
Level I restrictedcollocations
PAY MAKE
attention, heed decision, imProvements
restricted collocations Level 2
GIVE
credit to sb, Preferenceto sb
restricted collocations Level 3
DRAW
line
figurative idiom
SET
sroreby srh
pure idiom
I have attempted in the table on the next page to illustrate how such a continuum might apply to a single vocabulaly item such as the word claim, already used extensively above in discussing glammatical pattems and extendedcollocations. Most of the examples in the table involve claim as a verb, so the words listed occur as nouns in object relation to claim; two of the examples involve the noun form of claim. All the examples apart from the figurative category are taken from the CLC'
Co lug: coff ame 1ir e 5til
la)
Nod leveI the r conit mto.
HouI collor --
IJ.
sp
CO
co hir
10.
One r colloc highel ar aila examF caullo purpol needs
M1'se +L^^^ tllc5g
I
one \\ { absolu standa any oc non-de name1 'some,
I also l verb+lr that wc
Collocation and testing )lJ
Combination with claim
rn )I
compensation,benefit, allowance attention, credit lives stake (stake a claim) lay (lay claim to - not *lay a/the claim
to)
Restricted collocations levet 1 Restricted collocations level 2 Restricted collocations level 3 Figurative idiom Pure idiom
IE IC
at to
td 3 )S lq
)n 1S
Howarth suggeststhat learners'lexicaldifficulties lie chiefly in the restricted collocations'since idioms and free collocations are largeryunproutematrc,. He concludes: A comparisonbetween fNative-speaker]performance and fNon-native_ speaker]errors suggestthat at an advanced level leamers are lexically competent and rrave successfully internalised the more restricted co'ocations and semi-idioms. There remains, however, the vast hinterland of less restricted combinations ...
10'5 sources - native-speakercorpora and dictionaries l
e 'iL lij
a
ne Uf
one of the most fertile sources for sampring the grammar of words and collocations appropriate to different levels of proficiency, especially the higher levels, are the large native-speaker co{pora, part of which a'e now available in some limited form via th. Int"*"t. These provide a range of examplesand useful frequencydata but they must be usedwith considerable caution - it is always necessaryto bear in mind the differences between the pulposes for which colpora were produced, and the students, vocabulary needsin relation to the specific sylrabusor rearning gout. tn"f -e following. My searchesof the large native-speakercorpora to date have confirmed that thesecorpora provide only a parlial selection of all the pattems or collocates one would expect to find for a given rexical item - rro. do tt with an absolute guarantee that what you do find in them would "y".o-" Le accepted as standardEnglish. Searchingthrough the occurrences of sincerityto check on any occurrencesof ,rinceriQas subjectnoun with frighten as in chomsky,s non-deviant sentenceabove,I was amused to find thatlhere was one citation, namely chomky's own sentence quoted from a book on languug" a, a 'somewhat peculiarexample'. I also found among the dependentpattems of sincerfiy an example of for+ verb+ingas in he had no sorutions- not, I think, a pattem forfincring -sinceriQ that would be judged to be standaidEnglish. And as a diversion,I stumbled
218
Collocation and testing
on a special kind of millennium bug in the large native-speakefcorpofa: it appearsthat about one sixth of the large number of citations of millennium are 'n'. Should we take the fact that this spelling with one spelled with only one 'n' occuls in significant numbers of native-speakercitations as sufficient proof that millenium is an acceptablealtemative spelling? If occurrenceof a dependentpattern oI collocation in the large native-speaker corpora does not necessarily gualantee that the pattem or collocation is standardEnglish, it is also true that non-occulrence of a particular dependent pattem or collocation in the colpora (or occurrencein less than a statistically significant frequency) is by no means a gLraranteethat such a pattem or collocation is non-standardor unacceptable. Retuming to an earlier example, here is the entry for insinuation in the LTP Dictionary of SelectedCollocations(DOSC): INSINUATION V: defend oneself against,deny, make, (dis)prove,reject A: horrible, nasty, serious,unfair Where V: indicates that the cited verbs or verb phrases collocate with insinuation as object, and A: indicates that the cited items collocate as adjectives wttt insinuation. Examining large corpola' however' I compiled the following: V: ooze.resent.wince at A: astronomical,clear, disparaging,filthy, foolish, heinous, hidden, indirect, silent Intuitively, the DOSC list of collocations looks to be a familiar selection of verbs and adjectives that one might expect to come acloss or use with insinuation, but the overlap with the comparablecollocations in the cotpora happensto be minimal. Native-speaker corpora are clearly very valuable as sources of authentic learning and testing material, and for checking on frequencies,and typical cotexts of lexical items, such as the fact that deny, referred to above,is almost invariablyusednegatively- I cannot deny . .. - or in questionform such as Who would deny . . . ? UCLES' approach to producing items for testing English in use at various levels, whether with a grammatical or lexical focus, 'corpus-informed" not corpusis what is sometimesreferred to nowadaysas based. When it comes to dependentpattems and collocations, the nativespeakercorpora need to be used in conjunction with other referencematerial such as advancedgrammarsand collocation dictionaries.
L0.6 Sources- the learner corpus(CLC) As I have suggestedabove,the CLC is already proving invaluable in helping us at UCLES to build up a picture of the vocabulary knowledge associated (albeit in productive medium) with different levels of proficiency (FCE, CAE,
CI ler wc col 1ev an( 1\l
an( col difi the ACI '"Y
ata col Gol
\4'et
acc a-crl ask cha con ""1-
fonr
g1\-t harlmp hllr offe stai( The DOI moa
The oprn
DOI
justi obje resp shar valur Fron
Collocation and testing )l) it 1e
nt CI
is nt ly 0r
.P
rh AS
ed
cPE), for example, in terms of number and frequency of headwordsat each level and evidenceof the range of grammaticarpatterns used with particular words at each lever. It is certain to prove equally valuable as a source of collocations which might be expected to be known by studentsat different levels, especially when used in conjunction with the native-speaker corpora and well-researchedcollocation dictionaries. A particularly interesting and fruitful area of collocations for both teaching and testing pulposes, emerging from searches of the cLC, are those collocations which are made up of words which individuany have a very different frequency from their frequency as collocations. Take, for example, the word opinion' As one might predict, opinion is very frequent in the cLC acrossall three levels FCE, cAE, cpE becausecomposition tasks frequentry require the candidateto expressopinions. The verb/o rm alsooccurs in cLC at all three levels, least often at FCE (10 weighted occurrences). However,the collocation/orm-opinion occursonly at CpE level (9 occurrences). Going through all the verbs listed in DoSC with opinion as object, the weighted frequenciesin CLC are as follows; CPE CAB FCE accept 5 L agreewith 6 z 47 ask (for) 6 6 8 /1 change 10 8 confirm z express 10 40 10 form 4 T
of rh rIa
t1c
o)st AS
ng lq
tsial
n_qD _
ed F
glve
t1
3+
CPE
CAE
a t
44 have 70 J+ 94 rmpose 1 influence 1 L offer 1 state 1 There are no entries in the cLC at any level for the following verbs listed in Dosc as collocates of opinion: air; convey,discount, dissenTfrom, encrorse, modify, mould, seekout, stick to, sway, trust, venture, voice. The verbsfrom DOSC arenot, of course,the onry verbs which collocatewith opinion as object. Here are some other examples from the cLC not in the DOSC entry for opinion:
FCE
justify 1 2 object to 1 _t respect 1 2 share 9 9 I2 value 2 From this kind of data we may be able to staft building up a picture of
220
Collocation and testing
incremental ranges of collocations which are significant in characterising lexical knowledge at different levels of proficiency, especiallythose involving vocabularyitems, which, looked at in isolation, have frequencyprofiles which would not automatically lead us to associatethem with different levels of proficiency.
10.7 Approaches to testing collocation Testsinvolving recognition of appropriatecollocations are a standardpart of UCLES' examinations. Some typical examples of collocations from CPE Paper 1 are listed below together with the relevant test item. The test focus parl of the collocations is in bold: 1. breach-code (of ethics) the medical profession's code of Any doctor who . . rePrimanded. ethics is severely D breaches C ruPtures B cracks A fractures 2. pursue-point She obviously didn't want to discussthe matter so I didn't . . the Point. D chase C Pursue B follow A maintain 3. lend-weight (to) These documentslend . . B weight A depth
to the reporter's accusations' D gravitY C volume
4. power-wane This is the author's tenth book and it is clear that her creative powerhas... B dissolved C suspended D dispelled A waned It should be noted here that in selecting the appropriate collocation, the leamer also decides that the so-called distractors,when inserted in the gaps, *to actually form deviant expressions,such as *to rupture a code of ethics, chasea point, *to lend gravity to something.It is worth noting, therefore,that successfulperformance on such test items involves knowing both what is possibleand what is not. Testing collocations in this way has worked well enoughover the yearsin that performance on such tests correlateswell with other measuresof high-level language ability used in the CPE. As part of the process of developing a revised version of cPE (due to be introduced in Decembet 2002), work is being carried out on colpora to check on frequencies,among other criteria, for establishingappropriatedifficulty levels of such collocations. Experimental test formats are also being trialled, which attempt to probe the cumulative nature of lexical knowledge as evidencedby the learner's ability
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to recognise not just one collocation (as in the examples above from the current cPE Paper i), but a range of collocations in which a word occurs. One of theseformats is illustrated below. Identifying the most appropriate answer for this item involves recognising thar opinion collocatesin suitable contexts with impose, with popular, and in the phrase in a matter of opinion, all of which are taken from Dosc. The other nouns (fashion, feeling, will) fit appropriately in one or two of the blanks, but not all three.A variant on this type of item is also being trialled as a productive test, where the candidatehas to produce,rather than recogniseor select,the appropriateword that fits two or three contexts. Circle the word which fits in alt three sentences: A fashion
B opinion C feeline D will (a) You cannot simply come in to an existing situation and lmpose your . . on everyonelike that. (b) Though he may have good reasonsfor introducing such measures,popular . . is likely to prevent them from workins. (c) Shemay insist on such a dresscode in the office, but whether it's correctto do so is a matter of It should be noted that if this type of item is going to be used to test candidates'vocabularyknowledge at one particular level, such as cpE. and
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just the one that is at the appropriatelevel, given that it might reasonablybe assumedthat the two lower level collocations should be known to the leamer on the basis of correctly identifying or producing the higher level collocation.
10.8 Summary So, how imporlant is collocationin testing the learner'sproficiency?I have attempted to answer this question by placing collocation within the framework of vocabulary knowledge - whether for recosnition or productionpulposes- summarisedbelow: 1. Familiarity with increasing numbers of headwords which can on some criteria be classified as appropriateto incremental levels of proficiency (or, in lay terms, more difficult). For example : puny andsnag. These are describedas 'appropriate' to higher levels only on the criterion of low frequency in both native-speaker corpora and the CLC.
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Collocation and testing
2. Familiarity with distinct but related lexical items which are part of families of words. For example: the noun denial andverb deny. 3. Ability to distinguish different grammatical categories of the same word. For example: knowing claim occrttsas both a verb and a noun. 4. Ability to distinguish colligations of words' For example claim + ro infinitive and claim + that-clatse. 5. Ability to differentiate basic meanings of a word using knowledge of its colligationsand collocations. For example'.correspond(a = write letters;b = match) 6. Incremental knowledge of collocations of a word including different degreesof restrictiveness,and the ability to recogniseidiomatic uses. For example: claim-bag gage, claim- compensation, claim- credit, claim-lfe, stake a claim, lay claim to. I have also discussedin this article soulceswhich UCLES is making use of to ensure systematic and consistent sampling of vocabulary knowledge, especially at the upper levels of proficiency. The importance of collocation in the framework of vocabulary knowledge should be clear; the extent of the contribution which knowledge of collocations makes in differentiating incremental levels of proficiency is still an area for further research. At UCLES we will be continuing our investigationsinto the areaand how to test it validly and consistently,making use of a variety of sources,including collocation dictionaries and both nativespeaker and learner corpora. At the same time, validation projects are continuing under the auspicesof ALTE to link leamers' performance in the formal testing situation with their CAN-do abilities outside the classroom.
DiscussionQuestions 'vocabulary test' for your class, would it concentrate on If you make a anything other than words they have studied recently? 'new words'in the input they How can you ensurelearnersdon't only think of meet? From a teaching perspective,Peter Hargreavespoints out how complex the idea of 'knowing a word' can be. Which of these aspectsof vocabulary building do you emphasisein class: a. new words b. word grammar c. collocations Do you think different vocabulary building strategies are important at different levels? If so, what strategiesare most important at theselevels: a. elementary b. intermediate (FCE) c. advanced(CAE) d. mastery (CPE)
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References Chomsky A. N. (1965)Aspecrsof the Theoryof Syntax, MIT press HilI, J. & Lewis, M. (Eds) (1997)LTp Dicrionary of SelecredCollocations, LTp Howarth, P. (1998)phraseologyandsecondLanguageproficiency, Applied Linguistics,vol. 19,No.1pp 2444 Robins,R. H. (1964)GeneralLinguistics:an introductory suruey,Longman
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A world beyond collocation
Chapter11 A world beyond collocation: new perspectiveson vocabulary teaching Michael
Hoey
Michael Hoey is Professor of English at the University of Liverpool and author of the award winning Patterns of Lexis in Text, ouP 1991. He is a descriptive linguist rather than a language teacher. In this more theoretical paper, based on the talk he gave at IATEFL Manchester 1998, he discusses his own language learning in the light of his theoretical insights into lexical patterning. Teachers may find it interesting to see how research, which initially appears remote from the classroom, can have practical consequences,particularly for the content of teaching materials. He suggests that learning individual words is relatively inefficient; that learning collocations is more efficient, but as our understanding of text increases, it may be that colligation will play an increasing role in classroom materials and teaching.
11.1 Learning new words Despitebeing the head of a languageunit dedicatedto Applied Linguistics,I am not myself an experiencedlanguageteacher.The little experienceI have of languageteachingis well out of date and forms no basisfor giving practical advice to anyone. I am, it is true, surroundedby staff who daily renew the connectionbetweenlinguistic theory and chalk-faceteaching and I learn from them, but this does not alter the basic fact that I carry no authority as a practitioner of TEFL. Before my honesty leadsyou to skip this chapter,let me quickly add that I do, however, have another kind of experience that may partially compensate.I may have no language teaching experience,but I do have daily experienceof being a languagelearner. Every weekday,more or less without exception,I attempt to leam a language. I give a minimum of 20 minutes a day to the task and often more. I work meticulouslythrough setsof materials,listen to tapes,read the passagesset (occasionallygoing beyond the textbook), tackle the exercisessuggested, memorise lists of words, and engage in painful conversation with anyone competentto listen and reply. My motives are a genuine desire to command another language,a wish to speak something of the languageof any country I may be visiting, and a determination to put myself through the hoops that languagelealners go through in order better to understandtheir problems. Sadly, I am not a successful learner - there is no language that I could truthfully say I have a command of, though I am an adequatereader of a couple. My first goal has therefore not yet been met and my second only
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A world beyond collocation
225
partially so. Paradoxically, my failure to become a super-leamer,capable of mastering languageswith consummateease,meansthat my third objective of putting myself in the shoesof the averagelanguagelearner - continues to be fruitfully met. The experience I bring to a book like this, aimed at the practising language teacher, is that of the typical well-motivated but only aver agely competentleamer.
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The materials I use vary greatly in style. Some are structural in style, some communicative, some eclectic. over the past year I have worked with Sueiios (a BBC courseon spanish), A vous la France (anotherBBC course,this time on French), swedish in Three Months (an optimistically titled course from Hugo), Cantonese:A completecoursefor beginners(a Teachyourself Book, though a far cry from the courses they used to publish) and a Routledge course entitled Colloquial czech. All of these have merits; none is perfectly suited to my needs.I come to them with researchexpertisein text linguistics and lexical studies.I find nothing that relatesto the former in any of them; the whole discourseperspectivemight never have existed for all the impact it has made on the authors of these materials. They cannot, however, avoid vocabulary,so the question arises:how do they chooseto teach vocabulary? suefios, A vous la France and to a lesser extent Colloquiat Czech favour themed word-lists, by which I mean that the lists are constructedon the basis of some common semanticproperty, such as colour, measurementor sporting activity. Abbreviated examples from Suefios(pp 254-5) are the followine: Occupations actor/actress accountant architect carpenter
actor/actriz contable (Sp) ; contador/ora arquitecto/a carpintera eIc.
Numbers one two three
uno/un; una dos tres
sixty sixty-five
sesenta sesenta y cinco etc.
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suefiosalso usesunthemedlists (lists madeup of words that havenothing in common) to accompanytaped examples.Both reachyourself cantonese and colloquial czech use such lists as their main way of teaching vocabulary,for example,from page 16 of Colloquial Czech: it, that, this to immediately, at once hned and a to the left vlevo
very to the right then
velmi vpravo potum
226
A world beyond collocation
What holds such a list together is simply its relevance to a piece of taped dialogue that the leamer is expectedto be attempting to make senseof. The list's main virtue is that each item it contains is readily contextualisedby reference to the tape. On the other hand, as can be seen, the items leamed form no system. The lists tn Swedishin Three Months are of both the kinds mentioned,but in addition some are structurally oriented.An (abbreviated)example is: Here is a list of some of the most common deponentverbs: to breathe to be, to exist to hope to vomrt to succeed
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In so far as Cantonese,Colloquial Czech and Swedish in Three Months tely on lists of this kind, they are clearly adopting a conservative strategy for vocabulary teaching,one tried and trustedfor centuriesbut one that takeslittle account of what this book has been about, of what we now know about the way words work. Suefios and A vous la France are more adventurous in this respect. Both employ shadedsectionsthat talk about the way one sayssomething.Theseare sometimesuseful, for example:
u ithc conil becau the ca usage e-\prel
To ask for a ticket you can say:
tr.2
Quisiera (comprar) un billete para (ir a) Valencia. I'd like a ticket to (go to) Valencia. For the type of ticket you want, say: wn billete de ida (y vuelta) a single/returnticket un billete defumadores/nofumadores a smoker/non-smoker Sometimes,on the other hand, these sectionsare more contrived: To ask about seasons,say: Cudntas estacioneshay ? How many seasonsare there? Cudndo es el invierno/verano/etc? When is winter/summerI eIc? And to answer, say: El invierno es de diciembre a marzo. Winter is from Decemberto March. Hay...estaciones. Thereare...seasons.
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No hay estacionesdefinidas. There aren't well-definedseasons. Hay una temporada lluviosa y una temporada seca. There is a rainy seasonand a dry season. I suspectthat many leamers want to know how to buy a train ticket, but that it is only ecologists and geographerswho have a burning need to know how to enumeratethe seasons. This doesnot exhaustthe strategiesthesecoursebooksuse- there is use also of exercisesto encourageguessingon the basisof similarity of sound and also some discussion of related words - but the strategies I have illustrated undoubtedlydominate.How successful,then, are thesemethods of teaching lexis? I can only speak for myself as a very average reamer, but I am consciousof quickly forgetting themedlists. Becausethe words are learned without referenceto any context in which they might be used,they tend to get confused with each other. unthemed lists work somewhat better fbr me becausethe accompanyingtape contextuarisesthe words I am rearning, but the contextualisation is apparently accidental and varies in usefulness. The usage notes likewise vary in usefulness- if an opportunity to use the expressionsarisesreasonablysoon after they have been leamed, then these expressionstend to stick, but if on the other hand no such opportunity arises, then they drift out of memory.
11.2 Why word lists are dangerous In differing degrees,all the methodsfor teachinglexis I have mentioned suffer from two weaknesses,one of which I shall mention immediately and the other of which I shall spring upon you later. The first and immediaie weakness is that none show any awarenessof the importance of collocation, the company a word keeps, an important matter, as previous chapters in this book have made abundantly clear. with that in mind, look again at the list of types of employment quoted above from Swefios. You might reasonablysupposethat you would encounterall the words in this list in very similar contexts.you might reasonablypredict that employment words llke architect and accountont would share many collocates employ(ed), work(ed), good, trained as spring to mind as obvious possibilities.Yet, as you would now predict having read the rest of the book, each word also has its own collocates.sometimesexamining large corpora reveals some surprises:actor, for example,has these collocates: [see note belowl best, former, (perhaps an indication of the insecurity of the acting profession),director, and, most surprisingly, sir, in examplls sochas The distinguished actor sir lan McKellan was invited to Downing street yesterday-... In contrast,accountanl does not have sir as one of its major collocates;carpenter, which is considerablyless common than the other
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A world beyond collocation
words in the list, has aged, father, son, among its main collocates. These differencescan be explainedin terms of the word's characteristicgrammatical pattems, of which more below. For the moment, we can note that the collocatesof carpenter do not refer to the job, unlike the collocatesof all the other words on the list. [Notice that this paper uses a different, more technical, definition of collocation than most of 'words which occur within a few (six) words the others in this book. It defines collocation as on either side of the headword in naturally occurring spoken or written text': under this definition actor and Sit; carpenter mdfather are collocates.Although this technical definition seemsa long way from the classroom,it can reveal pattems which are helpful for teachersand materials writers, see Chapter 7. Ed.l
What all this suggestsis that themed lists hide great variety of use in a spuriousconformity. It is reasonableto assumethat the collocatesof all these words will similarly vary in Spanish(or any other language),though of course that remains to be proved. If they do, learning the words in a list will not guide the learner into producing natwal-sounding sentences:more imporlantly and less tendentiously, list-learning will not help recognition of the words in reading, nor will it help with guess-workfor accompanyingwords. So is this weaknessalso evident in EFL textbooks?The answer is a modified 'Yes'. If we look at Headway, it avoids lists as such and sometimesgoes well
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beyond them. One strategy used (New Headway English Course: IntermediateStudent'sBookp 30) is to encourageguesswork: Work in three groups.
Group A Group B Group C
Read about the writer. Read about the painter. Read aboutthe musician.
Read your extract and answer the questionsabout your person. Try to guessthe words underlined from the context. Then use your dictionary to check the words. This activity is inherently good, encouragingas it does sensibleguessingin a natural reading context and inviting the learner to make use of collocational information. The dictionary is only brought in as a checking device. Much of the time, though, the strategiesfor teaching lexis are less natural. Often the effect of the chosenmethod is similar to that of using an unthemed list. Consider the following example, also from New Headway Intermediate: You will hear Bert Atkins, who was born in 1919, talking about his school days [Accompanying tape]. Check these words in your dictionary: chalk a slate a cloth to knit Apart from giving the leamer practice in using a dictionary, this activity serves no different purpose from the list from Colloquial Czech.A similar chargecan be levelled againstthe following activity from the samebook:
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VOCABULARY Art, music and literature Use your dictionary to look up any new words. Look at the nouns below and write them in the correct column. composer instrwment chapter brush drawing
poem band tune banjo novel
ART
author palette bugle portrait pianist
painter sketch biography fiction pop group
MUSIC
oil painting orchestra detectivestory play
LITERATURE
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This strategyencouragesthe leamers to build up themed lists for themselves, but while this gives the leamers ownership of the lists they create,the lists themselveshave the sameweaknessesas any other kind of list. Sometimesthe strategy adopted is one that seeks to combine the themed list with collocational information. consider the following further example from the samebook: VOCABULARY AND LISTENING: SpoTt Make a list of as many sports and leisure activities as you can think of. Use the pictures to help you. [Pictures omitted] WiIe in play, go, or do. There are three of each. . tennis
. athletics
. football
. exerctses
. volleyball
fishing
. jogging
. aerobics
skiing
Can you work out the rules? A .I dl
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choose some of the sporls or activities from your list and fill in the columns below. use your dictionary to look up any new words that you need. sport/activity
play, go, or do?
people
football
play
goalkeeper stadium footballer footballpitch referee
:
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equipmenr ball, boots
The effect of this sfategy is to get the leamer to organisehis or her knowledge into themed lists and of course supplementthat knowledge with the help of the dictionary. If that was all it did, it would be no more than a fussy way of creating themed lists. But what of course it does in addition is invite the learnerto investigatethe common collocatesassociatedwith eachof the items
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A world beyond collocation
in the list. Furlhermore,it recognisesthat eachof the items in the list will have different collocates; it reminds the learner, implicitly at least, that such lists cannot be treated as homogeneous.
11.3 The importance of context So far, so good. But so far is not quite far enough.To begin with, vocabulary definitely takes a back seatto grammar in Headway and, as already noted, the vocabulary activities vary in value. But there is a more fundamentalproblem here, which is a direct product of the fact that vocabulary items need to be taught with their most common collocates.It has always been impossibleto exposelearners to mote than a fraction of the vocabulary that they might be felt to need. How much more impossible it must be to teach them the necessaryvocabularyin context! Ifwe assumethat everyitem has on average around ten important collocates,we have in effect multiplied the vocabulary leaming task by ten. Admittedly some of the words which make up the collocations will be items we might want the learner to acquire anyway, and leaming items in context may be easierthan learning them out of context, but for all that the problem will not go away. There is a greal deal of vocabulary to be learned, and a gteat deal to be learned about each item ofvocabulary. One strategy adopted increasingly in recent years is that of developing specialisedmaterial for the purposeof teaching vocabulary.One such work is English Vocabularyin Use by Michael McCarthy & Felicity O'Dell. This contains 100 sections, all but seven of which are directly concemed with teaching classesof words, mostly semanticallyorganised,though in some casesmorphologicallyorganised.
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In an early section (p 2), they offer the learner advice that is so eminently sensiblethat it is worth quoting extensively: What does knowing a new word mean? . It is not enoughjust to know the meaning of a word. You also need to know: (a) what words it is usually associatedwith (b) whether it has any particular grammatical characteristics (c) how it is pronounced . Try to learn new words not in isolation but in phrases. . Write down adjectivestogether with nouns they are often associatedwith and vice vetsa,e.g. royalfamily; rich vocabulary. . Write down verbs with the structure and nouns associatedwith them, e.g. to add to our knowledgeof the subject; to expressan opinion. . Write down nounsin phrases,e.g. in contactwith; a train set; shadesof opinion.
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231
Note any grammatical characteristicsof the words you are studying. For example,note when a verb is irregular and when a noun is uncountableor is onlv used in the olural. . Make a note of any special pronunciation problems with words you're learning. (Quotedby permissionof the publisher,CambridgeUniversitypress.) This is excellent advice and deservesto be etchedinto any learner's memory. But there are two points that need to be made about it. First, it is very much leamer-advice,not teacher-advice.Indeed it might even be seenas advice to the learner on how to minimise the damaging effects of strategiessuch as those we were earlier considering. Second,it is advice that is much harder to follow than it seems,and from a materials writer's point of view it is virtually impossibleto provide what is needed.The very next sentencein the Mccarthy & o'Dell book unwittingly provides clear evidenceof this. They follow their advice with the following activity designed to make the reader think about what they havejust said: How would you record the following? a) chilly d) wp to the ears
b) dissuade c) king e) independent f) get married A perfectly worthwhile task - as long as the learner doesnot check the answer key at the back of the book! Here we are told that some possible answersare: a) b) c) d) e) f)
a chilly day to dissuade someonefrom doing something a popular king / to crown a king up to the ears in work independent of someoneI an independentcotntry get married to someone
At first sight theseanswersseemreasonable.But on closerinspectionthey do not in most casesring true. In my corpus,for example,in lz00 instancesof king, there is only one caseof popular king - as opposedto thirteen of porn king. Nearry 40vo of instancesof king actually occur in conjunction with a name often followed by a number, for example King charles II, and thar might well be the most natural form in which to record the word. If, though, the lower casek invites a non-namingresponse,the most common adjectives with king are new,former, last, .future. Likewise the most common collocate to the right of independentis state, not country, though country is also a common collocate. Even a chilly day, though an acceptablecombination, is significantly outnumbered in my corpus by a chilly wind, a chily night, a chilly eveningand, above all, a chilly receptiont Moreover, and perhapsmore significantly, a chil\, day is outnumberedby multiple-word phrasessuch as a
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A world beyond collocation
chilly May day or a chilly damp overcastday. Notice also the significant but covert collocation in lt's pretty chilly this morning. But these are minor matters. The real problem lies in the fact that these answersdo not reflect serious generalisationsabout the way these words are used. I noted above that all the methods for teaching lexis we have been looking at suffer from two weaknesses.Firstly, they take insufficient or no account of collocation. Secondly,there is a world beyond collocations. We have got so fixated on collocations that we do not see that they sometimes group in generalisableways and these groupings then account for examples of word combinations that are not collocations.
11.4 Semanticprosody The frst important point 'beyond collocation' is that words don't just combine with chosenother words, they combine with chosenmeanings. The idea is associatedwith John Sinclair (1991) who commented:Many usesof words and phrases show a tendency to occur in a cefiain semantic environment For example, the verb happen is associatedwith unpleasant things - accidentsand the like. This phenomenonhasbeenlabelled 'semanticprosody'. Semanticprosodyas I am defining it occurs when a word associateswith a particular set of meanings.So, for example,in principle, almost anything can be chilly; people and food can, afler all, both be cold so why should they not be chilly? Yet we find in fact that the word occurs in the company of certain kinds of meaning rather than others. The table below shows the semantic prosodies of chilly. For the sake of contrast I have included the frequenciesof people Nrdfood, below the line in the table below, just to show up the significance of the true semanticprosodies. Semantic prosody
frequency (out of 352)
weather
79 58 30
afi
zo
temperarure ill people
l4
watery things
8 96
unit of time place
[metaphorical] people food
o
6 I
Percentage
22Vo l6Vo 97o 7Vo 4Vo 37o 2Vo 27% 27o
Example
a chilly overcastaftemoon chilly Comwall it's pretty chilly the chilly breeze a decidedly chilly -10C a chilly patient a chilly bathtub
learne certaii proso( all gor beenp prosod words, reveal others occur I of textr chilbthey ctr These 15 tlue
prosod not col 'time'
Morec4 yet all point h for the as indi vocabul the wq prosodl
This lal the virl assocra or typic charactl from ler arbitra{ for lean of the I to ask d courseb
a chilly reception a chilly lavatory attendant chilly rolls with Iceberg lettuce
Excepting the metaphorical use of chilly, which does not strictly involve semanticprosody, the prosodieslisted above the line in this table account for 86Voof the occurrencesof chillv in mv data. What this means is thal if a
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A world beyond coilocation
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leamer wants to learn chilly they would do best to learn that it occurs in cefiain kinds of context rather than all contexts. Seen like this, semantic prosodyis a kind of generalisationbasedupon the collocatesa word has.Like all good generalisations,it covers word combinations that might not have beenpicked up as collocations.For exampre a chilry decadefits , the semantic prosody of 'unit of time' but is not a particularly common combination of words' on the otherhand,as we will see,it is u purtiul generalisation,as data revealthat somecoilocateswhich we might expect to occur actuallydo while others do not. It is particularly interesting, foi example, that chilty does not occurmuch as a literal descriptorof people,sincepeopre are a commontopic of texts and talk. It would appear that ir you say of a person that they are chilly, you mean that they are ill or have an unattractive temperament,not that they could do with sitting near a fire. Thesesemanticprosodiesare more than the accumulation of collocations.It rs true, as you wourd expect, that there are lots of collocations in each prosody' Thus chilly coilocates with morning, night, evening,day; butit does not collocatewith minutesor decades,yet both of these are examplesof the 'time' prosody. chilly also collocateswith mountain but not with tent or Morecambe(despitewhat visitors to the north-west of Engrandmight think), yet all three words exemplify the 'place'prosody. Don,t miss the important point here: such semanticprosodiesare potentially powerful generalisations for the languagelearner.It is no longer n"."ruu.y to leam endlesscollocations as individual combinations, which as I remarked earlier seemed to make vocabulary learning harder. Instead, what the leamer needs to do is to learn the word in combination with an absolutely typical representativeof the prosody as long as (s)he also knows that it IS typical. This last point is crucial. I commentedearlier that unthemed word-lists have the virtue for me of being contextualisedby the texts with which they are associated.But, I added, I was never sure whether the contexts were natural or typical. unless one knows that the collocation one is leaming is absolutely characteristicof the way the word is used,more than half the value one gets from learningthe word in its contextdisappears. [As we saw on pp r32r3, the arbitrarygapsin what we might expectby generalisation.un problems for leamers.Edl Mccarthy and o'Dell may not reflect "uu." the semantic prosodies of the words they seek to teach, but at reastthey are encouragingthe leamer to ask the right questions.you would scanthe pages of most if iy language coursebooksin vain for the slightesthint that words havesemanticprosodies.
11.5 Colligation Even semantic prosody, however, is insufficient to account fully fbr how words are used.There is a world beyond colocation and semanticprosody, namely that of colligation. Let us return for a moment to the ,employment, list from suefiosdiscussedearrier.At first sight,as a setofcountable,concrete
234
Alryorld beyond collocation
nouns sharing quite a lot of meaning, we might expect words lke architect, actor accountant,carpenter to sharequite a lot grammatically as well. So we might expect them all to take definite and indefinite articles (the Finnish architect, a church architect). We might expect them all to take classifiers (church architect) and possessives(the Academy's architect). We might expect them also to occur within possessiveconstructions (the whims of an architect; the architect's bombastic ego). We might expect them to occur in parentheses(WeUsCoates, the architect of Lawn Road Flats in Hampstead) and apposition (British architect Will Alsop). Any good grammar would encourageus to have all theseexpectations,and in so far as every item ofthe list is grammatically capable of appearing in all these constructions, such expectationsare all entirely reasonable. 'likely to appear'. Grammars But 'capable of appearing' is not the same as over the years have got obsessive about recording what the language is capable of doing, and there has been all too little attention given grammatically to what it actually does, or, more accurately, what we do with it. This is where the concept of colligation comes in. Colligation can be defined as 'the grammatical company a word keeps and the positions it prefers'; in other words, a word's colligations describewhat it typically does grammatically. The following table, basedon occulrencesin my corpus, showsthat the words accountant, actot actress,architect, carpenter differ grammatically amongst themselves,despite our expectationsthey should all behave alike; they have, in other words, different colligations. Notice the particularly high numbersin bold and the particularly low ones underlined in the table. Grammatical construction
accountant (1045 instances)
indefinite article
26Vo
classifier
26Vo
actor
(3re4) 22Vo
actress (1710)
architect (2020)
lSVo
l6Vo
carpenter
(24s)
A 1 urrl inr wlI
Na likr likt ltet but har flCtt
tha wol con car, coa AId ah gar thal
fr€(
Act, rne;
G c(| m
Yor to( I
42Vo
. l27a
l0Vo
8Vo
4Vo
tpossessort construction ie's & of NP
6Vo
8Va
LTVo
8Vo
16Vo
tpossessedt
lOVo
lVb
0Vo
5Vo
2Vo
apposition
l4Vo
27Vo
3lVo
lSVo
2%o
parenthesis
I'lVo
87a
l27o
13Va
26Vo
construction
pr0 sefl odd sirl haq coll
Tol and Mc1
pr€x
A world beyond collocation
235
'employment' A glance at this table shows that words do not behave in a grammatical the constructionsthey occur uniform fashion when it comes to in and with. The word carpenter has a much higher likelihood of occurring with an indefinite article or in a parenthesis(Mr Morland, a carpenterfrom Nofting Hill . ..) than does,say,architect.The word accountantis much more likely to occur with a classifier (a wages accountant) and actress is more likely to occur in apposition (actress Debra Winger) than any of the other items in the list. It is quite possibleto possessan accountant(my accowntant) but virtually impossible to possessan actress (as dreamy-eyedteenageboys have long known). An actressmay however be a possessor(the mother of the actress Fay Compton) as may a carpenter. What the table does not show is that even with regard to this similarity betweenactress and carpenter the two 's words actually differ. Whereas carpenter occurs in constructions and ofconstructions in roughly equal proportions (the son of a Lithuanian carpenter; the catpenter's apron), actressoccurs almost exclusively inthe ofconstructlon. Alone amongstall the employmentwords, architect is not distinguishedin the abovetable by its unusually high or unusually low associationwith one of the grammatical patterns mentioned - but it is distinguished from the others in that, as the supplement to the table below shows, it is alone in being frequently used as a metaphor (He was the main architect of the peace plan). Actor is the only other word in the list with any significant record of metaphorical use. Grammatical construction metaphor
actor accountant (1045instances) (3re4) 5Vo none
actress
architect
carpenter
(1710)
(2020)
(24s)
none
22Va
17o
You might imagine that colligation and semanticprosody are applicable only to concrete nouns. One of the other lists quoted from Suefiosis that of the numbers.You might be forgiven for thinking that at least thesecould safely be learned out of context becausethese, surely, would not have collocations, colligationsand semanticprosodies.No suchchance,I'm afraid.It is possible to show thal sixty has a strong semanticprosody with time (e.9. sixty years), occurring with a unit of time 23Voof the time but that sixty-five has no such prosody, occurring with a unit of time only 8Voof the time. Slxfl also has semanticprosody with markers of imprecision (over sixty, almost sixty, sixtyodd), occuning with such markers 2l%oof the time, but I have no instanceof sixty-five occurring with a marker of imprecision in my corpus. On the other hand, while both words have a great preferencefor beginning a sentence,that colligation is much sffonger for sixQ-five (86Voas opposedto Tl%o). To show how it appliesto vocabulary leaming, let me againpick on McCarthy and O'Dell's sample answers. (I stress again lhat I am not picking on McCarthy & O'Dell becausethey are bad, but I am discussingtheir examples precisely becausethey are about as good as it currently gets.) The sample
236
A world beyond collocation
answersthey give for married and up to the ears both creak somewhat,and it is worth looking at why. For these words they offer in their answer key the followingsuggestions: a) up to the ears in work b) get married to someone In my corpusthereareonly 14 examplesof wpto ... ears,usedmetaphorically, and twelve of theseshow a collocationtttithin.In this respect,then,McCarthy & O'Dell's answer is typical of the way of the word is used. But a still strongerpattern is overlooked.Thirteen out of fourteen of the examplesin my corpus colligate with possessivepronouns. rather than a definite article, for example: wp to his ears in exasperation,wp to my ears in debt.
subjec
n1arril, ra,hich to ihe v'as p) are lc nlarnt some l
oI }t (?t L 5 U - L I
fuller
So McCarthy & O'Dell's answer is colligationally untypical. Furthermore, ten of the occurrencesin my corpus manifest semantic prosody with bad things (such as treason and narrow and sterile rwles) and five of these bad things are instancesof debt.McCarthy & O'Dell's work is a marginalcaseof this and not one that reflects the prosody clearly. Thus a proper description of up to ... ears is the following: upto...ears uirh tir
(131 possessive
COLLIGATION
with (1)
COLLOCATION
good (3)
debt (5\
miscellaneous(5)
poslIf-:
SEMANTICPROSODY
Obr io on uhl tu o frr phra-<
COLLOCATION
nrc!'r'[N
Put more straightforwardly, wp to his ears in debt has a one in five chanceof occuring when you useup to ... ears; up to the ears in workhas a one in 800 chanceof occurring. Guesswhich one I think a leamer should learn. [A word of caution may be neededhere. If the corpus Michael is using is heavily skewed,for example towards news reporting, its most typical examples,although typical of that genre,may not be typical of the whole language or, for example, another genre such as informal conversation.It can never be repeatedtoo often that statementsbasedon corpus evidence,while undoubtedly evidence of what is in, that corpus, may not be as typical of the language as a whole as we are tempted to believe. From a pedagogicalpoint of view, in addition to raw colpus evidence,factors such as immediate usefulnessor relevanceto the needs of particular students may need to be taken into account when choosing the exampleswhich will be most helpful for a particular class. Ed.l
A similar picture applies to get married. Of 257 instances of clauses containing the verbal group get married, at least 92 (36Ea) have as their
subie' r','ithir some Again more l
l c1
7Jr
Inau ongml conhn lin-eui apart prepar teache
A world beyond collocation
y 1
v r
237
subjecta referenceto the couple ( "Why did AwntieElaine and Uncle Marc get married?" askedOlivia.) A further 26have an indefinite subject,ustally you, which may be referring to a couple.Another 97 GSqa)have one of the parties to the marriage as subject but no mention of the other pafty (Monica Zanotti was planning to get married this spring.) On the other hand, only five (ZVo) are followed by a prepositional phrase starting with to. The phrase ger married is far more likely to occur with a positive time or place expressionof somekind (though not usually both), such asplanned to get married one day or wanted us to get married in church - 28voof instancesof the expressiondo so - but this is twice as likely to happen when the couple is subject. Thus a fuller description of get married would be: get married
l I f f
COLLIGAIION
with time/place expression(29)
. positive(42)
negative(0)
/
/
poSitive (20)
\ \
negative (9)
SEMANTIC PROSODY
SEMANTIC PROSODY
obviously, the exact distribution of thesecharacteristicsmay differ depending on whether get, getting or got is selected,but informal inspection of the other two forms suggestsno great variation. For example,the past tenseform of the phrase got married shows the same tendencies.Out of 172 instancesof gol married, 4l (27Ea)have the couple as subject; a further six have an indefinite subject,and only eight (5Vo)are followed by a prepositional phrasebeginning with to, three of which are separatedfrom the verbal group by punctuation of somesofi. Again, what all this means is that sentencessuch as the following are much more likely than McCarthy & O'Del|s get married to someone: I cried when I watched Jill and Mark get married on Tuesday. They'replanning to get married at last, in Monaco. In a way, this analysis only confirms the wisdom of McCarlhy & O'Dell's original advice to record every new word in its grammatical context. It also confirms, however,that intuition, even the intuition of the best lexical applied linguists,is likely to be flawed.And if it is true of McCarthy & O'Dell, who, apart from being steeped in lexical knowledge, also had time aplenty to prepare their book, how much more true must it be of the poor language teacher, rushed off his or her feet, preparing materials with inadequate
238
A world beyond collocation
resourcesand asked about words in class without the chance to check the answersout!
ll.6
Concordancing
So what can the languageteacherdo? How can (s)he teachvocabulary so that the naturally occurring colligations and semantic prosodies are picked up? Haven't I actually made the teacher'stask still worse? The answerto the last question is'Yes and no'. Certainly,I have redefined what it is to leam a word well. But the featuresof words that I have mentioned are naturally occurring features and there are strategiesthat can be used 1o ensure that words are learned wilh maximum usefulness.The first thing to note is that words acquire colligations and semantic prosodies, as well as collocations, by being repeated in similar contexts. As we leam our first language,we build up in our headsa profile of the words we are leaming. The so-called LanguageAcquisition Device in a baby's head is more likely to be a set of concordancing 'software' that enables us to find regularities and recuffent features in our linguistic experience, rather than any abstract grammar-makingdevice. So the first necessityis, unsurprisingly,exposure to as much naturally occurring language as a learner is capable of attending to. If learner or teacher has accessto computer concordances,so much the better; Tim Johns at the University of Birmingham has shown for years how much a learner can pick up from simple, small concordances. But what if learners or teachers have no access to a computer? In such circumstances,there are still useful strategiesthat can be adopted for the leaming and teaching of vocabulary.Most texts can be shown to be networks of repetitions,for the obvious reasonthat texts tend to be about somethingand whatever that 'thing' is, it is likely to be repeatedmany times in the courseof the text. In addition, becauseit is impossible to say everything at once, as Eugene Winter once noted, we often pick up something we said earlier in order to add something to it that we could not say on the first occasion. Take this chapteras an example.My computer tells me that the most common lexical items in the chapter so far ate words, language, learner and word, which is hardly going to come as a surpriseto you, The word words occurs 49 times up to the end of the previous paragraph;word occtrs 26 times, language 21 times and learner 28 times. This means that you have had more than 20 opportunitiesto seeeachof thesewords in action, to absorbtheir collocations, colligations and semantic prosodies. Without realising it, every time you encounteredone of thesewords, my text was subtly reinforcing or modifying your mental lexicon, which already contains collocational, colligational and semantic prosodic information about these words, though you may well not be particularly aware of having that inforrhation. So, my chapter is in fact a kind of linearly organisedconcordanceof the words words, word, language and learner (as well of course as many others).
i.
A world beyond collocation
the
hat rp? red red to to AS
|rst he be Lnd act
to ng :he f,\\I
Lch
:he -1.^ R5
nd of 2q tn
on rd. 49 ge l0 us. ou n,g nd iot r 2
ge
239
So what will you subconsciouslyhave absorbedabout the word words in the course of reading this chapter?well, firstly you will have absorbedthat it occurs repeatedly with certain other words, putative collocates in fact: these are:use(d)(3 times - 67aof possibleoccasions),learn(ed/s)(7 times -l4Te, list(s) (5 times - l)Vo), and new (3 times - 6Vo).Examinarionof my 100million-word corpus shows that all these words are bona fide collocates of words and one of them, use(d), is the commonest lexical verb words associateswith, occurringalmost 5Voof the time in my corpus. You will also have unconsciously absorbedthe fact thaLwords occurs in an idiom - in other words - twice in my chapter.of course,this idiom proves to be very common in the languageas a whole, occurring 1774 times in my 100million-word corpus. So much for the collocations. You will also have noticed, probably without noticing that you are noticing it, a significant colligation, namely that it is common for the word words to be immediately followed by some form of specification,for example,the words 'actor' and 'actress';this happenssix times in this chapter (l2vo of the time). This is a putative colligation of words - and examination of the large corpus confirms that this is so. Specification occurs after words 1731 times (lIEo) in the 100-million-word torpus, of which 1259 (over 8o/o)are individual words or phrasesor sentencesless than four words long. So my chapter has inadvertently reinforced a very common colligation of words. The sameis true of word, only evenmore so in this chapter.In appositionwith someother item, for example,the word 'accowntant', the word 'carpenter',iI occurs a fifth of the time in my chapter.This reflects its use in the language as a whole. Out of 12,839instancesof word in my lOO-million-wordcorpus, 272I occw with apposition,that is 27Voor, as in this chapter,one occurrence in frve. Another colligational feature of word you will have unconsciously absorbed is that it functions as a classifier in my chapter three times: word combinations,multiple-wordphrases,word-lists;this happensalmost ljTo of the time in the 12,839 examples.You will also have absorbedthe fact that word collocates in my chapter with use(d), occurs, learn, and - as this sentenceillustrates - collocates; thesefour collocates account for 58Voof all instancesof word in my chapter.As for words, the collocate use(d) is very commonin the languageas a whole; one of the forms of use occurswithword 1051 times or 87oof the time. The collocateoccur(s) is much less frequent, barely registering ar O.lvo of the time. on the other hand, if one looks at the semanticprosodiesof occwrsin a generalcolpus we find that it occurs nearly 4vo of the time with a linguistic term as subject (or with a pronoun as subject which has as its reference a linguistic term) - a very high percentage,given that my corpus is taken predominantly from the Guardian newspaper,not noted for its extensivelinguistic discussions.Add to this the fact thar occurs
240
A v)orld beyond collocation
when is used as shorthandfor can be defined as what occurs when two and a half per cent of the time, and the fact that on another two and a half per cent of the time it takesa mathematicalor musical subject(quasi-linguistic,both) and you have strong evidence that rny chapter's use of the combination of word and occurs is entirely natural. So, this chapter has subconsciously reinforced the semantic prosody that occwrs takes a linguistic or quasilinguistic subject.
A dt ot
Notice that the last collocateof the four just mentionedis not one that would be picked up in a large generalcorpus. The writers of this book have all been working to changeyour perception of the way words work and part of what that has involved has been the adding of collocates to your mental concordanceof word. So the way a word is used and understoodis modified as well as reinforced by the texts we encounter.
T]
TU
hr
The point is clear: a short natural text is already creating the collocations, colligations and semantic prosodies of the words we encounter.For native speakers,most of the time what happens is simple reinforcement of collocations and other pattemsthat we already know and recognise,but as the exampleof the word collocatesshows,it is also possiblefor a text to modify or add to the collocationsand other languagefeaturesthat we recognise. For the leamer, of course, all encountersare like this. So what we need are ways to intensify the leamer's encounterswith words. As I warned at the beginning, I am a descriptive linguist, not a practising languageteacher,and it is likely that any advice I give here can be bettered by you. But two approachesmight be suggested.The first comes from Jane Willis who, in a fascinating paper on materials development, showed how she had got her learnersto use a text to produce a manual concordance.She took a group of words that occuned commonly in the text and got her studentsto go through the text looking for one or more of thesekeywords. In her case,the keywords were grammatical in nature, but the activity can be used with equal effect on lexical items, as long as you have verified in advancethat the words being searchedfor have occurred a sufficient number of times to prevent the search being boring or frustrating. The studentsthen had to copy the keywords down in the contexts in which they found them, lining the keywords up under each otherjust as is done automaticallyon a computerconcordance.She then got them to reflect on what pattems they were finding. Obviously, for full effect the studentsshould be linguistically sophisticatedeven if not linguistically advanced,though value could be gained by any group willing to go beyond being force-fed. Another way of using the vocabulary - the hidden concordancesof the text is to have students look for words that group together and then search for other sentenceswith the same group of words in them. For example the first sentenceof this chapter:Despitebeing the head of a languagewnitdedicated to Applied Linguistics,I am not myselfan experiencedlangwageteacher.
I I
I1n raI Gi clt str_ ]i l
Th he
fffXnn!-tt
rr],rti{ir llJllli
A world beyond collocation
)!l
A number of lexical items occur in this sentence:head, language(twice), wnit, dedicated, applied, linguistics, experienced,teacher; since it has a referent outside the text, the pronoun l could be addedto the list. The studentis then told to look for another sentencewith three of these words in it. Thev don't have far to search:the very next sentencefulfils the condition: The little experience I have of language teaching is well out of date andfomnsno basisfor giving practical advice to anyone. The studentcan then look for pattem and variation. (S)he will certainly spot: language teacher langwageteaching which point to the possibility of a colligation whereby language is noun modifier to a noun derived from a verb (cf language learning, langwage acqwisition).At the sametime, (s)hemay note the variations: experienced experience I have of
language tectcher language teaching
and, if (s)heis really sharpand linguistically on the ball: I am not myself I have little
experienced experrcnce
The student then looks for another sentencewith the same lexis, trying not to read the intervening sentences but simply searching for the cluster of words. Lo and behold, (s)he will find one at the end of the paragruph:I may haveno langwageteachingexperiencebut I do havedaily experienceofbeing a language learner I should say here that I have made no changesto my text whatsoeverin order to illustrate the point I am making, nor did I write it with the intention of using it as an illustration. Now the tentatively identified colligations are reinforced. We have: experienced experienceI have of experienceof being a
language language language language
teacher teaching teaching learner
expertence
The learner now has encounteredone of the colligations of langwage fow times in a manner likely to reinforce the learning, but (s)he has encountereda range of ways in which experience (and its related adjective) can be used. Given the parallelism of learner wilh teacher, it could be added to the word cluster being sought. If 1 is included in the search,the next sentencethat the student will find is the very next sentence'.Every weekday, more or less without exception,I attempt to learn a language. The main point here is the confirmation of the fact that the previous noun headswere derived from verbs: learn a
! J1
language languagelearner
242
A world beyond collocation
If however1is not included,the next sentenceto be found will be at the end of the third paragraph:The experienceI bring to a book like this aimed at the practising language teacher is that of the Qpical well-motivated but only averageIy competent I earner. It will be seen that this sentencereinforces what the learner has picked up about experience, and by now the leamer will also be picking up that experienceis alwaysassociatedwith someone,in this caseL It alsoreinforces the noun-modifying quality of langwage as well as showing that the noun headsit accompaniescan occur on their own (averagelycompetentlearner). And so on. There is one other point to be made about the sentencesthe studentwill have been looking it, namely that they will characteristically- if the text is nonnarrative - make sensetogether,as will be seenbelow: Despite being the head of a language unit dedicated to Applied Linguistics, I am not myself an experiencedlanguageteacher.The little experienceI have of languageteachingis well out of date and forms no basis for giving practical advice to anyone. I may have no language teaching experiencebut I do have daily experienceof being a language leamer. The experience I bring to a book like this aimed at the practising language teacher is that of the typical well-motivated but only averagelycompetentlearner. Thus the studentsget two benefits at the same time. They have a controlled task to perform that will result in the raising of their consciousnessabout the nature of the collocations, colligations and semanticprosodies of a group of words - though I hope I do not have to add that there is absolutely no need for them to ever hear whisper of such terminology.At the sametime they have got sensefrom authentic text without having had to read everything in the text. In this context I should emphasisethat the text doeshave to be authentic; inauthentic text may distort the featuresI have been describing.
11.7 Summary The featuresI have been describing,as well as thosedescribedelsewherein this book, are the natural result of the way we encounterand acquire our first language.Word-lists, despite the promise they offer of allowing the learners to correlatetheir first languagewith the languagebeing learned,deprive them of much of the information they would naturally have if learning those same words in the language community. The strategiesI described in the last few pages are not the only, and probably not the best, ways of enhancing the leamers' vocabulary so that they learrrnot just the meaningsof the words but the environmentsthey occur in. But they surebeat word-lists! No wonder I have never succeededas a languagelearner: the coursesI have taken have not only denied me accessto the collocations of the words I have
A world beyond collocation
){J
learned, but they have hidden from me the whole rich world beyond collocation that underlies what it r"atty -"u.r. to know a word.
Discussioneuestions #:iHf;"tr
havevounoticedwhenlearners learnlisrsof individualwords
Michaer Hoey is ress happy with many themed word lists, such as lists of sporrs or fumiture, than with unthemei fisrs drawn from a;;;", dialogue. experience
ffi:
#ii:,classroom
reflecthis assessm"nt or-rn.." differenr
Do you anticipate any probrems implementing the suggestion, made by severar contributors to this uoot, oi"n"ouraging learners to record languagein multi_worditems, new ,cleaning l" it up,first? "orrt"^t,^;ithout
244 Bibliography
Bibliography Baigent, M. (1999) Teachingin Chunks: integratinga lexical approach,'in Modern English Teacher,Vol. 8, No. 2 Biber, D., Conrad, S. and Reppen, R. (1998) Corpus Linguistics, Cambridge University Press Brown, G. (1917) Listening to SpokenEnglish, Longman Bygate, M. (1996) Effects of Task Repetition: appraisingthe developing languageof learners,in Willis and Willis
SJ
S] L
S1
Sr
Tr R
T EI
Coady, J. and Huckin, T. (1991) SecondLanguageVocabularyAcquisition, Cambridge University Press
T \t
Fernando, C. (1996) Idioms and Idiomaticity,Oxford University Press
vt
Hill, J. and Lewis, M. (Eds) (1997)LTP Dictionary of SelectedCollocations, UTP
T] 1,
Hoey, M. (1991) Patternsof Lexis in Text, Oxford University Press
v!
Hoey, M. (Ed) (1993) Data, Description,Discourse,HarperCollins
\1 H
Howarth, P. (1998) Phraseology and Second Language Proficiency, in Applied LinguisticsVol. 19, No. 1 Hudson, J. (1998) Perspectives on Fixedness,Lund University Press Johansson,S. (1993) "Sweetly oblivious": some aspectsof adverb-adjective combinationsin present-dayEnglish, in Hoey, 1993 Krashen, S. and Terrell, T. (1983) The Natural Approach,Pergamon Larsen-Freeman, D. (1977) Chaos, Complexity, Science and Second LanguageAcquisition, in Applied Linguistics,Vol. 18, No. 2 Lewis, M. (1993) The Lexical Approach,LTP Lewis M. (1997) Implementingthe Lexical Approach,LTP Lewis, M. (1996) Implicationsof a Lexical View of Language,in Willis and Willis Lewis, M. (1991) PedagogicalImplications of the Lexical Approach, in Coady and Huckin Nattinger, J. and DeCarrico, J. (1992) Lexical Phrases in Language Teaching,Oxford University Press Poole, B. (1998) Corpus, Concordance, Combinability, in IATEFL Newsletter,Feb-March 1998 Rudzka, B., Channel, J., Putseys,Y. and Ostyn, P. (1981) The Words you Need,Macmillan Schmidt, R. W. (1990) The Role of Consciousnessin Second Language Learning,in Applied Linguistics,Vol. 11, No. 2
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sinclair, J. (1991)corpus, concordance,colrocation, oxford university press Skehan, P. (1998) A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning, Oxford UniversityPress Stewart, I. (1990) Does God play Dice?, penguin Sunderland, P. (1998) Lexical Chunks,inArena, Issue
19 Ter-Minasova, S. (1996) Language, Linguistics and Life: A view from Russia,Moscow StateUniversityAssociation o
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Timmis, r. (1999) Language corpora: what every teacher should know, in ELI News & Views, year 6, No. 1 Thornbury, S. (1998) The Lexical Approach: a joumey without maps. in Modern English Teacher,Vol. 7. No. 4 watts, P. (1999) using textual analysis to teach source use, paper, 33rd TESOL Convention Wilberg, P. (1987) One to One, LTp Williams, A. (1998) Negotiatingin Chunks,in Arena, Issue 19 willis, J. and winis, D. (1996) chailenge and change in LanguageTeaching, Heinemann
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