名古屋外国語大学論集 第7号 2020年7月

Article

Teaching Collocations to EFL Students

Lidija ELLIOTT

Abstract
The topic of this article is teaching collocations to university EFL students. It
focuses on different techniques and activities that are used to present collocations
to English learners, and provides historical background of collocation studies and
interpretations. In addition to that, the systematization and the categorization of
collocations types are provided in this article. The activities proposed are based
on and inspired by Michael Lewis`s (1993) Lexical Approach which emphasizes
the importance of vocabulary acquisition to language learners. Collocations
are an important part of vocabulary, according to this approach, and they are
regarded, as one of the important elements that language teacher should focus
on in the language classroom.

Key words: collocations, vocabulary, Lexical Approach, English language

teaching, EFL

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Introduction
The main topic of this article is teaching collocations, which is a relatively recent
concept in second language learning. It consists of different techniques and
activities which aim at raising both learners’ and teachers’ awareness of their
existence and at the same time importance of relatively fixed word combina-
tions. Koya (2005) states that interest in teaching and developing its vocabulary
increased from 1980’s. However more attention has been given to this concept
lately due to Lexical Approach to second language teaching, the term being
described by Lewis in the early 1990s. Collocation is”the readily observable
phenomenon whereby certain words co-occur in natural text with greater than
random frequency” (Lewis 1997, p.8). This approach, is an alternative to gram-
mar base approaches, and draws attention to the significance of lexis, or words,
or word combinations in language acquisition. Nation (2001), argues “Language
knowledge is collocational knowledge”. Hence to speak English naturally and
fluently learners need to pay attention to them.
The aim of this article is to clarify the importance of teaching collocation in
classrooms, to present the different ways collocations can be taught, and to give
some feedback on the implementation of techniques and activities designed to
teach collocations in English language classroom.

Collocations
The study of collocations as a part of vocabulary study was neglected in the past
because the focus of language studies for a long time was mainly on grammatical
structures, “mastery of the grammatical system is a prerequisite for effective
communication” (Lewis, 1993, p.133). Sinclair (1991) points out, it is obvious
that words do not appear at random in texts, and people cannot produce natural
sentences simply by operating on the principle of grammar.
Palmer (1933) first coined the term “collocations “in its modern linguistic sense.
He defined collocations as “succession of two or more words that may best be

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learned as if it were single word” (Cowie 1999, p.54). Collocations can be also
defined as the restrictions on how words can be used together, for example,
which prepositions and verbs are used together, or which nouns appear with
particular verbs (Richards, Platt &Platt, 1992). “Although collocations can be
classified in any different ways, the most common classification is the one into
grammatical and lexical collocations” (Begagic, 2014, p.47).
British linguists, mostly Halliday and Sinclair, maintain that lexical theory
is needed to complement grammatical theory, and that grammatical description
does not account for all the patterns in a language. In the 1970s and 1980s, the
communicative and natural approaches, changed the focus of language studies.
The interest increased in the 1990s. The focus was on vocabulary development
which resulted in more interesting vocabulary teaching because learning such
rich activities are needed to help learners acquire, practice and get better knowl-
edge of the lexical parts of the language. Chung (2018) states how interesting
vocabulary activities can help to cultivate an interest in learning.
Lewis insisted that his Lexical Approach is not simply a shift of emphasis
from grammar to vocabulary teaching, “as language clearly consists not only
of traditional grammar and vocabulary, but often of multi-word prefabricated
chunks” (Lewis, 1997, p.3). According to Lewis chunks include collocations,
fixed and semi-fixed expressions and idioms, and have an important role in
facilitating language production, being the key to communication and to native-
like fluency. The Lexical Approach is important because it includes not only the
single words but also the word combinations that we store in our mental lexicons.
The basic principle is: “Language is grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised gram-
mar” (Lewis 1993, p.89). In other words, lexis is essential in creating meaning,
while grammar plays a less important or secondary organizational role. If teach-
ers follow this rule then the conclusion is that teachers should spend more time
helping English learners develop and understand collocations, and less time on
teaching grammar. Wilkins (1972, pp. 111–112) wrote “. . . while without gram-

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mar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed”.
As the awareness and importance of the role of collocations in language
teaching developed, progress in the field was made such as computer based stud-
ies of language. It is one of many tools and techniques that can help teachers to
facilitate the language learning process and improve the learners' language com-
petencies. The introduction of language corpora and corpus analysis techniques
into language research made it possible to conduct studies that involved a large
amount of data involving freely produced language, a large variety of language
samples, and cross-corpora comparisons. Software packages like WordSmith
Tools- Lexically.net provide tools for calculating frequencies of words specified
by researchers in a corpus. (Laurance, 2013).

Two main views can be identified in the study of collocations:

1)   “Frequency-based approach” or “distributional” which draws on quanti-
tative evidence about word co-occurrence in corpora (Granger & Paquot, 2008;
Nesselhauf, 2005; Paquot & Granger, 2012). Among main representatives are
J.R. Firth, M.A.K. Halliday and J. Sinclair.
2)   “Phraseological approach” which focuses on establishing the semantic
relationship between two (or more) words and the degree of noncompositionality
of their meaning (Gablasova, Brezina, & McEnry, 2017). Main representatives
are A.P. Cowrie and F.J. Haussmann.

Types of collocations
Lewis (1997) suggests that collocation is not decided by logic or frequency, but
it is arbitrary, decided only by linguistic convention. This means that there are
no certain rules or any logic for them. Some collocations are fully fixed, such
as catch a cold or drug addict, while others are more or less fixed and can be
completed in a small number of ways such as:
· Blood/close/near relative or

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· Badly/bitterly/deeply/seriously/severely hurt
Lewis (1997) proposes the following categories for collocations:
1.   Strong: A large number of collocations are strong or very strong, and they
are combinations that frequently occur together, for example we talk mostly
about rancid butter, but other things can be described as rancid as well such as
rancid breath.
2.   Weak: These are words which co-occur with a greater then random fre-
quency, or combined with a lot of different words, for example many things
can be long (long coastline or long friendship) or short (short vacation or short
memory), good (good news or good time) or bad (bad fish or a bad cough), cheap
(cheap tickets or feeling cheap) or expensive (an expensive hobby or expensive
shops). However some things are more predictable than others which than could
be called collocations such as, white wine or red wine, etc.
3.   Medium strength: These are words that go together with a greater frequency
than weak collocations but not as limited in combinability as strong collocations
such as hold a meeting, carry out a study, make a mistake.
Hill (1999) states that:
Unique collocations, denotes word combination which is not usually found in
combination with any other word for example with the word foot when used as
a verb in the collocation foot the bill, since we cannot say for example foot the
invoice etc. Similarly, we shrug the shoulders, but we do not shrug anything else.

Importance of Teaching Collocations

There are many strong arguments for the focus on teaching collocations in
the language classroom. Collocation is an important aspect in vocabulary
acquisition and knowledge of collocations is a good indication of general EFL
proficiency. By comparison with native speakers, language learners overuse
some collocations, for example, collocations constructed with core verbs (be,
have, make, etc.) or particular amplifiers (very, completely, highly, strongly),

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whereas they do not use other native like collocations (Altenberg & Granger,
2001; De Cock, Granger, Leech, & McEnery, 1998; Granger, 1998; Howarth,
1996; Laufer, 2010).
According to Lewis (1993) the reason we should teach collocations is that
“Collocation…provides the most powerful organization principle for language
teaching…In many cases collocation is a principal characteristic by which words
may be located or even defined.” (p.119). Also, the vast majority of written and
spoken language is composed of a relatively small number of high frequency
words (Nation, 2001), so focusing on these very common items seems likely
to be helpful for learners. The other very important reason for teaching col-
locations to students is to increase their efficiency when using English, which
leads to increased fluency. As Hill (1999) argued that: “Collocation is the key
to fluency.”
He further explains that:

Native speakers can only speak at a relatively fast speed because they
are calling on a vast repertoire of ready-made language in their mental
lexicons. Similarly their reading and listening comprehension is “quick”
because they are consistently recognizing “chunks” of language. The
main difference between native speakers and non-native speakers is that
native speakers have met more examples of the language. It is this that
enables them to process and produce language at a much faster rate than
the average student. (Hill 1999, p.5)

The common way for students to learn English vocabulary or any other foreign
language is by writing down the translation of the word. However this is not
always the best way since many words change their meaning in combination
with other words thus they are not always translated in the same way. One way
to overcome this is to focus more on lexical chunks/blocks rather than a single

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word because that make the process of learning English time saving and more
beneficial. If students memorize lexical chunks rather than individual words, it
will enable students to quickly and easily use the appropriate phrase rather than to
try to construct it one word at a time. Therefore students’ speech becomes more
fluent, in addition to that, it will become more accurate, as it takes less time to
think of the right expression or word. It will provide alternative and richer ways
to express themselves and it will give students more confidence. The increased
efficiency and fluency of a non-native speaker is beneficial to both native and
non-native speakers. Native speakers will most likely predict what is going to be
said based on common phrasing patterns even if the pronunciation is not as good.
On the other hand familiarity with collocations should increase a non-native
speaker’s efficiency as a listener or a speaker.
Increased efficiency and fluency facilitate better communication between native
and non-native speakers. Hill (2000, p.53) estimates that “collocations are found
in up to 70% of everything we say, hear, read, or write is to be found in some
form of fixed expression”.
Hence, teaching collocations to students is important as it will make it easier
for non-native speakers to improve not only their vocabulary and speaking but
also writing performance “Mere practice of particular word combinations - will
result in improved performance.” (Zaabalawi&Gould, 2017, p.21) Apart from
these benefits, students when familiar with collocations will be less likely to
translate literally. Literal translation of phrase and students’ failure to use the
correct collocations, even if their utterance is grammatically and contextually
correct, will lead to their English still sounding unnatural and ‘foreign’ to the
extent that they may not be understood at all. According to Gledhill (2000, p.5),
“it is impossible for a writer to be fluent without a thorough knowledge of the
phraseology of the particular field he or she is writing in.”

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Different types of collocations
According to Benson, Benson & IIson (1986) grammatical collocations fall into
several different types. Some of the most common types are:
1) adverb+adjective collocations
Absolutely terrified
Deeply concerned
2) adjective+noun collocations
Native speaker
Heavy rain
3) noun+noun collocations
Comfort zone
Credit card
4) noun+verb collocations
Thunder rumbled
Rumors spread
5) verb+noun collocations
Commit a crime
Make mistakes
6) verb+preposition collocations
Agree with
Participate in
7) adverb+adverb collocation
All alone
Right now
8) adverb+verb collocations
Strongly agree
Completely forgot

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Activities to teach collocations

In order to teach collocations, firstly teachers should make students be aware
of their existence. Collocations exist in students’ native language, therefore the
concept will be easily understood. Intensive and extensive listening and reading
should be encouraged in order to expose student to those forms. For example
to teach English collocations to Japanese learners through the use of movies.
(Furuhi, 2011)

More exposure to collocation has no or only a slight effect, Collocations

are largely transparent and therefore easily understood, so that learners
probably often do not realize that they are expressions that have to be
learnt. The starting point for teaching collocations should therefore be to
make learners more aware of the phenomenon. It is essential that learners
recognize that there are combinations that are neither freely combinable
nor largely opaque and fixed (such as idioms) but there are nevertheless
arbitrary to some degree and therefore have to be learnt. (Nesselhauf,
2005, p.252).

Teaching collocations should be present at all levels of learning. It is essential

to start teaching collocations at elementary level for it is then that students are
taught how to learn. Some collocations in the students’ native language can be
translated directly into English and consequently they will be easier to learn.
Therefore, more attention should be given to collocations that are different in
the two languages pointing out those differences to students. This should be
done whether students use collocations correctly or not, and examples should be
provided. Once students are made aware of collocations, they need to be trained
on the identification of collocations in different texts. In this regard, students
must be trained to identify useful collocations in oral or written texts.
For example: Learners should underline chunks they can find in the text.

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 I met Ryoko five years ago. We became friends immediately, because we
had so much in common. She has a very outgoing personality and she is
very patient. We don't keep in touch regularly these days, because she has
a very demanding job and my young children keep me busy too. I would
say she is one of my closest friends, even though I don't see her often.

Fuscoe (2014) and Deveci (2004) give more ideas on how to present collocations
to EFL students:
1. Learners should underline chunks they can find in a text. It is helpful for
students to get different kinds of chunks to look for. For lower levels, it is better
to restrict students to noun + noun, adjective + noun, or verb + noun collocations
because more complex chunks would confuse them.
2. Small extracts from the concordances published by Cobuild can be used to
explore the possible environments of a word. However, ready-made concor-
dances would be more suitable for higher levels because they do not include
enough context for lower level students to understand the meaning without
help. Ready-made concordances may also include too many unknown words
for lower-level students. Teachers who want to use concordances with lower
levels should write their own, bearing in mind their students’ level of grammar
and lexis.
3. After reading a text, students can be given a set of incomplete phrases taken
from the text and asked to complete them by scanning the text again. This can
be done at any level.
For example, intermediate students have read a text on time management. Some
possible incomplete phrases from the text could be: [on] time; [in] time; [on]
the dot; [at] times; [from] time [to] time. These phrases focus on a preposition
+ noun collocation.
4. After they have seen certain collocations in a text, students can be asked to
find pairs of collocations arranged randomly.

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 Teaching Collocations to EFL Students ■

If students have read a text on traffic, a possible matching activity could be:
1. traffic a. traffic
2. heavy b. warden
3. rush c. trafficking
4. drug d. jam
5. traffic e. hour
5. It is useful for learners to find certain collocations in the dictionary by
themselves because they will memorize them faster. They can use dictionaries
of collocations such as the LTP Dictionary of Selected Collocations and The
BBI Dictionary of English Word Combinations. These can be useful in drawing
students’ attention to collocations.
6. Give students phrases in their native language and equivalent phrases in
English, and ask students to match the phrases. This activity will help students
see that collocational ideas are not always formed in the same way in English.
It is also important to engage students in a variety of collocational activities
that enhance both their receptive and productive knowledge of collocations.
On the receptive front, gap-filling activities with words from a list/box can be
adapted to introduce collocations. The example below from McCarthy et al.
(2010) enhances the receptive knowledge of collocations.
Fill in the gaps with collocations from the box.
pay good interest/ set aside money / get an allowance

When Andrew was growing up, he was careful with his money. He
____________________ every week from his parents, and because he wanted
to go to college, he ___________________ every month. He opened a savings
account that____________________, so his savings grew.

Another useful activity in this regard is “crossing odd words out” or what is
sometimes known as “finding the intruder”. In this task, learners need to identify

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the word that does not collocate with a target word. McCarthy et al. (2010) also
provide the following example:
Cross out the food that is the least likely to go with the preparation.
a.   smoked cheese / turkey / bread / meat
b.   fried noodles / yogurt / chicken / potatoes

Matching word can be another effective way, as in the following example:

A. B.
have forces
do time
traffic notes
make progress
annual turnover
take jam
waste nothing
market sympathy

Words can be arranged into groups that take the same collocations for example
with city:
City: sprawling, rich history, steep, narrow streets, constant problem, tasty local
food, etc.

Communication activities are an effective way to practice collocations.

Students can conduct a survey among their classmates and follow up with a
written or oral report. This is very useful when learning collocations which are
covered by the same topic, an example can be a survey on sports where students
are asked which sport activity and how often they play, do, or go. This type of
activity is popular with students at lower level, whereas students at higher levels
find them boring and time consuming. For a higher level learner the following
activity can be used: students are given a topic and a list of collocations which
they need to use to write an essay on the topic. As a more challenging and more

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creative task, students can only be given a list of collocations without a topic and
they should use their own ideas to write a story or an essay.
Scrivener, (1994) proposes three activities: quick choices, guess the colloca-
tion and chunk watching (p. 251)
Quick choices start with the teacher choosing two to three nouns, e.g. food,
cooking and meal that have a number of possible confusing collocations. In this
particular case, the list might include fast, health, dog, baby, delicious, light,
balanced, Italian, vegan, frozen, dog, etc. Then the list is read item by item and
students must indicate which three nouns at the beginning given by the teacher
is the best collocate, or if the item goes with more than one word. Students can
write their answers on a paper which is a quiet way of doing it, or it can be done
by calling out their choice of words that is a noisy way, or by pointing at words
written on wall notices or even by running to the right part of the room designated
for a certain words.
Guess the collocation starts by dividing the class into four or more teams. In
each team students are given a same word (e.g. town) and teams have to prepare
a list of five common collocations (e.g. constant problems, home, supermarkets,
center, new, tasty food, etc). Each team has a different starter word. When all
teams have completed the task, students read their lists out one item at a time and
the other teams try to guess the original word. If the word is guessed immediately
on the first clue, both teams get ten points. The scoring scheme encourages
students to find the most likely and distinctive collocations.
Chunk watching is done in groups of three students, two of them face each
other. The teacher gives them a topic to talk about for a few minutes. The third
student just listens carefully and takes no part in their conversation, and takes
notes of as many chunks as he/she can catch. At the end of the time, the listener
shows his/her list to the speakers and they discuss it together.
There are many other activities or games such as quizzes, memory game,
guessing game, etc. Teachers can choose the activities that suit their teach-

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ing contexts best or make their own activities. While teaching collocations,
repetition is very important for their memorization. It is also important to teach
collocations that are active and appropriate for learners’ needs (e.g., computer
science, law or engineering). Learners will be more interested and motivated
to learn relevant collocations to their field of study than general collocations
or collocations related to other areas of specialization. El-Dakhs (2015) states
that”It is not advisable to teach collocations that learners will rarely encounter
in natural English.”

Conclusion
The main aim of this article is to show the importance of teaching vocabulary to
EFL learners, and by no means denies the importance of grammar. It is show-
ing that apart from the knowledge of grammar, that there are other important
elements of language knowledge that contribute to the accuracy and fluency of
speech. Collocation activities can be incorporated into most language classes and
it is important to consider students’ needs, level, and motivation when choosing
what to focus on. Collocational competence in EFL environment deserves special
attention from both researchers and language instructors.
Therefore more awareness should be raised regarding teaching collocations
and stronger emphasis should be given on studying collocation in the process of
curriculum development.

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