European Scientific Journal April 2014 edition vol.10, No.

10 ISSN: 1857 7881 (Print) e - ISSN 1857- 7431

PROMOTING AWARENESS OF TEACHING

COLLOCATIONS TECHNIQUES TO BEGINNERS
(ADJECTIVE-NOUN COLLOCATIONS)

Dr. Abdulrahman Mohammed Alfahadi

Mr. Said Ahmed Zohairy
Dr. Mowaffaq Mohammed Momani
English Language Center, University of Tabuk

Mr. Mansour H. Wahby

English Language Center, Taibah University

Abstract
Since the ELT career is updating itself on daily basis, teachers should
develop their teaching techniques to cope with modern teaching
methodology. It is essential to experiment theories and modify them to suit
various teaching environments. Teaching collocations has become a top
priority in language teaching. Therefore, this paper discusses the issue of
teaching collocations for beginners. Although a lot of teachers might not
agree on teaching collocations before upper intermediate-level, this study
claims that exposing low-level learners (especially, beginners) to language
chunks rather than individual words enhances their abilities in writing and
speaking (communicative power). Learners may know many individual
words which they cant use, along with their grammatical knowledge, but
they lack the ability to use those words in a range of collocations which pack
more meaning into what they say or write. In addition, learning collocations
was found also beneficial in developing learners' skills such as critical
thinking and autonomous learning.
Keywords: Lower-level, beginners, collocation, teaching, activities
Introduction
Without grammar little can be conveyed, without vocabulary
nothing can be conveyed Wilkins D. (1972, 11)
Recently, teaching collocation has become a top priority in language
teaching. This paper discusses the issue of teaching collocations for
beginners. Although a lot of teachers might not agree on teaching
collocations before upper-intermediate-level, it is not helpful to delay the
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process of deepening learners understanding of collocations as this is the

way chunks stored in learners mental lexicon. Exposing low-level learners
(especially, beginners) to language chunks rather than individual words
enhances their abilities in writing and speaking (communicative power).
Learners may know a lot of individual words which they cant use, along
with their grammatical knowledge, but they lack the ability to use those
words in a range of collocations which pack more meaning into what they
say or write. At the same time, the arbitrary nature of collocations
encourages learners autonomy as learners always ask themselves questions
like why do I say long hair and tall man and not vice versa?
What is Collocation
For the last few years, collocation has come out as an important
category of lexical patterning. In many definitions of collocation, the cooccurrence of words introduces the core concept of collocations. Therefore,
a typical definition of collocation is words which are statistically much
more likely to appear together than random chance suggests (Lewis M.
2000, 29).
The main focus of this paper will be lexis, specifically, adjectivenoun collocation for beginners. It is a fact that forming the mental lexicon of
our learners requires more than teaching them a word (Willis 2003).
Recognizing single words as individual items is not good for language use.
For example, it is not very helpful for students to learn the meaning of the
noun tea without learning the adjective strong, as the other option for
learners is to go for * heavy tea (Willis D. 2003) (Egyptian beginners
make similar mistakes, although they know the meaning of both tea and
strong). Having learners in mind, a teacher should re-examine the content
of his lesson and find useful groups of words (collocations)to be taught to
students. (Lewis M. 2009).
Mentioning collocation brings to our attention the term colligation
that is pretty much connected to collocation teaching.Colligation is a type of
collocation but when a lexical item is connected to a grammatical one. In
other words, it refers to co-occurrence of words which is based on the way
they function in a syntactic structure or a syntactic pattern. Firth claimed that
colligation refers to the relations between words at the grammatical level, i.e.
the relations of 'word and sentence classes or of similar categories' instead of
between words (1968:181).
This paper aims to highlight the possibility of teaching collocation to
beginners as educators have a general belief that collocation suits upperintermediate and advanced students rather than lower-level ones.
Considering lower-level learners,this study hypothesizes that certain types of
collocation is effective. In addition, through a closer analysis of lower-level

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course books (e.g. Touchstone, Cutting Edge, Headway) teachers can find a
huge variety of collocations to draw students attention to them. This
highlights the importance of teachers awareness of collocation types.
Collocation in low-level courses appears in various types such as adjectivenoun (e.g. strong tea), verb-noun (e.g. have a shower) and noun-noun
collocation (e.g. shower head). This concurs with Lewis (2000) findings that
verb-noun, adjective-noun and noun-noun collocations are the most
convenient for early stages, asthey present language chunks to learners
attention as single choices.Also, adjective-noun collocation is a common
area of errors for learners. Therefore, the next section introduces various
collocation types which could be beneficial to beginners.
Collocation types
For the purpose of this essay our attention will be directed to lexical
collocation more than grammatical collocation (Colligation; collocation
categories noted by Benson el al. 1997, ix). It has become obvious that any
lexical collocation is formed of two content words. It is worth mentioning that
some other collocation types are formed of more than two words. Therefore, it is
recommended to use the term chunks which better describes the nature of
collocation. The term chunk refers to a combination of more than one word that
conveys a specific meaning as a unit. The most common lexical collocation
types as listed by (Stroh P. 2004) are:
1- Adjective-noun
heavy smoker
2- Noun-verb
prices fall
3- Verb-noun
do the dishes
4- Verb-Adjective
defend sth vigorously
5- Adverb-verb
half understood
At this stage, it is very crucial to differentiate between collocation,
idioms and phrasal verbs. On the one hand, lets agree that every phrasal
verb could be considered as a collocation; this relies on the fact that
collocation is mainly based on the ideas of co-occurrence, and phrasal verbs
are one of the fixed combination in the English language lexical structure.
On the other hand, it is crucial to stress the fact that not every collocation is a
phrasal verb. Therefore, the next section clarifies the idioms collocation
overlap.
Idioms-collocationsoverlap
The relationship between idioms and collocations is one of the hottest
areas in the study of lexis. Since idioms refer to those fixed chunks not only
used by native speakers, but also represents the bulk of their daily language
use, it is essential to consider teaching idioms to language learners.
Therefore, it is important here to investigate the clear overlap between
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idioms (fixed structure) and collocations.

Michael Lewis argued that, it is necessary to accept collocations as a
wider concept of idiomaticity to get a clear idea of their nature (Lewis,
2000). Adjective-noun collocations, like other types of collocation, form a
cline of idiomacity that varied form very fixed structures to open
collocations. According to The Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic
English the following categories are used to describe a cline of idiomaticity
as follows (Lewis, 2000 & Stroh, 2004):
Pure idioms:This refers to lexical combinations that are completely
opaque and invariable. They are not predictable, and learners cant rely on
the literal meaning of words (e.g. red tape).
Figurative idioms: they are slightly variable and have one figurative
and one literal interpretation (e.g. green fingers).
Restricted collocations: they have one figurative and one literal
element, and there is an arbitrary combinability restriction on one of the
elements with other elements outside the combination (e.g. dry farming).
Open collocations: they consist of elements which are both used in
their literal sense, predictable and are freely combinable (e.g. big flat).
Consequently, this cline of idiomaticity shows that adjective-noun
collocations have many types; some of them wouldnt be convenient for lowlevel learners to study. This concurs with the claims that sometimes teachers
dont have to teach certain types of collocations (Lewis 2000). On the one
hand, pure idioms are too difficult for low-level learners. On the other hand,
open collocation is too easy to predict by students, and will not enhance
students learning of collocation in general. At the same time, collocations
that may sound predictable for teacherscould be not predictable for students.
Therefore, the next section explains what kind of collocations teachers need
to consider while deciding on collocations for lower-level learners.
Which Collocations are convenient for low-level learners?
Experience showed that, with regards to teaching collocations to
lower-level learners, it is essential for teachers to know what adjective-noun
collocations to teach and whatto avoid. This concurs with Lewis claims that
teachers may just need to draw students attention to the important
collocations and leave the unimportant ones to students to figure them out
(Lewis, 2000). Therefore, in order to enhance students learning, teachers
should consider the convenient collocation type that meets real students
level and needs in connection with collocation strength. For lower-level
learners, most of what should betaughtis medium-strength collocations.
According to Jimmie Hill Collocational strength of adjective-nounis
classified (opacity based) as follows (2000):

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Unique collocations: Thinking of collocations on a cline from those

which are unique/fixed and non-literal e.g. red tape to those which are
predictable anice day.
Strong Collocations: Although not unique, some collocations are
strong which make any information of their one part is incomplete without
the other (e.g. rancid butter).
Weak collocations:the example red car is a weak collocation, as
both red & car can easily co-occur in different collocations. As many
things can be red. In addition, the collocation just carries the literal
meaning of its words.
Medium-strength collocations: this form the main learning load for
beginners lessons, and of prime importance in expanding their mental
lexicons (Hill, J. 2000). They neither include weak collocations nor strong or
unique ones (e.g. strong coffee, heavy smoker, pretty woman, handsome
manetc).
Practical experience showed that many teachers consider it
impossible to introduce collocations to low-level learners, especially in EFL
context where students use language in classrooms only. This notion is
supported by the test-oriented teaching style that is very common in the
Middle East in general. Therefore, the idea of teaching collocations to
beginners is not easy to sell to educators. Consequently, this paper is
suggesting a deep analysis of collocation type convenience that can be
introduced to low-level learners.
As highlighted above the medium-strength collocations is the most
convenient type for low-level learners for many reasons. Firstly, it forms the
biggest bulk of teaching material introduced to such level of students.
Secondly, using medium-strength collocations offers a range of cognitive
challenge that exactly suits beginners and elementary students. Thirdly, the
range of autonomy introduced with teaching collocation in general is very
essential to students at this early stage; according to classroom practices,
low-level learners are offered a lot of independent learning opportunities
which definitely enhances learners performance at advanced stages.
Classroom Activities:
For the purpose of this paper, a number of beginners and elementary
course books were consulted to decide on the range of medium-strength
collocations load in the teaching material (e.g. Just, Cutting Edge and
Headway). In addition, The Longman dictionary for Common Errors,
1987and English Dictionary for Collocationswere also consulted. The last
two were consultedfor frequency. Drawing onJust, Pre-elementary, 2008,
Elementry2006 and Cutting Edge, Elementary (2005), the researcher
selected some adjectives to forma collocations list. In addition, nouns that
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collocate with these adjectiveswere carefully selected. Since it is not only

frequency that decides our choice as teachers, the researcher selected
adjectives and nouns that help students describe people and things which will
support their daily life use of language (Adjective-noun collocations) (see
table 1).
Table 1: Collocation Grid: Adjective-noun collocations

It is clear that all of the above mentionedcollocations are suitable for

low-level learners, and are necessary combinations to describe people and
things.In addition, the table shows that these adjectives were chosen
carefully to avoid students confusion. Other adjective-noun collocation (e.g.
living room & confused directions) may be confused with present
continuous and past simple forms. Therefore, it is recommended to avoid
using them at this early stage despite the fact that they could be described as
medium-strength collocations.

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Another effective activity that suits low-level learners is the use of

collocations grid where students can consolidate their understanding of
certain set of adjective-noun collocations (e.g. describing food collocations).
The sample below works well with low-level learners.

References:
Benson, M., Benson, E. &Ilson, R. 1997. The BBI Dictionary of English
Word Combinations. John Benjamins Publishing Company.[Rev. edn. of:
The BBI Combinatory Dictionary of English. 1986].
Firth, J.R. (1968). A synopsis of linguistic theory. In Palmer, F.R. (ed.)
Selected Papers of J.R. Firth 1952-59 (168-205). London: Longmans.
Gairns, R. and S. Redman(1986) Working with Words: A guide to teaching
and learning vocabulary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hill j. (2000) Teaching Collocation: Further Developments in the Lexical
Approach. Hampshire: Heinle Cengage Learning.
Lewis, M.(2000) Teaching Collocation: Further Developments in the Lexical
Approach. Hampshire: Heinle Cengage Learning.

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Lewis, M.(2002) The Lexical Approach: The State of ELT and a Way
Forward. Boston: Thomson Heinle.
Stroh Ph. M.(2004)towards a bilingual adjective-noun collocation dictionary
of English and German.
Thornbury, S.(2002) How to Teach Vocabulary. London: Pearson Education.
Wilkins, David A. (1972). Linguistics in Language Teaching. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Willis, D.(2003) Rules, Patterns and Words: Grammar and Lexis in English
Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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