Contents

Contents

3.7

INTRODUCTION

... . 8

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 3:

3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4,
3.5
3.6

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

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

Revising priorities: from grammatical failure to
collocationalsuccess
Jimmie Hill

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

\\ tr

J.6

Lol

3.9
3.10
3.1i
3.12

Tea
Chc
Ped
Sun

Chapter.l
4.1
^ +.2

Bac

4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6
4.7
4.8
4.9

Etp
The
The
\Iak
Reri
Con
Con

I ne

Chapter 5:
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
5.5
5.6
5.1

Intro
Gene
Actil
Actii
Exeri
Your
Sumr

Chapter 6:

PART 2 Chapter 7:

...47

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

7.1
7.2
7.3
7.4
7.5
7.6
7.7

Descr
Intuiri
Termi
From
Collor
Collig
Other

Contents

8

.......10

3.1
3.8
3.9
3.10
3.11
3.12

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

Chapter 4:

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

4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6
4.1
4.8
4.9

e.....28

Chapter 5:

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

5.1
5.2
5.3
5.5
5.6
5.7

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

Integrating collocation into a reading & writing courseT0
Jane Conzett

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

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

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

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

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

.

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

LL

......46
)

PART 2 - BACKGROUND THEORY
Chapter 7:

4'7

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

7.1
7.2
1.3
7.4
7.5
7.6
7.7

Language in the lexical approach
Michael Lewis

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

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

Contents

7.g
7.9
7.10
1.tI
7.12
1.13
7.14

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

. . . . . . i55

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 9:
9.1
9.2
9.3
9.4
9.5
9.6
9.7

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

Chapter 11

11.1
11.1
11.3
ll.+
11.5
11.5
I1,7

Lear
\\ hr
The
Sem
ColU
Con
Surr

Bibliograpl

Contents

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

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

......z2r

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

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

Bibliography

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

Introduction

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

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

Er en thing ir
teachersen,i.
Developing I

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

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

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

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

Introduction

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

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

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

nal grammar
:ognisingthat
rachbasedon
cal than any

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

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

10

There is nothing as practical as a good theorl

Chapter I
J

'
-

There is nothing as practical as a good theory

-.
' J

Morgan Lewis

-,
..

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

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

'l

--

,

t

-

. . : - . - .

Thereis nothing as practical as a good theory

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

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

mance, given
entswho need
the third

11

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

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

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

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

12

There is nothing as practical as a good theory

Tlsr

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

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

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

The same B
'negative'
c
alternatives-

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

Tnsx
Look at
lt'Of

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

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

I

hou
und,

Can yor
Can 1,or
want to
concord
Which r
or the li

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

There is nothing as practical as a good theoryt

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

13

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

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

,r'eteach is the
rrure, whereas
rusenew input

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

l4

There is nothing as practical as a good theorl

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

1,5 The
-\r-1, tlli.--r
l-

_ a -i_

_ _ L ) - 1

, : a "

. r

., -:..i ,-,- la:r

ll3il,rll-i:i

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

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

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

lf:lnln-

I
lr -

Jo. Granrr

-'r^| ig ',:,- :1
iansuagi il

storcdir [r

Thesechur
thrngs.thl;
- t,r
thin_ss
jusi'u'orris
force or are
srtuationsc
dattgerorttnnrne,-h:

dcmgeroust
Notice.it i-s
The item 'i
sanctioned
what it is
apan:

Langua-e"ii
expressson
occur.Tanrp
lose their cr
threeu,ords
ltems can e\

Trsn

What:,
alt ooii'

widel., t
disperst
Are the

To me, ther
dentist, a gc
haven't spol

There is nothing as practical as a good theory

-:IL', these
-:=;:riI1q
and
. __ _ : r J 3 l 1 0 n s .
. r . - i : l C n Sa n d
i s .1e1a\ed.

j ,,rhrle this
.

r r

-r'nlnra

:r L]l pofianl
r :: Spent1n
:ls rbo\-e. I
Lldantsu,hat
- I*lher ihan
!3l-ter than

l
L

, ior rlrcse
-

r'r rt

nf

fhe

.irnts arenot
b;en trained
:,i individual
I kno.,i'1edge,
riiions r.vhich
ls ir teachers
and helping
Erammar or
bscure,rarely
tically if they
fe \\,ords,and
hu-eenumber
:ome initially
nties ln ways
ro_qress.

15

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

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

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

t6

There is nothing as practical as a good theory

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

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

Students'attempt

set yowrselfa realistic objective

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

cause insurmountabledfficwlties
major tuming point

revisededition

*r'1

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

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

nl:,-p

introduce til
emphasr: r-o

1rr,ethese- h
pr;ked noul

.-,1. Jrt gt-'i.llo

:dlerbisl nh
. i;:a 1- iJ;r;I

r, I

:.tiarnpies .h

:oh:sicn .rcr
nullt-ri orc p
I no iLrng-r ',
,trf,mmaiiJtl
','.hen usrn:

rihich \\ e cal
:)l*

{J

T = E

i

,

;
-

i

F

a

h---

t

=

r

1| "
:

C)

-..:l

nno-

1

f;

r.-\
ilJ

b*a

')

f

l

a\
';:

J

fiJ

*
).

.; . i !

r

i.ri;.

'\t
--".:J

)

"

i:
C)

ts
a'
#

.\n importan
not ne$' or d
not include I
very fact me
worth ther a
teachereven
slips by urLn
leamers.

Asking stude
a helpful qu
notice the co
goesmore lil

There is nothing as practical as a good theory

t7

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

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

i',.it,:,,'. lita

, " ]r,struct
,. , ,ii: vill
*; . - s:lulhr
. b i r s e dt o
a : t t : € e ltl l e
.

'rnrnlrto
r - rlr}jllLe

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

,,-,tbe
i.itrle
i:ru
II

F4s
1lr I

-i
;-i

/

-

'F'-a*
il "

n
tl

L/l\

r \
f:
r\

r-]
I s

.Fj

hh*J

--

C)
a1!3

r , '-, \

{(!
ts"
?q-

'

!

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

There is nothing as practical as a good theory

18
T

SS
T

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

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

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

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

ln order ibr I
enough to si
hcln

lea-."

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

nrrllr

recordingir"
at best.on n
centralroh.

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

ri

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

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

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

There is nothing as practical as a good theory

t9

Tlsr

!l-11'

-ri-J

IL.

-:
I til

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

20

There is nothing as practical as a good theora

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

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

T \ e . r

S
T

Fai;
\-es

rI{-r
\Ixd
\\tjr

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

Sl
T

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

For advance
similar to thi

take
re-It
pass
fail
scra

With this lan
the collocatir

Tasx
Youma

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

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

There is nothing as practical as a good theory

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

ral role to piay
rc done.

T
S
T

52
T

2l

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

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

an exam

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

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

22

There is nothing os practical as a gond theory

{t's,il
coul,J

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

ICI

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

]

-ilnn
_- r

\

'nl

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

aF r g

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

L{11Y

l UUN

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

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

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

In rhis ,,
the clan
channel
have'oa

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

1

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

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

There is nothing as practical as a good theory

I,:,rsk: It?rl/

:

- t

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

rt jiime and in
1r part of the
'-<.I \\'as vet))
'r:.',J.Or if a
. i r r b .\ - o u m a y
t3f l\'ords, it's
., ltre knd of
iLrundabout
:etis. 1'ouwill
r,raprecrse or

iri 0 \\'ords of

rran spending
;ontextualised
;oilocational
'-;i;ea trtistake,
,est. do some
r procedure is
].eaningunless
r., growtd. (If
rllns have very
le' a word like
this classroom

,Id

lriver.

23

It's difficult to say exactly what point meansbut you
could learn these expressionsand there are lots more so
let's seeif we can collect more. If you hear me use one,
stop me and we'll write it with the others.If you meet one
outsidethe class,write it down and tell us at the next
class.When you look at them later, try to think what
expressionsyou would use in Italian to expressthe same
ideas. Check with Paola or anotherItalian speakerto see
if you agree.
Although possiblymore time-consumingthan an explanationof point, surely
meeting four typical uses is time better spent than trying to get to grips with
what would have to be a vague, complicated and ultimately unhelpful
definition.
4. If in doubt, point them out
One of the reasonsstudentshave not learnedcollocationsis simply because
teachershave not pointed them out in the texts they are using. This happens
sometimesbecausethe teacher's approachto dealing with the vocabulary in
the text is to ask the class:Are thereany words you don't know?
Collocations are missed with this approach because the words of the
collocations may not be new, but the fact they occur together, and are worth
noticing and recording together,must be pointed out by the teacherif students
are not to 'look straight through' language which will expand their mental
lexicons. Peter Skehan(A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning) makes
a similarpoint whenhe writes:
In this view, the role of instruction is not necessarilytherefore in
the clarity or in the explanation it provides, but rather in the way it
channelsattention and brings into awarenesswhat otherwise would
have beenmissed.
Simple questionssuch as What's the verb before 'opportunie' in the ftrst
paragraph?draw students'attention
to collocations.Oncethat hasbeendonelet's say the verb was rulss quickly add someothers:take,grab, makethe most
ol usingthe collectionandrecordingtechniquediscussed
above.
Insteadof asking questions.you can preparea simple worksheetor use the
board or overheadprojector to list parts of the useful collocations in the text.
I often do this while studentsare engagedin a more global reading task. They
then have to go back and search the text for the missing parts of the
collocations.For any collocationswhich are worth adding to, I elicit or give
more very quickly. Do not assume students are noticing collocations and
recordingthem for themselves.They won't unlessyou train them to. I have
found that after a short period of time, students begin to ask me about
collocations in texts - whether they are worth recording - and they also ask

24

There is nothing as practical as ct good theory

for extras becausethat is what they have learned to expect from me. [Jane
Conzett also points out in her paper that students do begin to collect
collocationsfor themselves,once they havebeen introducedto the idea. Ed].
5" Essay preparation - use collocation
Studentssometimescomplain that they lack ideas when sitting down to write
a compositionon a prescribedtopic. Teacherscomplain that they do not want
to spendhalf the classtime telling studentswhat to write. There is a simple
answer.Many teachersbrainstormwords connectedwith the topic in class
before setting the composition for hornework. When the words are on the
board,the next stepis to add,where possible,useful collocatesto eachword.
It is particularly important to introduce the nouns which will be central to the
content of the essay.As we saw with the exam example above,this provides
students with language items with more communicative power than
individual words can offer.
Also, as we saw earlier,collocationsare much more situationallyevocative
and correspondingly far more likely, therefore, to spark the imagination for
writing. A dictionary such as The LTP Dictionara of SelectedCollocationsis
invaluablefor selectingcollocates.With a classset,I give the studentseight
'education'topic,
key nouns centralto the essaytopic. For example,with an
I might give them: school, education,qualiJication,teacher etc. I then ask
them to look up thesewords in the dictionary and note down collocations for
each of the words that catch their eye or which they think they might use.
They might choose for school: drop ottt of, leave, skip, go to, single-sex,
mixed, state, private. Draw their attention particularly to the importance of
verb + noun collocations.If studentshave their own dictionary, they can do
this at home.
When the written work comes in, I often find either collocation mistakes or
caseswhere studentshave used simple or vaglre words when they could have
usedmore specific or interestingones.For example,if a studentwrites very
intelligent, andbig mistake,I write in the margin other optionssuchas highb,
intelligent and disastrowsmistake, or ask them to refer to the Dictionaryt of
SelectedCollocationsto maketheir own selectionbeforerewriting their work
with the improvements.
6. Make the most of what students already know
'simple' words but are not awareof what
Some studentsalreadyknow a lot of
those words can do for them becausethey haven't noticed their common
collocations.I regularly take such words, usually nouns, and brainstorm
adjectives and verbs which studentsthink go with those nouns. Very often,
thesecollocations are already half-known by students- they sensethey have
met them before - but they havenot yet internalisedthem. Time spenton halfknown languageis more likely to encourageinput to becomeintake than time
spenton completelynew input. Again, Skehansuggeststhat ". . . very often

the pedago
accessibie
i

Trsx

Do vor
extenC
knou l

For exampl
adjectivesat
me is usual
perhaps:crrt
assess,be ir
collocations
students'me
suchas: Ccr:
were in? Dt
Becauseso r
they have sc
triggered ber
words usuall

Note that it
questionsbe
create an oF
questronsare
Do yow alv c
a challengirn
seelt as \.en
then.From th
more useful ,
practiceof lt

Tasx

What per
you expe
Do you r1

I do not expe
languageI er1
I believeexpo
taking place,I
on a refreshe
collocations.
c

There is nothing as practical as a good theory

rr

m:

[T2ne

lr ;o. collect
t-r; rdea.Edl.

25

the pedagogicchallengeis not to focus on the brand new, but insteadto make
accessiblethe relativelv new".

Tlsr
l,:''; n to rvrite
;v ,Jr not urant
r: ls a simple
r,-,licin class
iJs ,i.re on the
t,-'eech.,vord.
;:ntral to the
, :hrs provides
t'tn'et than
"ri,, evOCative
i:.-ination for
ts
L iir-,'ctttiorts
stLldentseight
r - --rinn'

fnnin

:r;. I then ask
':,.nocations
for
r;r rnight use.
;tt. shtgle-sex,
imporianceof
t'. the)'cando
Lrrxmistakesor
her could have
inl \\'ntes very
; suchas highly
: Dictiona: oJ
rtinetheir work

t a\\'areof what
their common
and brainstorm
rns. Very often,
sensethey have
le spenton halfLntakethan time
"...veryoften

Do you think it is better to teach learners a lot of riew words, or to
extend their knowledge of some of the words they already halfknow? Is your answer different for learners at different levels?

For example, I take the word situation and ask students to give me first
adjectivesand then verbs which they think collocate. The number they give
me is usually very small, even for advancedclasses.I then supply extras,
perhaps:awkwctrd,complicated,critical, desperate,farcical;accept,analyse,
dr,se,s.s,
be in command of, make the best of the eIc. Again, a dictionary of
collocations is a very useful resourcefor this kind of systematicexpansionof
students'mental lexicons. If you want to, you can ask follow-up questions
such as: Can yow rememberthe last awkward/farcical/desperatesituation yow
were in? Do you always analyse sitwationsor do you just accept them?
Becauseso many collocations are situationally evocative,studentsoften find
they have somethingto say in responseto these questions- somethingis
triggered becausecollocations evoke bigger speech events than individual
words usually do.
Note that it is better to ask questions with or rather than simple yes/Noquestionsbecausethey elicit more languagein response.or-questions also
create an opportunity for the collocations to be used immediately. Typical
questionsare:Do you sometimesbreakpromisesor do you alwayskeepthem?
Do yowalways comeby bus or do you sometimescomeby car? Have you got
a challengingjob or a cushyjob? I must emphasise,however, that I do not
see it as very important that students actually use the collocation there and
then.From the point of view of acquisition,I would ratherspendtime adding
more useful collocationsto the noun than spendtoo much time in laborious
practice of fewer items.

TLsr
What percentageof the 'new vocabulary' you present in a lesson do
you expect your learnersto acquire from that lesson?
Do you think your expectation is realistic?

I do not expect studentsto remember or acquire all or even the majority of
languageI exposethem to. But for the reasonsdiscussedearlier in this paper,
I believeexposingstudentsto more increasesthe chancesof some acquisition
taking place.Recently,I was observedteachingin this way by someteachers
on a refresher course. At the end of the lesson with the board full of
collocations,one teacherremarked:It would be a miracle if thet remembered

26

There is nothing as practical as a good theory

50% of what you teach them. I replied, It would be a miracle if they
remembered10Vaof what I presented.We discussedthe difference in our
views at some length but I suspecthe remained unconvinced.We simply had
different mindsets.The teacherin question apparently believed that step-bystep teaching produces step-by-stepleaming, even mastery of what was
presented.Both researchand reflection on classroomexperienceshow that
this simply is not the case.Studentsdo not have enoughtime to find that out
for themselves;it is our job to provide the most effective learning based on
our professionalunderstandingof both languageand leaming.
7. Record and recycle
It is becoming clear that the lexicon is much bigger than anyone previously
thought. This implies a greatermemory load, an increasedlearning load - or
ceftainly an increased input load - and this being the case, careful and
systematicrecording of collocations which ensures accurate noticing of
useful languageis essential.During classtime, I encouragestudentsto write
down collocations in their main note-taking books and ask them to transfer
them later into the collocation sectionof their lexical notebooksusing formats
such as the one shown earlier.As much as possible,I encouragestudentsto
recordcollocationsin topic groups.
I use a simple and time-efficientapproachto recyclecollocations.Before the
lesson,I make a list of all the collocationsI want to recyclebut deletepart of
eachcollocationbeforephotocopyingthe list for each student.Studentsthen
searchtheir notebooksto fill in the missing part of the collocation. If the
collocations came from the same text, I sometimes ask students to reconsffuct the main content of the text, or parts of the text, using the
collocations as prompts. This activity has the added usefulness of
encouragingand including those studentswho may have trouble answering
comprehensionquestionsabout the text for linguistic reasonsbut who are able
to participate by rememberingparls of it, however falteringly.
One important point: when deciding which part of the collocation to delete,
leave the word or words which most strongly suggestwhat the missing part
is. For example,for the collocation a window of opportwnlf, it would be
betterto deleteopportuniQ,as a window of . .. . . is more helpful than . . . . .
opportuniQ. Your choice of deletion, therefore, is a principled one with the
aim of helping leamers to remember,not trying to make the task artificially
difficult.
A slight variation is to dictate part of the collocation and students have to
remember or find the missing part in their notebooks before I dictate the
whole item.
Other ways of recycling include: domino-typegames- match the cardsend
to end by matchingthe collocations;'find your partner'activitieswhere twoword collocations are split between members of the class who then have to

find their 'p
the table an
time hoprn:
recycling is

1.9 Actic

All of these
practiceto a
upsidedour
why not allc
lncorporaie
reflect on th
whether thel
actlon resea
recklessor ir

1.10 Con

For many iei
andperhapsi
collocations
vocabulary,b
threeyearsa1
or fail to -sra
only play at
commitment
ott: There is
time to practt
perfect! Hott
and holistic r
organised.th
collocationr',
whatevertool

Discussio

In what rvar'
feeling of pro

What do 1'or
grammaticall
conecting the

There is nothing as practical as a good theory

27

find their 'partner'; or a simple memory game with cardsplaced face down on
the table and, in groups, studentstake it in tums to turn over two cards at a
time hoping to find the collocations. A helpful principle to work with for
recycling is little and often, with some variation.

rcle if they
3nce ln our
simply had
hat step-byI what was
e show that
find that out
ng basedon

1.9 Action research
All of theseideascan be incorporatedpainlesslyinto most teachers'current
practice to a greateror lesserdegree.Your teaching doesnot need to be turned
upside down to make room for collocation.If, however,you are sceptical,
why not allow yourself a trial period over the next few weeks to regularly
incorporatesome of the ideas into your lessons?Then take a moment to
reflect on the effectivenessof the ideas and activities or even ask the class
whether they have found the input helpful - a simple, step-by-stepform of
action research.A thoughtful evolution is more likely to be beneficial than a
recklessor impatient revolution.

e previously
ing load - or
careful and
noticing of
tentsto wdte
m to transfer
rsing formats
e studentsto

1.10 Conclusion
For many teachers,collocation is just another way of presentingvocabulary,
andperhapsonceeveryotherunit ofthe coursebook,an exerciseon two-word
collocations appears and it is seen as a welcome change to the regular
vocabulary building that goes on. Indeed, that is how I saw it up until about
three yearsago - useful, but peripheral.Teacherswho do not stop to consider,
or fail to grasp, the theoretical basis behind the teaching of collocation will
only play at introducing it into the classroom. There will be no deep
commitment to giving it a prominent role - the old argumentswill crowd it
out'.There isn't enough time to explain everytthing.There won't be enowgh
time to practise. Theywon't rememberall that. They still can't do thepresent
perfect! However, if we take a deeper look at the non-linear, unpredictable
and holistic nature of learning, the nature of natural language- the way it is
organised, the way it is stored in, and recalled from, the mental lexicon collocation will become so central to everyday teaching that we will wonder
whatevertook up so much of our time before.

rs.Before the
deletepart of
Srudentsthen
cation. If the
ldents to rert. using the
isefulnessof
rle answering
t n ho are able
tion to delete,
l missing part
;. it would be
fulthan.....
tr one with the
ask artificially

DiscussionQuestions
In what ways can you help learners on the intermediate plateau to gain a
feeling of progress?

rdents have to
e I dictate the

What do you do when your learners express themselves in roundabout,
grammatically flawed ways? Do you think first of building their lexicons or
correcting their grammar?

l the cards end
.iesrvheretworo then have to

-{tttt*rnm---

28

Collocation

- encouraging learner independence

Chapter2
Collocation - encouraging learner independence
George Woolard
George Woolard describes activities he uses which encourage learners to make
the best use, from a learning point of view, of language which they meet outside
the classroom. He encourages learners to take responsibility for their own
learning, and uses part of the tirne in class to give his learners a real
understanding of techniques for searching a text, dictionary' corpus or computer
concordance in ways which help them expand their mental lexicons efficiently,
even without the presence of a teacher. IIe discussesthe importance of searching
for and recording certain types of collocation which are particularly useful to
learners" Throughout the chapter, readers may like to reflect on whether
George's experience mirrors their own, and whether they are happy with the
increasing emphasis George places on collocation in his classes.

2.1 Introduction
In recent years collocation has emerged as an important category of lexical
patterning and it is fast becoming an established unit of description in
languageteachingcoursesand materials.The following is a personalaccount
of how I have brought collocations into my classroom and how my teaching
has undergonesmall but significant changesas a result.
I believe that the arbitrary nature of collocation is ideally suited to
independentlanguage learning and that we need to equip our studentswith
skills to enable them to develop their knowledge of coltrocations
independently of the teacher.This is particularly important in an age where
'electronic' text readily availableto
technologyhas made large amountsof
our studentsthrough CD-ROM and the Internet.
I also recognise the importance of students recording the vocabulary they
meet, and I outline a simple extensionof the traditional vocabulary notebook
to accommodatecollocations and other co-textual pattems'

2.2 Collocation
As teachers,it is often instructive to remind ourselvesthat languageteaching
is, in its most basic form, a processof matching meaning with linguistic
patteflr. Language teaching courses and materials tend to classify the
dominant patterns under the traditional labels; grammar, function, and the
non-literal meaning categoriesof idiom and phrasal verb.
In order to avoid possible confusion and even antagonism,I prefer to adopt a
definition of collocation that does not overlap or clash with any of these

establishe
I ieach.ir si
feel u'e nee
prer-iouslr
overlappin_
SLTMC SCNSE

uhich are
chance suei

unhelpful.

to speciticI
adopteduh
inr-olvesloc
re-examlne
anticipatea
srudents$-iI
to the cornl
such as /rea
naturalh'as
SEA OI A SInC

of u'ordsrr'h
also the con
free product

I have aiso
adjectir,-e
s al
a ven'clear
of pattem th
different ki
traditional r
This means
reason-for a
pafiems.an(

T.q,sx
What dr
ov,n cla
Would r
)/ou thir

The definitir
definition. It
text with eas
in both abso

Collocation

lndence

trners to make
]' meet outside
for their own
rarners a real
us or computer
:ons efficiently,
ce of searching
rlarly useful to
ct on whether
rappy with the

gorl' of lexical
description in
:r:onal account
'* n'ry teaching
a111suited to
r studentswith
i collocations
n an age where
i1r availableto
rrcabularythey
rr-r1ary
notebook

rguageteaching
u ith linguistic
to classify the
rutction,and the
p,referto adopt a
rih any of these

- encouraging learner independence

29

establishedcategories.For me collocationdoesnot re-defineor re-orderwhat
I teach, it simply extendsand enriches it. Therefore, for teaching purposes,I
feel we need a definition that confines itself to a level of patterning that has
previously received no explicit focus in our classrooms.A number of
overlapping definitions of collocation exist, many of which have at their core
some senseof the 'co-occurrence'of words. A typical definition is 'words
which are statistically much more likely to appear together than random
chancesuggests'.Unfortunately,as a teacher,I find this type of definition
unhelpful.It is simply too abstractand generalto guidemy students'attention
to specific elementsof text in a clear and directedway. In response,I have
adopted what I feel is a more transparent and practical definition which
involves looking at the languagefrom the point of view of my students.I now
re-examinethe contentof the texts in my coursebooksand lessonsand try to
anticipateand highlight groups of words - collocations- which I think my
studentswill not expect to find together.For example,I do not draw attention
to the combinations heavy fwrniture/loads, whereas I do for combinations
such as heavy seas/smoker.The reasonbeing that I expect my studentsto
naturally associatethe quality of being heavy with objects,but not with the
seaor a smoker.I reservethe term collocation,then, for thoseco-occuffences
of words which I think my studentswill not expect to find together.Theseare
also the combinationsthat I would not expectmy studentsto producein their
free productionof language.
I have also restrictedthe use of the term to relationsbetweennouns,verbs,
adjectivesand adverbsonly. This servestwo usefulpurposes.First, it provides
a very cleardefinition of collocationfor students.They can easily seethe type
of pattern that is the f,ocusof attention, and furthermore, that it is a new and
different kind of focus on language. Secondly, it avoids overlap with
traditional vocabularyexercisessuch as those of 'dependentprepositions'.
This means that I do not label co-occuffencessuch as gwile of, depend on,
reasonfor as collocations.My current textbook has alreadyclassifiedthese
patterns,and exercisesexist in the book that focus on such co-occulrences.

Tlsr
What definition of collocation do you think is most suitable for your
own classes?
Would you include any areassuch as idioms or phrasal verbs, or do
you think it is best to confine the term in the way just suggested?

The definition of collocation I have adopted is essentially a pedagogic
definition. It took me a while before I felt I could seeuseful collocationsin
text with ease,which suggeststhat teachersand studentsneed to investtime
in both absorbingthe concept,and practicein noticing useful collocationsin

30

Collocation

- encouraging learner indep endence

text. Before I becamefocussedon collocation,I would look at a text, and
typical of the ELT profession, isolate the major grammar pattems and any
items of useful vocabulary almost automatically. Now I find that it is
collocations that are first to spring out of the texts I read. It is very much a
caseof seeingmore than you usedto in a text.

2.3 Raising awarenessof collocation
One obvious way of finding out which words our studentsdo not expectto
find togetheris through the mis-collocations they make in their production of
language.It is a good idea to keep a record of thesemis-collocationsas you
correctyour students'essaysso that you can bring them into the classroomat
appropriatetimes to improve and extend vocabulary teaching.
An effective platform for raising awarenessof collocation is to focus on a
selectionof your students'mis-collocations.At first I suggestyou restrict
your examplesIo noun + verb, adjective + noun mis-collocations.Brown
(1994) cites the following as typical examples of the mis-collocations
producedby his students:Biochemistsaremaking researchinto the causesof
AIDS. The result was an extremedisappointment.We'll experiencemany
costs,andfew benefitswill come.
Note that all three sentencesare grammaticallysound- that is, the students'
use of tense, aspectand subject/verbagreementis accurate.The students'
choice of vocabulary is also appropriate, and as a result, if the individual
words are known by the listener/reader,communication is effective. Howevet,
'slot and filler' approachto the teaching of grammar and vocabulary has
our
not sensitised our students to the collocational constraints on word
combinations.For instance.the first sentenceshould be: Biochentistsare
doing researchinto the causesof AIDS. This is an extremelycommon verb +
noun mis-collocation in which the verbs make and do are used with
inappropriate nouns. Interestingly, this partictlar verb + noun pattern has
been recognised and given attention in most traditional EFL courses and
coursebooks
, so'rnake and do'collocationsprovide a useful starlingpoint for
introducingthe notion of collocationto learners.It is important to get across
to studentsat this stagethat theserelations are arbitrary - there is no reason
why it should be make a decision rather than do a decision.We need to make
them awarethat this is simply the way we say things in English and that's that!
The problem with the second sentence lies in the use of extreme. The
expression(X) was extremelydisappointing is very common?so it is not
surprising that the student produced the sentenceabove. It seems a likely
transformation. Howevet, extreme does not collocate with disappointment.
The most likely collocates are big, great and bitter. It is important to
recognise that the grammar transformation exercises we use in grammar
teachingcan encouragemis-collocation.

The third
keywords rl
looking for
benefitswil

Althou-ehm
those worki
wrltten

cofi

tied to parti
topic-spec
follows that
will be dete
collocations
must becon
Purposesco

To sum up
learnin-ener
we make th
new words.
then, do u'e

2.4 IJigh

Teachersh:
collocation
Brou'n abor
approach.-{
T hnne

hol-

I r.,.asusing
class u'hen
tbllou,ing:S
slnuld be t
standardtecl
s\ non\ inl
nara
nhr:* -r
r -' -r'*

conte\tu!

Hou'er-er.ral
students'af
t:rt hiehligh

; irr,r,r; r g1b -.
Dl languaoe \\-hen the er
'.lpplemenisl

Collocation - encouraging learner independence
:1 :. l11ld

31

" r.'Jany
.- :h.it it is
,'erymuch a

The third example is very much topic-specific: benefits and costs ate
keywords in the languageof business.In the sentenceabove we would be
looking for strongercollocatessuchas: We'll incur substantial costs,and.few
benefitswill accrue.

rot expect to
)roductionof
rtlons as you
classroomat

Although many native speakerswould not instantly make thesemodifications,
thoseworking in the businessfield would do so more readily, especiallyin
written communication.This is an indication of how collocation is closely
tied to particular subject areasand, to a certain extent, it could be arguedthat
topic-specific collocations are a major defining aspect of these areas.It
follows that languageproficiency within science,medicine, and commerce
will be determined to a large extent by the students'mastery of the common
collocations particular to each field. This means that a focus on collocation
must becomea major priority in BusinessEnglish and English for Academic
Purposescourses.

'

o focus on a
. you restrict
tions. Brown
;-collocations
the causesof
?rtencemany
the students'
Ihe students'
ihe individual
.ive.However,
ocabulary has
nts on word
ochemistsare
)mmonverb +
Lre used with
rn pattem has
L coursesand
nling point for
rt to get across
re ls no feason
e need to make
andthat'sthat!
' extreme. The
rn, so it is not
seems a likelY
lisappointment.
s important to
se in grammar

To sum up, for many students learning more vocabulary simply means
learningnew words. By focussingour students'attentionon mis-collocations
we make them aware that learning more vocabulary is not just learning
new words, it is often learning familiar words in new combinations. How,
then, do we help the learner to develop their mental lexicons in this way?

2.4 Highlighting and teaching collocation
Teachers have a prominent role to play in helping the learner identify
collocationsin texts.The use of studentmis-collocationsof the type given by
Brown above is one strategy but teachersneed to adopt a more proactive
approach.A descriptionof how my teachingdevelopedin this direction will,
I hope,help.
I was using a reading comprehensiontext with a multi-lingual intermediate
class when one of the students asked what the word views meant in the
following: She holds very strong views on marriage. She thinks everybody
showld be married in a church. My initial responsewas to employ the
standardtechniques:
synonymy:views= opinions
paraphrase:yiews = what you think of something
contextualisalion:I think it's wrong to kill animals.What are your views?
However, rather than move on in the lesson, I found myself directing the
students' attention to the surrounding co-text. An exploration of the left cotext highlighted useful relations of collocation; adjective + noun - strong
views;verb + noun - hold views.This left the studentswith a useful 'chunk'
of language- to hold strong views - rather than a single word.
When the exercisesdesignedfor the reading text were completed, I added a
supplementaryexerciseaimed at activating this chunk:

32

Collocation - encouraging learner independence

Exercise
Look at this part of the text:
'Sheholds
very strongviewson man'iage.Shethinkseverybodyshould
be married in a chwrch.'
Most people hotrdstrong views on something.What about you? Write
some sentencesabout yourself following the pattern,
Most people hold strong viewson . . . . Personally,I think. . . .
This exerciseresulted in studentsproducing personal opinions such as:Most
people hold strongviewson smoking.Personally,I think cigarettesshould be
banned. Note how such responsesdemonstratethat students tend to notice
more patteming than that which is the focus of the exerciseswe give them.
Here the noun + prepositionpatternviews + onhas beennoticedand used,as
with the grammatical structureI think X should be (done). This natural ability
to notice pattern should not be underestimated, and is the basis for the
developmentof the independenttrearningstrategiesthat we need to develop in
our students.
One immediate implication for teachersis that they should re-examine their
coursebooksfor collocation,adding exerciseswhich focus explicitly on cotext and which draw the students' attention to significanl verb + noLtn,
adjective+ noun,verb + adverbcollocations.To returnto the exampleabove,
the next time I used this particular reading text I added a number of short
vocabulary tasks to the comprehensionexercisesthat accompaniedthe text:
Find a verb and adjective in the text which collocates with the word
views.Then completethe following sentence:
My father . . . . . . . . views on drinking and driving. He thinks that
thesedrivers should be banned.forlift.
As Swan (1996) points out, vocabulary will not take care of itself. Students
with limited time available for study will not learn high priority lexis if it is
not deliberately selected and incorporated into iearning materials.
Collocations, then, must become part of that planned language input.
However,the selectionof keywords needsto be informed and this necessitates
a greater awarenessof the nature of lexrs.

2.5 Choosing key words
Lexicalisation is to do with the amount of information a word carries and this
is a useful spectlum to guide our selection of words to target for collocation
searches.Words llke penicillin are high-content words and as a result have
few common collocates.Test this out by trying to think of adjectiveswhich
collocate wilh penicillin. Note how few come readily to mind. On the other
hand,drug is lesslexicalisedand will havea much greatercollocationalfield.
Note how you can readily generatea numberof adjective+ drug collocations
- addict ive/eJfect ive/fa st -act ing/powerful etc.

-+.s\\'e il
decreas
e.-u.cllc
vocabuh
lexicaiis
thesecor
aitentlon
expressl

h_ _i_ es^h_ _l^ i, -o. . 'h t

A furthi
Deconte
adequat
contextu
carn'the
nf

nre set

aware of
especial
The rr
and it

In ge
co11o
ltma

In selec
awarene
that diffe
reference
develop I
provide
lexicalise
common
rather tha

Technica
easilyide
lexicalise
are excell
we needt
our leamr

2.6 Th

A major 1
the classr
needs.W

Collocation - encouraging learner independence

i,sltould
.' ou? Write

ach as'.Most
r e ss J t o u l db e
:;ld to nottce
e give them.
and used, as
iatural abilrty
rasis for the
trr develop in
::.amhe their
rircirir on coti'lt

+

r th- \\'ord
that

:self.Students
:'. leris if it is
rS rnaterials.
rr r.r fiD
::uil:r

As we move further along this spectrum and as the degree of lexicalisation
decreases,
we find someof the most commonand usefulnounsin the lexicon,
e.g. character, idea, plan, problem, situation, way etc. unfortunately,
vocabulary books and vocabulary lessons tend to focus on the more
lexicalisedwords rather than these less lexicalisedwords. This means that
these common and useful nouns often do not receive the amount or type of
attention they merit. For example, with the word way, common semi-fixed
expressions containing useful collocations of the following sort are not
highlighted: The most ffictive way of (losing weight/falling asleep/etc) is...
A further problem lies in the way vocabulary is traditionally taught.
Decontextualisedleaming of individual words such as translation may be
adequatefor high information words like penicillin, whlle paraphraseandlor
contextualisationof more common words llke drug are usually sufficient to
cary the meaning of the term. In general,however, teachersshould be wary
of presenting uncollocated nouns to their students. They have to become
aware of the need to incorporate co-textual information into their teaching,
especiallywith theselesslexicaliseditems.As Lewis (r99j) notesand argues:
The real definition of a word is a combination of its referential meanins
and its collocational field.

lloL{n,

imple above,
nber of short
Lrrd the text:

-

33

l nnrrt
rryq!.

L:,necessltates

.'iiriies and this
i:,r collocation
s i result have
i ::tir-eswhich
1,On the other
',:,;aiionalheld.
:rr collocations

In general, the more de-lexicalised a word is, and the wider its
collocational range,the more important it is to meet, acquire and record
it in a collocation.
In selecting vocabulary items from texts, teachers must develop their
awarenessof the differing degreesof lexicalisation of words and recognise
that different types of vocabulary may need differing degreesof co-textual
reference,and therefore, different teaching techniques.Teachersalso need to
develop their students' sensitivity to this spectrum of lexicalisation, and
provide practice in separating nouns into high-content items and less
lexicalised items, so that studentsfocus their co-textual searcheson the more
common and useful items in the texts they meet, for example,words llke drwg
rather thanpenicillin, tool rather Ihan wrench. [See also pp 14314]
Technical texts are useful for this purpose as the high-information items are
easilyidentifiedby students,leavingthem to explorethe collocatesofthe less
lexicalised keywords in thesetexts. Instruction leaflets and operating manuals
are excellent sourcesof material for encouragingthis awareness.As teachers,
we need to prioritise the developmentof this kind of lexical sensitivity for all
our leatners.

2.6 The independent learner and learning strategies
A major problem remains over the amount of languagethat can be coveredin
the classroom.This will almost always be less than the student meers or
needs.What is essential is that the teacher equips the students with search

34

Collocation - encouraging learner independence

skills which will enable them to discover significant collocations for
themselves, in both the language they meet in the classroom and, more
importantly, in the languagethey meet outside the classroom.
We need to remind ourselvesthat collocation is mostly an arbitrary pairing of
words. We can say treat the patient, repair the damage, but not repair the
patient, treat the damage.It is a fact that much of the grammatically accurate
languagethat we could use, is in fact not used.As teachers,then, we can offer
no explanationsto our studentsfor the particular choicesthat are selectedand
'this is
simply the way
sanctionedby the speechcommunity, beyond saying
the languageis'. We should resist the teacher'sautomaticreflex of seeking
explanations for all aspectsof language patterning; to try, for example, to
explain the fact that repair does not collocate with patienr by looking for
subtle semanticdifferencesbetween the verbs treat and repair.

Tlsr
Do you think you can define the difference between the vetbs treQt
and repair?

Here are some authentic examplesfrom a computer concordance(seebelow)
of the two verbs repair and treat:
One child was able to repair engineswithout being instructed.
He has had to work hard to repair his damagedreputation.
The natural tendencyof the body rs to repair itself given the oppoilunity.
It will take years to repair the economic damagecausedby this policy.
Some dentists claim it is uneconomic to rrear NHS patients.
In my profession,you learn how to treat yoar ownwounds.
It is one of the few drugs approvedto treatAlzheimer'sdisease.
Can you adviseme on how to treat the problem?
You can treat tired,lifeless hair with this new shampoo.
They have a tendencyto treot small customerswith contempt.
It was no way to treat a dog.
We took the dog to the vet but he said it was too late to treat her.
Notice that two of the concordanceexamples- treat customerswith contempt,
no way to treat a dog - could confuse as they contain examplesof treat with
a different meaning. If you use unedited concordances,problems such as this
frequently arise. While this can be helpful for more advanced leamers, it
strongly suggeststhat examplesshould be carefully selectedfor intermediate
learners,although not selectedto conform to a preconceivedpattern. Notice
particularly, the example The natural tendency of the body to repair itself,
'treat people, repair
which immediately invalidates the apparently attractive
machines'ruIe.

Almost al
and probl
relied onl,
and lookir
seekingat

One impo
from sele
mlnol on€
mode. As
developm
very real :
mostly a n
to explorr
collocatio
those collt
much in li
from simp
skills. Hor,
the colloca

I believe n
basicgram
categories
This can b
stageis to
be the focu
around the
collocation

Searchstra
reflect the
encourage
them routir

1. Isolat
2.Look
3. Look
4. Look

I've added
searchstrat
select thosi
example,th
whereasblr
noticing an<
We need,th

Collocation - encouraging learner indeperulencer

cations for
and,.more
l.paidng of
,I repair the
llll- accurate
.,,,e can offet
selectedand
way
rn11-the
:i of seeking
example,to
lookmg for

e s"'ebeiow)
:,1.
r oFportunlty.
this policy.

.tt,5€.

ii.
:;i het.
',",itlt contempt,
=> of treat with

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

35

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

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

36

Collocation - encouraging learner independence

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

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

the stude
homeworl
which wor
for increa

critic
or sol
disad
for st
beett

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

I then aske
met, and th
has comeit

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

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

Collocation - encouraging learner independence

monitodng
nme where
they have
to say that
lacilitating
ur students

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

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

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

rfu1.is to set
t r

:r-n

lnra

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

SCIITCIILCS

rr I

37

q

:ree-standing
,t'tlirnent hAS

\1ter deahng
..r 1. I asked

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

38

Collocation - encouraging learner independence

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

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

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

Intelligent
students'I
invaluable

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

2.8 Res

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

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

A concorda
allows a cc
particular u
producedfo
. the sea

where
. only a
usualh
. the lisr
the wo
much e

Collocation - encouraging leanter independence

rmple
tlOIlSr
t10n:

,ample
'omote
rs tlpe
use of

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

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

39

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

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

Collocation - encouraging learner independence

40
the

decision

an's
n's
i:

wiLl

Austrafia.

come as a disappoincmenL

He accepted

a:d
hrr

YF:d

ni

r^rad^a
narh:nc

ra

ic

had
MiLh:i

'l:rrnl.rina
ruuYarlrrv
IL

ro

Stewart's

Lo

fhar

uI l ri Jc

rho

hinaac'

admic,

I

Ain
! ! Y

l.rrr

contained
^

carhaaha\/

:nA

l:A

he

but

oranl

^

cf

i ^-^-^

j

to

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

,..^d
w
ds

c:^h^i

ntm6hf

i n

aL

disappointment

at

^i

| ^

nrn6-F

clj s;nnn'n-morf

af

di qannni

^\/cr

secret
u'irh

of

her

tnis

nfmorf

the

arose
Hic

nim6nl

in

disappointmentand

race

, .a s

went

to

incompetence

Hirnmler

had

Lo

sa

.,'L

",.-en

had
del

from

course

not
i n

aw

marhnA

the

-..4t

ie

the

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

rL

.r,^

own

they

drsappointment

disappointment
is

what

fel -low

\)a.

r

tY

.li

his
C

Przia

one's

* " "- - i

r h

as

That

h

agenc-Les

rri

c

rha

disappoinumenL

also

a greal

av^^rl

<p>

c=nnni

Taif

Spurs

disappointment.

q^PLs>-ev

rufther

da

for

sdppo

that

from

development

:nd

disappointment

od

book is

ooeq

i---

n r- ^ - -e^ -n- s e
ca ^- p

i^
| ^^-F^vsrsYaLsD

made f it.trfe
I iro

<\ - nv . >

:nnnmnarioul

man's antics,
blerq

nrmonf

di sappoincment

nrridinn
f:ilr

c:nnai

absence would be a big
'The big
said:

New York

lar

di

even
rhe

he

e l ect

Chancellor

of

De

pr

ic

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

of her

frustration.

husband
<item>

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

Resource
should be
betweentl
extract fro
the
d

f ief C.

they
fha

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

gc

make

have
ran^-

bery
but

to

c:

there

c1y stateC
ned by

tit€

on today
ly

a

exist,

defeat

was
--

f ina11y,
d that

the:

rofrrcod

---

fUR's

act:

o 15 a pa::

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

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

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

^- i
vIr!

fa r
Lf

f"lfot

-s
ren

that

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

.!ad-

to

r-en
c

sa
when

even

he

efect

:he
:e11or

of

i:-erk's

pr

'c-rr'l

I onnad

:er husband
:.

<atem>

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.<p>

obvious

possibility

is

that

waning

Beta-one

possibility

advanced

the

possibility

of

efimination

possibility

in

England,

even a remote

possibility.

Money fell

is

possibility

that

the

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

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

then

have

bery

also

cfy

exist,

defeat
finally,

o is

to

The most

are

of

facing

afbeit

was not
there
Lhere

refused

out

even
action

any

Lhe cJear

che further

t.he value

on today

fuR's

of

appeared

stated.

ned by

becomes a

ruled

co consider

but. there

]y

it

recognition

d that

cation, they
are possible
rr their own

4l

real

as a remote

is
to

st.rong

now a stronq
discuss

also

a particularly

the

raises

the
the

worrying

manager

said

he

yourself

fet

off

a rights

the

of
that

possibility

of

is

into

possibility

and r urge

prosecut.ions
she might
retaliation

taxe

be excep

of

the

ov

as a people
it

better
his

a cont.agion

possibility

in

and pet.ers

by smith

possibility

issue

increases
might

was
doing

hands

effect
being
be

a

wiff
brough

separated

by other

everyone,

a

alw

gove

conserv

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

Collocation - encouraging learner independence

42

Fhar6
q=rrinos

rPcrs

Lhe

Government
(1)

ncludes:
ies

shoufder

aeVinn

eao'rrr

if-Lced

Lo

r

Vl]hit
"---nnami

to

cost

of

reduc
due to the staff
<p> 'We are happy to
borrowinghedge
simple
money. <p> Called

materials

of

high

cost

of

computer

lhe

hioh

cost

of
of

tunneflinq

inventory
compuLer memory chips,
doubt over cha
raised

ehe

high

cost

hlae

cost

of

the

Eo

the

huge

cost

of

improvingi

water
in

cost

of

technology,

the

increasangl
-lLe jnicial

cost

of

research

cost

of

the

cosL

of

household

cost

of

wich

the

escape

the

c

cni

Tha

rising
rising
z:l

1 i no

of

the

cost

of

both

terms

and enable
bills.
officiaf

loan
the

he

took

tunnel

developm

of

them to

includes

franchise

living,

cost

t
works and decking
<p> Th
quality.

railway

increasing

mounLirg

and proble

memory chips

lLa

the

research,

scientific

level

cost

the

meet

trJstraced

of
of

nf

that

han:rrcc

cost
cost

hioh

growang

nrrr

facL

exLra

rho

the

hl:mad

q
innlod
J r r r v + v v

the

with

f.he

€
^ aClng
r l 1u r. t, U

of

^^m^^nl'

Tu r iP hL vf r r ^ h

avccnrional

ruLi r^e

awareness

Th6

e

:n

finanee

r- ^U

eXtrfOSUIe
1e

\r^a
l-o

tend

training-

<p> The CBI fea
corruption
out
itself

to

pick
and

and
up
the

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

2.9 L
" There is

It is im1
single et
subsequ
essentia
Ievrsltln

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

CRIT
(pron
to ex1
The g

Revis

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

Verb and
which ha

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

In a ven
developir
decodin-e

Collocation

- - - € t

-=

f^

::pIe

hed.ge

rcco:rah
:nd

nr^lrl

r n\7ah

bt

a

| ^rlt

over

:

donlz

- --

rlarra

:en
-

cha
i na

r

't'n

<p>

::v.

l nnm

to
,!

tend

alrrrrr9

::D:iOn
--

afrd

.

and

nialz

-:

rrn

the

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

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

armlg, and
r+:n

A t the

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

; n]

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

f^:*1.,
td[r]

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

43

2.9 Lexical notebooks

- ^ i , . ^

hrhhl/

-

- encouraging leanter independence

E*-li^L
Lll_gllDll

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

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

44

Collocation - encouraging learner independence

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

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

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

I now fu
words ar
collocate
The smal
neatly su

Prac
wori

It is prec
establish
presentm

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

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

F:

...
T]

Collocation - encouraging learner independence

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

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

,rmmarised
arcounters
sr:ionsand
'lirinnollrr

L-- t0 letaln

r.tronto be
rmar'. The
a

:nntnach

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

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

45

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

46

Collocation - encouraging learner independence

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

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

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

Cha

Revis
colloc
Jimmie l

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

3.1 Lan

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

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

The more
phenomen

ililnniltrnnnrnur(ruBruuil$ilnililililntuilt[MilIHil{ildll

Revisingpriorities

47

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

corpora and

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

rce?If not, in

3.1,Language and lexis

ecord in their

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

Modem English

. LTP
versity Press

nl

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

48

Revisingpriorities

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

3.2 Language and learning
All languageteachersknow that the way they teach, and expecttheir 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

,,r

ii3r-h-rS

lrnsuistic
r 4: ra!.:-qr ur ,t L

-'r

1i
Il

-.r:lt tlnni
irrlUpS rrtr
: lit Alll'tit€ i

?ltotile1lt S 1

rlinking, ht

3.4 Coil

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.

<7

Revisingpriorities

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.

Revising priorities

53

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.

54

Revisingpriorities

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 stages is 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

Revisingpriorities

\ 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

55

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

56

Revisingpriorities

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.

Revisingpriorities

'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
entscannot

57

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

58

Revising priorities

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

59

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

60

Revisingpriorities

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

Revisingpriorities

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
rulary,we
umber of
he words
mpetuous
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

4. Don't wolry. Everything you . . . me is confidential.
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
previousone.
8. To . . . you the truth, I was half expecting it.
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

68

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?

70

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

Teamsor
pafiofar
the two p
studentsfl

4.8 Coi

Computer
excellentr
is an on-l
English. E
available
informatio
http://wwv

After lean
engrnes or
collocation
those colio
fMichael t
disguisedc
for leamers

Finally, wh
forget that.
about collc
programs at
introductior
program to
car. Much o
is readily ar
between Br
expressrons

Integrating colloccttion

:,,\eain,
..-cat1'0ns

:riallOnS:

rieht be

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

nr rrr-hino

n;d. it is
l-1llgUOuS

s lludents
tl: s'hole
I,JiIe SI1flS.

'-CIS and
.':i-based
i: ,tcations
-r rqllrr he

r- corTect
i students

r 3 \l'Olker
r.id a fixed
,i sisters?

s' andthen
iollowing
. This is a
of second
Lthe added
too large.)

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.

86

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
speakingmaterials, 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

mighr t

encount
picture'
collocati
as langui
[This c]
Convent

Discus

Do you s
other asp

Do you u
learners',
of that fer

To what e
by:
. not knl
. not knr
. writing
gramm
expres

Referen

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.

88

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

Deborah
learner.r
the idea
Once he
'As
a
doubt
once.
lt

wai

studen
togeth
and pr
Here. l
did not

After t,
YouSa
to whi
ability
longer
colloca
noticed

3. Model z

Most learn
small par-t
aeroplane.
followin-e r
build the p1
. All th
. The sz
. The sr
. The sz

rnto re

The paralle
to have a i.
instructions
to assemble
recognisabi
4. Molecule
An analogy
say,himself

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."

]s
location to
classroom
re teacher,
rt kinds of
Lichcan be
; suggested
:ationsand
rpose is to
oring their
ercises are
rmination.

:e. but this
rur mentai
rumber of
he idea of
lres which
items.The
i,i.teachers
'rent kinds
teachers.

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

lllTllllTlilllJliltirilll
l:,riii:rrir:. i i

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

,,i:riir ililt:i

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

opponur
learners
lexical wfltlng

(

3.4-3-2

In the cz
helpful ir

1. Leam<
four min
2. The sa
group, th
3. Again
this time

Changing
new infor
Reducinon better

The resea
measurab
final versi
leamers fi
not retrier
attention ,
Repeatin-e
better colli
being tumi

4. Rehearr

This activ
teachersar
producesir
in suchsaf
a situation
essentialth
is not the s
the place
consequen
in the real-

Graham Sr
centralidea
lexis - with

C las sroom strate Ri es, ctctiv itie s and exerc is es

rre made of
ore complex
rf molecules,
eculesare of
i. at the ends
looks'which
hooks'.The
hich, in turn,
r.' into larger

:s individual
entences
is at
lse sentences
.i1so to be
:.* about the
too far and
:th contradict
.risition.[See

: so rhat it is
l:i lexiconsas
;hema. Using
increasesthe
r rr ithin these

lesearchinto
Ll.ratherover\lany of us
i 'marked'and
loved on to a

rtation to their
ir s of saying
ervtalk.
)resentmissed

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:

92

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

maners.
are an es
opposite
language
mto a col
say,whic
rs param(
classroon
evidence
relevant c
6. Essay

Teachers
mosr diffi
While it r
in their or
is very cl
phrasal,n

In additio
co-occur.
verb + rt
(struggle
expfessln
lexicon is
easily exp

In prepar
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this proce
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for verbs
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possiblec

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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:

seil.thanthe
produced.
-rnnaturally.
:e 1ast,although
ners - the least
rrtework,or even
ce showsthat relnd the focus is
^iil\eamalorrOle

;ose of which is
,. not know. The
rne teaching- is
:rntly - an event
:n describesthe
on. The purpose
;press,or at least
::,r'to the learner
: r say is all that

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

94

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

hesitatedto
extensiveE

My studen
reduce the
writing u'it
explained tl

Step 1 Stud
anything u I
is a colloca
theyknou-i
replace tlrc
symbol v.'h
symbol I 1
commentsr

Step 2 I re
surface errc
relevancear
draft and rer

Step3Ir
coherence.r
unableto pr
for any rem

Step 4 Ther

This approa
by the writir
partly becalr
the stagesn'
of writin-e i
essentialca
directed tor
monolingua
recognisech
More effect
lexicons,u'ir
whole proce

Originally.
asslgnment
in this war'.
request add
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before the er

Clas sroom strategie s, ctctivities and ererc is es

they can
v had the
r tongue.
liocations
d use it to
e intemet,
rnly a few
t effective
rnd asking
can which
iternatives,
iiically and
r\t. but to
at least as
iih learning
introducing

.1to go well
:re central.
rr they have
rged the waY
ire. they find
ddge course
:nl. postpone
dentification,
rf a piece of
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fhe resulting
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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

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Classroom strategies, activities and exercises

but
. : ,,'.'riting,

r"rpal objective
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'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
tuseof 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.

98

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.

The si
while
ICCONI

5.4 t

Many
by usi
using z
essent
adapte
and sui

In usin
browse
entry t(
words.l
it is oftr
vocabul
learners
intermec

3. Recor

Encoura
kind are
way of e.
in boxes
to add otl

appl]
be ou
find a
hunt f
reslgn

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.

nnnnnnunnnnniltnniiiiif

tiinliiixuniiiiniiM$lllllf

lllll{

4. Essayp

Choosea tr
If we ltt

Ask leame
about the tr
prrcon

Have leamr
adjectivesz
they must r

Classroom strategies, activiti es and.exerc i ses

)f any text.
ctual rather

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

I

.tob

a one-man
a historical
a tounng

I
I
I

exhibition

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

100

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:

ACCO

CTTCI

disctt
metlt
progl

srtua)
VISrc

As a sir
adjective
board, fc

cln eni
a bey'
a tricL

Ask learn
a sentenc

One reasr
different
each of th

rell a J,
runaJ

With man
Activity 7
provide a i

If yon t
flexible,
only . .

One oJ'
countn,

This activi
possibleco
frame, the
likely to br
larger chur
languageth

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

Lnda better

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.

102

Classroom strategies,activities and exercises

black and

7. Sorting
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

If you wa
activity b,
with anstr
the verb c

10. Five-r

Look up c
eachwhrc
place.
enter fi
You can d
as:proble
job.

11. Coller

Learners r
already kr
know. Wh
verbs whi
collocates
familiar rr
list - and
This actir
providesa
as do, tttc
perhapsir
With a _se
econotn\"

mone]'
econor

9. Rapid sorting

12. Thans

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.

104

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

7. fairl1.
8. exfex
9. upsta
10.carefu
After yor
dictionari
15. Noun

English ri
nouns as
comfortab
that these
which tear
dominoes

blank c
board -

table r
mana-g
assrsta
16. Explor

14. The collocation game

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Example
Example

chocolate
information
a theory
market
tax
the cost of

Peter Sund
group of e:
a pomt ma(
"I am incr
grammar le
approachbi
and teacher
the student
of langua_e

An advancr
recognlseg
uses.Traditl

1. Traditior

glitter: s
gleam: -e
glisten: g
shimmer

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

10S

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."

,1

Th

5 . wl
6. I'n
7. If:
8 . Ge
9. I f l
1 0 . To
1 1 .I f :

tz.I f l

This t1'
done a I

The folr
modifie
exercls
rememt
which i
such as
learners
balance
2.Yerb

Somer,(
to comF
dictionar

cate
legit
1.I'm
2. He.
3. Ohi

5.5 Exercises

4 . 1 .. ,
5 .I . . .

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 stayed on 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-troddenmassesin 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;
commoncollocationsare 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)

134

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:

136

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.]
3. Utterance launchers
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
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:

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

The ri
conve
provid
text t)'
this t1'
for anc
chapte
if lean
level.

Some
identifi
Ironica
even b

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 shouldmove.

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?

146

Language in the lexical approach

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

it sor
on th
will l
probl
beca
pre-n

Althc
ways
that i
categ
they I

spe
qua
con
nou

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.

They
conta
glves

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

in t)
tnil
in rJ
at tl

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

AS (t

Itisu
to ear
more l
they n
probal

7.10

Sincla
may st

TEVlSCI

the fa
langua
lexis althou
of this

Althor
approl
linguis
catego

Language in the lexical approach 147

\e.

:rt
t1I

lie
'lrr

)st
nd

)ly
lar
)nhe
lve
no

rhe
he
6)
S -

1n
run
1n

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:

148

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

Althc
'pote
least

Manr,
gener
that n
- the
set ol
prona
in sec
actua
gener
mefia
peopl
begin:
bring
The c
Peter
Iti

...1
t1fi
InC

Dou-e
of dif
man)'

7.tl

Withir
empha
at the i
langua
fixed
genera

A mor

We mr
realise
EFL r
colloc

Language in the lexical approach 149

f
Ltreir
)f
c
'e

:ular
and
open
)sent
mply
titin
nted:
'uage
rigid
idual
,mers
own
LINETS

:r has
L1and
/Il

llt

rl.

) seen
ly coprove
;itions
:e the
rrd to
t need
ctures
lready
rS AIE

peaker
;alike,
rmiliar
iatlons
lmmar
re now

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

150

Language in the lexical approach

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
collocations
to do with the number of phrasesand
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'

But il
leame
taken
Howa
Ot
co

pr(

m1
of
kn

In Ch
testc(

Teach
simpl
comb
learne
testltr
colloc
both t
1. Wt
Mi

2.W
A

h
C.
A

3. Hc
w(
A

b,

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

The governmentis trying to closethe """' betweenrich and poor'
C' distance D' door
A. sPace B.gup

This <
in the

C,

d.

7.13

Language in the lexical approach 151

of any
Latical'
avoids

e have
; rather
rue.As
t. and a
1Smore
han we
n,aysin
; being
nent m
ntrridge
E) and
t of the
rCE and
hese
JNCES

r and
st an
(now
) and
)fiant
with

gnisethe
ations in
Loleidea.
they also
Testing

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

152

Language in the lexical approach

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

at,
clr
m

Teacl
radict
chan5
better
COUIS

Magg
vocab
learne
single

7.14

Wen
descri
man),
thin-ss
precls
lnale

compl
theonchapte
in con
is fund
princig
compa
on dis
expefll

their tr

It is nc
or cou
action
the ho
providi
before.
change

This bc
We mt
teacha
we har.
shall s
method

Language in the lexical approach
153
)ttel,

hers
)tent
selfsln
-ote:
they
ston
and
SAS

sof
rtth
Y'r'

rals
nay
the
ghts
I
l

i
t
I

ical
tres
and
I' 5O" .e '

t
t
t

t
I
t
t

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.

154

Language in the lexical approach

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?

C]
Lei
Micl
This

what
meetl
learn
recog
abilit
cruci
impot
surpr
Finall
chanl
chanX

8.1

Over
us bet
we n(
impin
thoug
agarn
the a
'teach
know
'learn

and ar
separz
sortir
and ct
consic
feedbr
underr
who v

Teachi
experi
challer
know
why sr

Learning in the lexical approach
155

rplete'
:erent
new
lures,
k the

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
".,,is
to particurar r.i.ra. or exampres
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

;;#tTn,T:HTil::jH.",ru

separateprocessesinvolved*t

t"#sh

input from intake; identifythreJ

sortin
g,anddes
cribingwedi,".,rinsri
;h ;hr'J;?:fi:r':x?11"";
1"",1?

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

156

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.

wror
rna

Proc
addr
knol
discr
proc(
we ci
to lea
decla
such
whicl
in the
slowl
balan
canno

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.

The tr
we ac
Indep
at thal
is dec
knowl
excha
the cu
but un
a grafit
this la:
or you

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.

T

H
kr

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

nnifmmmiftut

Declarz
With a
vocabu
system
modifie
positior
comple
gramma

I

Learning in the lexical,approach

sroom
ens in
I both
t class
rat we
about
'' what
know
e they
ticular
much
ammg
xplicit
rantee
It, we
lng.
"^lf; its
likely
I mole
o want
s with

rds of
:dural
rrles pound
ow to,
: short,
arative
ffectly
;tly or
simple
lack of
r look
if you
I was,
on the

lS7

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?

158

Learning in the lexical approach

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.

unde
exam
- lan
menti
meetr
'knov

so tha

Not r'
a less
that 1,
you \\
and u'

Comn
fundat
languz
empha
the orr
right i
except
produc
all tim
mlsun(
produc

Acquis
knowle
make ,

routini:
invoive
lexicon
From i

Acquisition and input

In addi
further
The cer
only on
there m
languag
to for s1
linguisti
'noticinl

Krashen's claim that we acquire language in one and only one way, by

is perhq

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

lmed
TIEI'S

: use.
ween

ween
ch is
ch is
laims
)snot
1,but
what
ruage
on or
clous
r and
sheer
L that
rs of
ls) of
each,
nany
Ldical
rcted
must
they
mum
le the

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

with
:ept).
lt the
does

y, by

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.

160

Learning in the lexical approach

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

mp
lan

Iri
h"lt
is tl
pro
inta

8.4

Sec
prec
broa
therr
the
voca
For r
the r,
are c
stude
such
mem

Notic
the te
also t
some
occas
Awarr
wary l
in the
expen

Given
helpfu
(witho
unders
kinds <
This is
langua

Discus
Freeme

Isev
will
ltem
valu

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

8.4 Noticing
rhich
r the
raw
most
rtron
ul in
etail.
''Ofk;

irons
/e or
i not
r can
lobal
l for
obe
L the
i, or,

NCTS

le or
)SSES

nces
lural
eto
: the

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.

162

Learning in the lexical approach

'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

bet

{
1
I
I

Aft<
mln
I
I
ll
l',]

r

1l

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

l(
1e
r(

fc
tn
is
f.

pr

bt
bi
in

In su
teach
whic
learn
input

8.5

Noti
langr
exail

Learning in the lexical approach

they
rdof.

r the
ieing
from
iome
new
you
I you
Jless
at ls,
lsted
:re is
li be
al to
and
)s or
ainly

,that
ssed,
rts of
:e of
I are
:h to
te
:d
]S

rd
rues:

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.

rd
n-

Tasx

ning,
rence

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?

164

Learning in the lexical approach

'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'

Pete
corI
bef
toa
gen(
lmp(
be tr
wide
wec
exan
coml
exan
cateE

The i
justil
of bc

Lang
Sincli
pailer

frequ

and ri
differr

Unfor
suppo
more
needa
often :

1
2
3
4.
5.
\\

Learning in the lexical approach
165

s and
vr/een,
what
t was
ce of
work
was
stics;
lUS a

nade.
:pt of

golf,
icult,
ll the
mes'.
; o fa
A S ST S

ist of

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?

Ine oI

:" for
.ween
lle, a

) one
latlon

better
ingly,
all of
ional!
helist
Ie are
:ntial,
lance.
ls not
of the

nd
aal

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?

I
166

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 appropriate for 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'

Peo
mu(
co-c
regu

'mei

shol
SOml

mad
easil
ASto
ofm
Exal

If tei
autor
route
+ noi
teachi

gramr
then r
much
Itisd
leame
somet
kind 1
would
There
langua
that u,i
acquirr
immed
rush ht
Stop fc
have an
idea is
product
somebo
which I
Assumi
languag
(abstrac
generali
has me
observa

Learning in the lexical approach

nem?
what,
I you
poor
r also
rlary,
' this
your
rples,
icular
lence
Iuage
luage

that
vhich
luage
ed in
rt that
;ed to
art of
ssible

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'.

rs are
'own
act m
e new
;. But
Lation,
used.
'from
Ing
Lnd
ish

rush had died down.

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

168

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?

Fee

The
whi
bec
by tl
syst
syst
proc

Cha
and
surp
pred
mlcI

with
wee
sma

It nc
wha
what
whic
Ever
forgr
whal
linea

Som
such
I don
bir f
'undr

ques

Amr
coult
unde
unde
alonl
Simu
word
past l
these
existi
and t<
leamr
mem(

Learning in the lexical approach

169

Feedback means acquisition is non-linear
ln ale

bility,
room
:s the

, was,
S WAS

while
iinear
refore
ad of
nonrsions
)astm
mous
l'erful
ature.
natics
:he
ien
,res

lSo
rhe
)nmd
lcame
e than
lence,
ng the
achers
: form
esson,
nother

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

170

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
many
in
discussed
but permanentchangein complex phenomenais curently
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

toti
lgn
atte
oftt
rev
Litt

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I
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8.7

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Learning in the lexical approach l7l

uage
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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.

resent
iogy.

above
e both
1cy to

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

SA

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qu
IS

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ner

of
sta
cot
tha
en{
the
cor

has

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acq
mal

8.8

The
natr
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Acc

Perl
chal
rulei
the
fluer
prefz
adeq
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a sul
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long
achie
their
comtr
the gr
-mal
accel

Learning in the lexical approach 173

l
I

I

ITTIS

tant
IIIer

:ady
sor

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

ls ln
t10n
very
ners
is, I
r the

1

i
j

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.

IS

ad

sp
u4
of
chr

Fo
coi
cei

CSI
eve

the
inti
lear
r^P

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:

and
wn
botl
rES
meI
clas

. 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.

Knc
the
com
fluer

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

Imp

Atr
tertii
also
cons
saw
numl
most
bya
pass

N
w
th
be
int

SU

Learning in the lexical approach 175

rble
rso

)nts
the
/ 1 3

)ate
tl0n

han
rto
tls

rent

.the
n
rbe

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

rf
t
oun
/in

trTn,
;1StS
rect
any
)nse
ical
nlts

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

conl)

bY ('
wish
prod
invol
lexic
calle

Asu
one f
lnput
(syntl
langu
mput
than ti
alread
idea t
'reass

descril
quote(
Comprt

sugges
by evet
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theorie
wrong.
Iangua
specul
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mean\
compr
agams
'Acqut

new \r
breaki
into u'
not ls i
and thi

8.10

The P
much I
Obsen
this bo

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.

t
)
I
I

ror
jmic
han
gely
yof
10us
and

;sing
was
rical
ving
lage.
ctlon
1 not
;hing
rlf of
idea
that
DUt a
OSES.

r tool
1; the
every
c not
i l s a

rners.
is for
rith a
:ative

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.

178

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

of dil
unde
indir

1.It
word
is the

2.Itt
alrea<

InESSZ

3.Itr
rnten.

Consi
violatr
saw j

under
to app

The le
the fr
one lar
unless
are liki
than th
If lean
individ
havebr

This is
(Lisrett
The
StIO

su-s
b,."

bear
paIt(

We are
phrasal
comme
in whic
pattems
are thus

This cor
store thz
this boo

Learning in the lexical approach 179

lory.
from
osed
The
nwe
's are
iltlon

)r, or
lelng
tlme.
on of
n any
acher
]_P-P
luage
either

ty the
;st be
;hen's
sis of
15Can
ofimg
Lsisof

best
rovide
uffent
n1y to
n what
)amers
nodify
rather
lave

a

:gative
Ien we
ley are

chunks

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.

180

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

or ma
accep
some
under
Swan
of ther
but otl
skiing,

Simila
possib
is the
which
meetill
teache
this ne
those t

8.11

Both c
Where
consci<
help. \\
the con
as chun
prefabr
prefabr
the lear
miss mr
that the
the Nat
that for
(except
Curren

If there
case tha
usually
controll
stateme
some te
others st
after the
a numbe

Learning in the lexical approach lg1
1S
SO

lst
ne
Ite
rat
to
he
ed
rty
ng
1r)
he
of
an
ke
to
ln

of
1S

by
he
ler
he
.he

)ut
.he
be
rh,
nd
ate
"he
tve
t\/

tsk
rld

ich
rd

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).
Current practice
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:

182

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

of tl
teac
muc
ackn
3 , A
nece
diffu
EITOI

makt
term
focur
empl
langr
langr
exam
and ,
transl
leamr
listen
Succ
not ol
produ
wond
was perfor
nottce
mole
The P
frame
the tra
book c
produ<
they dr
In this
langua
activiti
mottva
leamer
lnstruc
view n
accural
player
procedt
conditir

Learning in the lexical approach 183

iuch
very
rd to
ei of

most
i that
t4any
Iaries
s are
r, not
have
f, for
'esent
:h are
rhasis
: real
may,
y that
rental
ln oI
,isode
,bility
;lobal
on of
alised
upmg
rtobe
Lt the
same
nt use

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

184

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.

The
disc
facil
thei
conS
the I
wel
mor(
sylla

Dis

Is th
stron

Is tht

Houbefor

What
pomt

Thinl
b) les

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.

DiscussionQuestions
deal
ruge
able
rries
tcon
)weI
rof
'we

What role, if any, do you think controlled practices,particularly of grammar
points, play in aiding acquisition?

the
/, rs

Thinking of your own teaching, to what do you think you will give a) more
b) less emphasisas a result of reading this chapter?

)n
nq
"D

iary

and
rate
r l -

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?

186

Materials and resources

Chapter9
Materials and resourcesfor teaching collocation

builr
rem(
rnpu
for I

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

Text

Hot'(
toba<
ls gr(
we \\
contr

If du
acce
Oster
the cr
Calai
Text

It rnta
and t
anrmi
knou'
huma
Text

The I
its fu
distin
'imag
MESSi

other
infon
not g(
but tl
partic

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.

Thsr
re of
nple
hese
ded,
pter
asa

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

lave

nost
ls of
ems
ns.
ame
tten
;uch
ofa
text
lper
rrge
tsm.
luch
:of
ntal
ials,
tons
lent
tten
rnly
'oI

rom
are
sof
eln

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 exceptin the
broadestsense,
but they may still have an important role to play in the
marketplace,
particularly in relation to the competitive process.

188

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

' gri
. lot
d^

All o
such
obser

lr€
pa
po

Text i
It con
write i
ASS

lent
on
can
anl
The sa
are larl
highesl

LGSW
that a
inadeqr
of a pie
reportir

Effectir
more n
particul
very p
corresp
creative
of word
or at le
writing,
informat
standard
prerequi

9.3 Sr

Everyon
realises1

Materials and resources lg9

r the
ntial
leral
Ldes,
r the
rB.
dE.
rmic
rised

ypes
lt ls
:e to

nput
etail
n
. ' D0
'

hitra
hing
e
if
e
note
and
n0s
that
ngle
s. In
CVET

nmg
kirug
'lock

. 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

190

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

conc
fictic
ncrf

l

The
lonq
_-^_
cont(
subje
conc(
almo

9.4

Althc
much
plone
the bi
three
of tei
langu
poren
Corpr

Cobui
corpui
data-d
fully z
which
additic
langua
provrd

Other 1
a basis
and exr
million
that its
has lea
part ot
impresr
While I
teachin

The pr
descript
referenc
which r

Materials and resources l9l

ise and
:; sugh
ilowing
:nt is in
rls and
;oncise

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].

ection

9.4 Language corpora
u wrlte
ademic
vrite in
icribed
rds the
hat the
15may
lterest.
rdency
Lterials
rsm in
;erved:
r,vords.
:hat all
;e they
i-fixed
Ldemic

the
1n

res
a1n
the
the

:ularly
rat the

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.

192

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.

con
prol
bes
off
parl
conl
obse
Gen

Bib€
1998
the u
corp{
parn(
T]
ar)

mr
an
CO

ofl

ATT

ac(
doi

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 common collocations 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

It is cl
to sele
likell,t

Teache
- alat
corpus
so the l
that a :
and col
once aE
corpusl
Corpor

So, doe
purpose
students
appropn
each grc
patterns
called 'a

Materials and resources 193

rnced"
) when
)se the
ith the
l)Vo is
:enand
lguage
:qually
would
formal
to be
md for
rrhaps,

Genre-specificcorpora

ocally:
)rpora.
)orpora
rsed as
Ltialfor
ro{pus,
; being

data is
[o use
uitable
amples
es rs to
editing
e. The
;-based
: r 1 1i s
)n one
-itis
typical
' listing
s quote
I have
lid not
din.A

Corpora for specificpurposes

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.

often
text.
beca
that.
more
acad
prepa

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'

Profe
contn
comp
youn(

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

T}
5Lt

ta
no
Tet
scr
net

An er
that th
about
use au
the on
closel3
themse
Focus

Mark I
specia
their sl
This n
spondy
easetht
as $tre|

and tht
importa
to corrx
suppliet
Buildin

The so1
compari
disciplir

Materials and resources 195

'the
q)n
"'D

icial
)nce
the
IOm

l S a

rstry
rilar
lake
tend
:r. A
; the
rr in
eeds
)mlc
nole
Lcles

5
A
u
.S

ably
I1On,
itory
i use
ltrng
'tain
;'ealS
need
uage
h for
.rally
erial
:r. A
ttot'LS

tltat
)uite

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

196

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

clr

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

up
cor
finr
shc
cor
selr
ofi
pro

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.

198

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

unl,
indi
edit
Mal

wor
part
sirni
muc
than
usrn
mos
that
Bria
I
t(
S(
\l
ql
-'
ol

SC

)-

ut

th
Whilr
probl
AS

kn
tht

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contel

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. The,
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fluer
. The

CAUS

. Obse
exan
MOI€

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:

ttru.
-t-^

-r\.S,

)'a
this
)ns.
Lber
,mg
n
ll:e
'
r

iof
'd.

. - ^ l

,\CU

IOSt

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]

200

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.

Sev
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sample
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Materials and resources ),el

dan
also
ruare
rt to
,trn's

: the
t oll

ding
ooks
dard
citly
rften
rften
met

a.,.?

I OUr
,*-1.
t l

[u

L *

Lr5

I trll-

tour.
idins

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

202

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

I
i

1

'1

Inr
Cob
coll
colli
shor
anl\"

diffr
10 7 1

freq
lexir
for c

9.7

If le
lexic
. Tel
.Le

ust
. Lei
lex
exa
ele

Disr

What
perce

Whar
of the
usetl
Whar

If lea
teach
spoke

Materials and resources )e!

tem
/of
ilve

the
,ide
tlns
lin o

allthe

xds
\,ate
tlve
Ltial
rto
,'ith
LNJ

his
lo)

ot1;
ical
no

*_D'
^ ^ l
JCU

'1t\i.
,ol.'

Lich
)nai
the
[\\ O

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?

204

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?

Cc
Pett

Pete
Unir
EFL
rela{
impl
scri!
appr
devil
'unai
how

coltro
vocal
page

10.1

Thos
class
empl
langu
of mi
parti(
wnte
on thr

Afc
Exam
levels
be ab
expec
series
. Horr
.Do

gIan
. Dol
conl
abili
. Dol
lean

Collocation and resting 205
SO; 111

Chapter10

, they
ad to
t you
tlme

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

206

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

Wht
leve
brol
perfr
'unit

pun(
'1a)

refer
grafl
leanr
defu
partl

In th
the ii
the c
throu
impli
base

What
lan-e
psycl
you i
langu
USEI (

In in
UCL]
projer
purpa
EFL
Amer
FCE,
over I
by le,

Collocation and tesring )eJ

sffucture, which enables the messageto be followed without much
effort.

v
JL

h
)f
e
I
o
D

E
)f
o

it

)f
iS
I.

)f
)r
t1
i.

)f
)r
e
e
tr
:
E

a

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

208

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. pleasecircle 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

Restricted collocations levet 1
Restricted collocations level 2

to)

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

tor
cun
One

Ider
that
the I
othe
blan
a pr{
sele
L

{t

IC

It shr
candi
not aq
a ranl
for er
ler-els
irrrr t}

ASSUN

on the

10.8

So. hc
atteml
framr
produl

1. Fan
criterii
in la1'
For ex
levelsr
corpor

Collocation and testing /)l

ng
no
'_D

ch
of

of
)E
US

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

he
ps,
IU

rat
1S

rat
,^t
i Et

iS

tbr
.L^
.11C

rtY

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.

222

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)

I
c
E

E
11
R

Collocation and testing /)!

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

o
t.

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Itr
(r

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t]3
te

:V

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n'

224

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

pafl
ma5
ofp
bel
pra(
avel

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com
(aB
onl
Hug
thou
cout
sulte
and
u-ho
mad
voca

Suen
them
of sc
actl\

Occr

ACTOI

accon
archi
carpE
Num
one
two
three
SlXt\

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Suefir
comfl

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examl

it, tha
imme
and
to the

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.

r
e
n
e
S
0

f

v
c
n

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.

t;L

L,
d

v
tL

o
a

v

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

andqs
finnas
hoppas
krrikas
lyckas

Noh
Ther

Hav
Therr

I sus
itisr
to er

This
of elr
some
undo
leris l

CONS{

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.

then t

In difl
from tr

of rl hr
that nl
a u-0rl
made
empla

You nr
list ir
words
emplo

possi

each r
reveal
belou'
profes
disting
yesteft
collocl

A world beyond collocation

)ed
lhe
by
red
tln

L I-Y

for
ttle
the

orh
dlg

)/J

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

228

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

Ii
hl

tr

sfi
o0
sa

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:

Th
inl
thr

cI(
lea

A world beyond collocation

se
al
le
le

of
ds
tls
ln
rd

//)

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

a

se
1e
rd
m
)d

r11

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

[.

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

:

f!-

ar

place

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

230

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.

Th
Bu
1-lfJ

the
thr
rb1
un

&

- .+,

AU

uh

-1

i

1- __

1\Cl

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.

-\r

noi
A'in

kin
narl

mrs

the
witl
I O i

con
s191
clil
s1_s

4 world beyond collocation

[ve

Write down words with their prepositions,e.g. at a high level;
thanksto your help.

StS

ry
:he
lm

be
to
be
.L^
.tlc
oe

ll.y
:he
nd
lut

rry
no
:IS

fris
irh
Tle

tl]'

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

232

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

11.5 I
Even st
words a
namely
list fron

A world beyond coilocation

)JJ

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 indefinitesubject,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
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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
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LanguageAcquisition, in Applied Linguistics,Vol. 18, No. 2
Lewis, M. (1993) The Lexical Approach,LTP
Lewis M. (1997) Implementingthe Lexical Approach,LTP
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