The Language Learning Journal
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Learners’ perceptions of a collocation instruction
and practice component in a Chinese EFL context
Chen Ding, Barry Lee Reynolds & Xuan Van Ha
To cite this article: Chen Ding, Barry Lee Reynolds & Xuan Van Ha (2024) Learners’ perceptions
of a collocation instruction and practice component in a Chinese EFL context, The Language
Learning Journal, 52:1, 37-48, DOI: 10.1080/09571736.2022.2098366
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THE LANGUAGE LEARNING JOURNAL
2024, VOL. 52, NO. 1, 37–48
https://doi.org/10.1080/09571736.2022.2098366
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Learners’ perceptions of a collocation instruction and practice
component in a Chinese EFL context
a b,c d
Chen Ding , Barry Lee Reynolds and Xuan Van Ha
a
School of Foreign Studies, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, China; bFaculty of Education, University of Macau,
Taipa, Macao; cCentre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Taipa, Macao; dDepartment of Foreign
Languages, Ha Tinh University, Ha Tinh, Vietnam
ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This qualitative study explored the perceptions of EFL students at a Collocations; learner
Chinese university regarding collocation learning. The participating perceptions; challenges to
students were provided with a collocation instruction and practice learning collocations; form-
component over ten weeks within a regular one-semester EFL course. focused instruction; Chinese
EFL learners
The participants were 15 Chinese first-year non-English major students.
The data consisted of semi-structured interviews conducted after the
students had completed the intervention component (week 12).
Analysis of the transcripts of audio-recorded interviews revealed that
the students showed a generally positive attitude towards learning
collocations. Also, the collocation component helped the participants
raise their awareness of learning collocations, become less dependent
on their first language in interpreting and using collocations, and highly
value the importance of collocations in writing and translation. The
students also expressed some concerns in learning and using
collocations. Pedagogical implications are discussed.
1. Introduction
Words are the building blocks of a language (Richards 2017). Foreign/second language (L2) learners
use these units to comprehend and produce language. This seems to be the ‘default’ approach for
second language acquisition with initial attempts to produce language focused on lexical items.
However, in traditional language teaching and learning, words are taught, analyzed, and learned
with limited association with real-life contexts, often in isolation from each other. This occurs regard-
less of the fact that knowing the meaning of one word also involves knowledge of other words that
typically occur with that word (Nation 2013a). Collocations are strings of words that naturally co-
occur at a statistically significant frequency in natural texts (Gablasova et al. 2017; Lewis 1993). Col-
locations have been shown to play an important role in language learning and use (Boers et al. 2006;
Erman and Warren 2000; Gablasova et al. 2017; Nesselhauf 2003; Shabani and Rahimy 2020).
However, research with English as a foreign language (EFL) learners has highlighted learners’
limited collocational knowledge (Fan 2009; Huang 2015; Tsai 2015). Driven by the gap between
the important role of collocations in language learning and the fact that EFL learners have been
found to demonstrate limited command of collocations, existing research has attempted to
explore the value of collocation teaching and learning in various forms. The existing literature has
focused on the effectiveness of different kinds of interventions on learners’ vocabulary learning.
While learner perspectives can influence their learning process and outcome (Ha et al. 2021; Ha
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/09571736.2022.2098366.
© 2022 Association for Language Learning
38 C. DING ET AL.
et al. 2021), and a large body of research has investigated learner perspectives on various aspects of
language teaching and learning, such as teaching grammar and giving oral corrective feedback (Ha
and Nguyen 2021), there is a lack of research investigating the effect of collocation teaching and
learning from the learners’ perspective. Thus, the current study extends this line of inquiry by exam-
ining the learners’ perceptions of a sequence of collocation learning activities in a university EFL
context in China.
2. Literature review
2.1. The role of collocations in L2 learning
In recent years, researchers and instructors have shown increasing interest in exploring the acqui-
sition of groups of words or formulaic language (e.g. Boers et al. 2006; Nguyen and Webb 2017;
McGuire and Larson-Hall 2017; Ding and Reynolds 2019). The most encompassing definition for for-
mulaic sequences was put forth by Wray (2000: 465) as:
… a sequence, continuous or discontinuous, of words or other meaning elements, which is, or appears to be,
prefabricated: that is stored and retrieved whole from the memory at the time of use, rather than being
subject to generation or analysis by the language grammar.
For the acquisition of collocations, in general, English language teaching often divides such formu-
laic language into lexical collocations (composed of two content words) and grammatical colloca-
tions (composed of a content word and a function word). However, the study of words grouped
into phrases or clauses (e.g. prefabricated chunks) can also promote formulaic language awareness
and learning (Nation 2013a: 479). Taking a pedagogical view of vocabulary teaching and learning,
the current study operationalises collocation as an encompassing term that refers to both lexical
and grammatical collocations.
Selected as targets for teaching and practice, collocations are arguably an important component
in vocabulary learning for the following reasons. First, approximately one-third to a half of natural
language is composed of collocations and other formulaic languages (Altenberg 1998; Erman and
Warren 2000). Second, collocations are believed to be processed holistically when stored and
retrieved from memory (Jiang and Nekrasova 2007; Wray 2002), which reduces a speaker’s proces-
sing load and leads to more fluent language production. Third, vocabulary errors in learners’
output are made up of a large number of collocation errors (Nesselhauf 2003). Fourth, collocational
knowledge has been positively correlated with general language proficiency (Bonk 2000; Hosseini
and Akbarian 2007). For example, L2 learners who use more formulaic language in oral interviews
tend to obtain higher overall spoken proficiency ratings (Boers et al. 2006). The implication drawn
from this body of research is that fostering collocation learning should assist learners in developing
an accurate, fluent, and proficient second language ability.
2.2. L2 learners’ collocational knowledge
A glimpse into learners’ collocational knowledge with the aid of corpus techniques has revealed
limitations in EFL learners’ collocational knowledge (Granger 1998; Nesselhauf 2003; Tsai 2015),
demonstrated by learners’ misuse and underuse of collocations. Nesselhauf (2003), for example,
found the majority of vocabulary errors in German EFL learners’ essays were largely due to L1 inter-
ference (e.g. *make homework for the German Hausaufgaben machen). EFL learners of three different
proficiency levels in Laufer and Waldman’s (2011) study were also found to use fewer typical colloca-
tions than native speakers while other researchers have found EFL learners to repeatedly use only a
small number of collocations in both spoken and written language (e.g. Ying and O’Neill 2009; Xu
and Xu 2007). Similar results were found in numerous studies that have used a range of assessments,
such as when measuring the receptive knowledge of collocations using a multiple-choice format
THE LANGUAGE LEARNING JOURNAL 39
(Nguyen and Webb 2017) and when measuring the productive knowledge of collocations using a fill-
in-the-blank format (Gonzalez-Fernández and Schmitt 2015).
L1 Chinese EFL learners’ limited knowledge of collocations in English is an ongoing phenomenon
that has been found among learners throughout secondary and higher education (Reynolds 2015,
2016; Ding and Reynolds 2019; Reynolds and Teng 2021). Fan (2009) found inappropriate use of col-
locations in junior high school students’ compositions when compared to their British counterparts’
essays. A similar result was reported in Tsai (2015) when the diversity and density of collocations in
Taiwanese senior high school learners’ writing were examined and compared with native speakers’
equivalents. Huang (2015) tracked the collocation use of Chinese college-level non-English majors
throughout their college years, finding no significant progress was shown in using grammatically
accurate and functionally appropriate collocations in their writings.
The existing literature also shows that an English as a second language (ESL) context may not be
enough to effectively improve this situation either. By tracking Chinese ESL learners’ adjective–noun
collocation use in writing over one academic year in a British postgraduate programme, Li and
Schmitt (2010) found that the number and variety of collocations used in advanced learners’
essays remained stagnant throughout three academic terms. This result implies that not even an aca-
demic year in an L2 environment may be long enough for the development of collocational compe-
tence, even for advanced learners. Furthermore, in a large-scale corpus analysis of advanced ESL
learners’ verb-noun collocation use by German speakers, Nesselhauf (2003) pointed out that the
effect of L2 immersion may be limited as a reverse correlation was found between the number of
collocations produced in writing and the length of students’ immersion, increasing from 0–1
month to over seven months. Bonk (2000) also found the amount of time spent living abroad in
an ESL environment had only negligible predictive power for collocation knowledge. Taken together,
the results of these studies suggest that L2 learners’ collocational knowledge development is incre-
mental but may remain limited without explicit teaching and learning. This difficulty seems to persist
regardless of whether learners have been taught the target language for a number of years or
whether they have spent time abroad in an ESL environment.
The inadequate knowledge of various types of collocations from different learner populations
reported in previous studies (e.g. Fan 2009; Granger and Bestgen 2014; Huang 2015; Tsai 2015;
Nguyen and Webb 2017; Kao and Reynolds 2020) has motivated practitioners and scholars to call
for explicit collocation teaching and learning (e.g. Lewis 1993; McGuire and Larson-Hall 2017;
Ding and Reynolds 2019; Reynolds and Teng 2021).
In general, explicit vocabulary learning has been found to be more effective than implicit voca-
bulary learning (Laufer and Girsai 2008), so it is of practical importance that any teaching of colloca-
tions should also be explicit. However, the intentional learning of collocations should follow
recommendations for intentional learning of individual words with learners and teachers focusing
on the most frequently occurring collocations in English (Nation 2013a). Laufer and Waldman
(2011), for example, suggested implementing form-focused instruction that includes explicit teach-
ing and cross-linguistic comparison as a complement to communicative task-based language teach-
ing. Less frequently occurring collocations, like individual words, can be learned through a
combination of both intentional learning and incidental learning that occurs through extensive lis-
tening and reading (Nation 2013a; Webb et al. 2013).
2.3. Studies on collocation teaching and learner perceptions
There are several studies investigating the effectiveness of teaching collocations. Most studies have
focused on investigating the effect of repetition (Peters 2014), task types (Webb and Kagimoto 2009),
and learning conditions (Sonbul and Schmitt 2013). These studies examined the learning of a small
group of collocations in experimental settings using partly decontextualised activities which may
have limited implications for the teaching or the learning of a larger number of collocations.
When it comes to the feasibility and effect of integrating collocation learning activities into
40 C. DING ET AL.
contextualised communicative task-based activities, or for instance, an English course that is already
a part of a school’s English language curriculum, our literature review showed that existing studies
are scarce (Lewis 1997; Ying and Jiang 2014). One exception is Boers et al. (2006), who investigated
the facilitative role that the Lexical Approach (Lewis 1993) can play in learners’ formulaic language
learning and oral proficiency development. They implemented a regular formulaic language aware-
ness raising activity in a 22-hour reading and listening course that resulted in an increase in formulaic
language use and oral proficiency ratings of the participants. The frequently used classroom aware-
ness-raising activity aimed to direct learners’ attention to the co-occurrence of words. While reading
the texts, learners were asked to identify useful expressions and in small groups compare these to
their classmates’ selections.
Only a small number of studies have investigated learner perceptions of collocation teaching and
learning. Vyatkina (2017) investigated the effects of data-driven learning of German verb preposition
collocations on learner performance and perceptions, revealing that learner perceptions influenced
their immediate gains. In another study with data-driven learning with 60 Iranian female EFL lear-
ners, Saeedakhtar et al. (2020) found that the learners had positive perceptions of data-driven learn-
ing for learning collocations. Derakhshan and Karimian Shirejini (2020), in a study focusing on factors
influencing learner perceptions of learning writing EFL in Iran, found that learners considered collo-
cations one of the factors making writing a complex task. Given the importance of investigating
learner perceptions and the limited literature on learner perceptions of learning collocations,
there is a need for more research exploring learner perceptions of collocation learning.
In this current study, we sought to explore whether university EFL learners in China were suppor-
tive of the incorporation of a collocation instruction and practice component into their regular
English classroom regime. To follow through with this aim, we incorporated a collocation instruction
and practice component (hereafter the collocation component) into an existing semester long non-
English major mainland Chinese first-year college English course to examine their perceptions of the
collocation component. The following research question guided the study: what are the Chinese EFL
students’ perceptions of the collocation component which was incorporated into a college English
course?
3. Methodology
The methodology used for the current study followed the guidelines set by the TESOL International
Association (https://www.tesol.org). Specifically, the participants were informed in both verbal and
written form about the purpose and procedures of the study; participants were made aware that
the results would be submitted for publication. Participants were also made aware that participation
was voluntary, and they could withdraw at any time without penalty; and that their confidentiality
would be protected by not disclosing their identity either during the data collection or in the paper
written based on the data. The participants were aware of the benefits of the study and how to
contact the researchers if they had any questions. A signed informed consent form was obtained
from each participant confirming their understanding of the above before they joined the study.
3.1. Participants
The participants were 15 of the 49 first-year non-English majors from one intact class at a mainland
Chinese university. The classroom English teacher (not one of the authors), who was a native speaker
of Chinese, showed an interest in the approach and took part in the study voluntarily. The teacher
was recruited through convenience sampling. She had a master’s degree in Applied English Linguis-
tics and three years of teaching experience. The class was selected as it was the only class that the
teacher taught. According to the China Education Ministry (2000), high school graduates who pass
the national entrance exam to university should have acquired at least 1,950 words and relevant col-
locations. According to Milton and Alexiou (2009), a vocabulary size of around 2,000 words is equal
THE LANGUAGE LEARNING JOURNAL 41
to A2 level (i.e. elementary level), indicating that the students had at least an elementary level of
English proficiency. The university had a four-semester English curriculum that consisted of four
English language courses with increasing language proficiency levels. When first-year students
(i.e. freshmen) enter the university, they take an in-house English language placement test that
will result in either being placed in Level 1 or Level 2. The participants of the present study were
at Level 1. Students who have completed all four levels of learning should have acquired at least
4,795 words and around 700 collocations (College English Syllabus Requirement 2007).
The participants followed the regular curriculum in addition to the collocation component. After
the course, 15 participants (seven males and eight females aged 18–19 years old) who were rec-
ommended by the classroom teacher as showing a high level of participation in class and volun-
teered to be interviewed about their perceptions of the collocation component were selected for
the study. The classroom teacher was asked to suggest students who had participated actively in
class as we wanted to prevent selection of participants with a generally negative opinion of learning
English which might have biased the interview data.
3.2. The college English course
The general college English course for non-English major students consisted of 15 hours of class-
room instruction, 1.5 hours per week, over ten weeks. The course covered 5 out of 10 textbook
units. The textbook, College English Intensive Reading (Dong 2017), was recommended by the
Chinese Ministry of Education as the textbook for non-English majors. While the course aimed at
improving the four skills (i.e. listening, speaking, reading, and writing), a considerable amount of
attention was given to intensive reading. Due to time constraints, the addition of the collocation
component necessitated the deletion of the regular vocabulary activities in the original textbook
materials; in other words, presentation, practice, and production of individual words were replaced
by the collocation component activities. All adjustments made to the course still met the College
English curriculum requirements in terms of word and collocation learning requirements and fell
in line with the vocabulary learning goals set by the institution; the changes to the course were
also approved by the university administration. The course was conducted mainly through
teacher-led activities, with the teacher elaborating on learning materials and students practising
under this supervision. A brief description of the different activities used for the collocation com-
ponent and what would have occurred in the regular curriculum are provided in the following
section and detailed in Appendix 1 (see Supplementary Materials).
3.3. The collocation component
The collocation component was incorporated into eight sessions (i.e. weeks 3 through 10) of the
English course. Collocation activities were developed based on the textbook units and implemented
during class time. The collocation component was designed to introduce basic collocation knowl-
edge, raise collocation awareness, and enhance collocation knowledge through a series of form-
focused language learning activities. The language learning activities were linked to the unit texts
rather than isolated practice. Learners were expected to become aware of the importance and ubi-
quity of collocations in discourse and consciously apply collocation learning strategies.
The collocation component consisted of the following activities. In week 3, an introduction to col-
locations, including their different types, was provided. Students were also asked to identify different
types of collocations in exemplar sentences extracted from the passages read in previous textbook
units. The introduction took up 15 minutes of formal class teaching. In a regular class, this time would
have been spent on introducing vocabulary learning strategies, for instance, how to use knowledge
of prefixes and suffixes to help with learning the meaning of new words.
In weeks 3–10, collocation awareness activities and form-focused collocation learning activities
replaced the vocabulary activities that were conducted in the regular class. The collocation
42 C. DING ET AL.
awareness and language learning activities were adapted from suggestions in the literature (i.e.
Lewis 1993; McCarthy and O’ Dell 2004) which, based on Ellis’s (2001) taxonomy, can be classified
into three types of form-focused instruction: (1) focus on forms, where the form is the major
focus while the task is designed to induce learners’ attention to focus on some specific language
forms intensively; (2) planned focus on form, where the meaning is the major focus while the task
centres around a group of pre-selected L2 forms; and (3) incidental focus on forms, where the
meaning is the major focus while the task deals with a number of L2 forms which arise
spontaneously without prior planning. In a regular class, the major focus of vocabulary learning
falls on the presentation, practice, and production of individual words; the teacher would have pre-
sented new words occurring in the textbook passage and explained the form and meaning (also in
relation to its synonyms and antonyms). Then learners would have been asked to practise the words
by completing translation or cloze exercises before being offered opportunities to produce the
words in output tasks.
To develop the collocation component, two criteria were considered. First, the Lexical Approach
(Lewis 1993) was the guiding principle in designing the activities. The core of the Lexical Approach is
an emphasis on noticing formulaic language in input. Secondly, explicit form-focused collocation
learning activities were designed to help learners commit collocations to memory (Boers et al.
2006). The activities used in the intervention consisted of (1) awareness-raising activity, (2) trans-
lation with collocations, (3) collocation matching grids, (4) collocation matching in context, (5)
reading aloud and chunking, (6) retelling/rewriting, (7) online dictionary activity, and (8) recording
collocations (see Appendix 1 in the Supplemntary Materials for further details of these activities).
3.4. Data collection and analysis
The interviews were conducted after the course concluded. Participants received the collocation
component intervention from the 3rd to the 10th week of the semester; in the 12th week fifteen
of the participants were interviewed. Each interview was conducted individually and lasted for
30–40 min. All the interviews were conducted in Chinese and were audio-recorded for later transcrip-
tion and analysis.
The formulation of the interview questions was guided by previous literature exploring learners’
vocabulary learning experience and strategies (Zheng 2010) and their preference for different learn-
ing activities (Shak and Gardner 2008). Key points focused on during these semi-structured inter-
views included: (1) the vocabulary and collocation learning experience, (2) factors that influence
collocation learning and use, (3) the difficulties in completing the activities, and (4) their preference
for activities (see Appendix 2 in the Supplementary for the interview questions).
The recordings were transcribed verbatim into Chinese for data analysis. The transcripts were
read many times for a thorough understanding of the data set. They were then coded and ana-
lysed following the coding process suggested by Saldaña (2015), which requires two rounds of
coding. Structural coding was first completed in which a question-based coding, framed and
driven by a specific research question and/or topic, was used (Saldaña 2015). Relevant segments
of the interview data were extracted based on a list of interview questions. For example, in
response to the interview question concerning the perceived benefits gained by the participants
from the collocation component, instances regarding participants’ ‘changes of attitude’ – for
example, ‘without such activities, I could not have noticed collocations’ or ‘I realized that
there is a large number of collocations in text now’ – were coded as ‘realizing the prevalence
of collocations in language’. In the second round of coding, pattern coding was adopted where
the related structural codes were analyzed to compare their similarities, differences, and
relationships across participants (Saldaña 2015). For example, the codes of ‘realizing the preva-
lence of collocations in language’ and ‘realizing the constraints of words putting together as
word combinations’ from different participants were grouped and given a general label of
‘raising collocation awareness’.
THE LANGUAGE LEARNING JOURNAL 43
4. Results and discussion
Analysis of the interview data indicated that the fifteen participants held a generally positive atti-
tude towards the collocation component but also expressed issues encountered when complet-
ing some of the activities. One category emerged labelled Collocation awareness raising with the
subcategories a) noticing the ubiquitous nature of collocations, b) realising word combinations
are constrained, and c) evaluating collocations in different tasks. Another category that
emerged was Difficulties, with the subcategories a) lack of a criterion to identify useful colloca-
tions in input, and b) dependent learners and less motivating vocabulary teaching and learning
approaches. First, one of the most frequently mentioned difficulties was that the participants
either relied on their intuition or teachers’ choice when selecting collocations to learn and
keep a record of. Second, the participants also felt vocabulary learning was not appealing and
they described themselves as being too dependent on their teachers, which further hindered
their vocabulary learning engagement. The difficulties learners encountered during the course
have both linguistic and pedagogical implications as they provide information on how to
improve the design of future collocation learning activities.
4.1. Collocation awareness raising
4.1.1. Noticing the ubiquitous nature of collocations
As noticing a linguistic form is the prerequisite for learning (Schmidt 1993), it was found that the
collocation component was successful in encouraging learners to notice collocations in language
input. The interview data showed a positive evaluation of noticing; as one of the participants com-
mented, ‘after the lessons, I begin to realise there are a large number of collocations in text’. This
view was held by all other participants interviewed. This is important as nothing in language
input signals to learners they are encountering collocations. Without encouraging awareness
through noticing and the deeper level of awareness which Schmidt (2001) refers to as ‘understand-
ing’, learner acquisition of collocation could remain severely limited. As Schmidt (2001: 23–4) notes:
‘Language learners who take a passive approach to learning, waiting patiently and depending on
involuntary attentional processes to trigger automatic noticing, are likely to be slow and unsuccess-
ful learners’.
4.1.2. Realising word combinations are constrained
As native speakers are documented to process and store collocations as wholes rather than indivi-
dually (Wray 2002), it was found that the collocation component helped participants realise the con-
straints of word combinations. The interview data showed a transition in participants’ perception
from relying on L1 connections to comprehend and produce collocations to recognising certain
native norms guiding word combinations. For example, one of the participants acknowledged
that ‘I have realized collocations are not arbitrary word combinations, but there are certain
degrees of fixedness in collocation use’. Findings also showed that participants benefited from
their raised awareness of collocations by placing emphasis on learning vocabulary through use
and strategically applying the collocation activities during self-study (Boers et al. 2006). For
example, one of the participants indicated their understanding of the value of context in facilitating
vocabulary learning by saying, ‘collocations seem better to be learned from context other than rote
memorizing through wordlists in a vocabulary book’. This is an encouraging indication that the col-
location component helped the learners become readers as when learners begin to focus more on
context, their vocabulary learning can naturally and incidentally increase (Gu and Johnson 1996),
mainly through reading, guessing, and contextual encoding. Some participants also reported prac-
tising the collocation activities outside the classroom:
I wanted to learn more collocations from readings, so I used the practice used in the Awareness-raising Activities,
underlining useful collocations when doing fast reading.
44 C. DING ET AL.
This strategic practice during self-study is in line with previous findings that found learners trans-
ferred the awareness-raising activities in class to a strategic technique applied outside class, a sort
of habit-forming (e.g. Boers et al. 2006).
4.1.3. Evaluating collocations in different tasks
Laufer and Hulstijn’s (2001) Involvement Load Hypothesis states that evaluation is a cognitive dimen-
sion for L2 vocabulary learning which involves determining a word’s meaning by comparing the
given word with other words to fit a specific context. It was found that the collocation component
was successful in helping participants evaluate collocations in different tasks, thereby increasing
involvement load and eventual acquisition. Recent evidence also suggests that among the three
components of the involvement load hypothesis (i.e. need, evaluation, and search), evaluation
was found to contribute to the greatest amount of learning (Yanagisawa and Webb 2021). The evalu-
ation process should result in marked learning of collocations as it requires learners ‘to pay attention
not only to … form-meaning connection but also to … syntagmatic and collocational properties’
(Yanagisawa and Webb 2021: 516). The interview data showed that participants noted that utilising
collocational knowledge could help them to obtain high scores on cloze exercises, writing, and trans-
lation tasks. To complete a cloze task, learners need to evaluate many levels of contextual infor-
mation, among which collocational knowledge provides local contextual information through
words in the immediate neighbourhood of a word (Nation 2013a). This was reflected in the interview
data as several participants mentioned that collocation knowledge affected, to a large extent, how
well a cloze task could be completed. As one participant stated: ‘collocation knowledge is important
to cloze tasks as to get it right, you need to infer the meaning of the missing word from the words
around’.
The participants also realised the value of collocations in writing, noting that collocations are
‘groups of words which also contain grammar information’ and ‘the more collocations you use,
the higher score you would get in writing tasks as this would leave a good impression on tea-
chers/markers’. These views are in line with the Lexical Approach which stipulates that ‘language
consists of grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized grammar’ (Lewis 1993). The participants’ view
that using collocations results in one’s writing receiving a higher score is also in line with previous
research which found that formulaic language use can predict raters’ assessment of learners’ writing
proficiency with higher and frequent use of academic multiword sequences leading to higher-rated
essays (Garner et al. 2019).
Errors in translation can largely be accounted for by collocation translation errors (Bahns 1993).
The collocation component also helped participants realise that memorising collocations and com-
pleting collocation practice activities was a useful way to improve the accuracy of their translations
from Chinese into English. One participant, for example, recollected that she had previously trans-
lated the Chinese phrase 东一页, 西一页 using the literal meaning of *one page east, one page
west but since starting to pay close attention to collocations in input realised that the proper trans-
lation is here and there. The collocation component made the participants aware that literal trans-
lations should be used with caution.
4.2. Difficulties
4.2.1. Lack of a criterion to identify useful collocations in input
Facing such a large quantity of collocations in natural language is daunting as it is difficult for lear-
ners to select collocations worth learning. Participants reported that they tended to follow the tea-
cher’s advice on how many and which collocations should be underlined during the awareness-
raising activity. This decision-making was affected by learners’ perceived lack of authority as they
believed that the teacher must be more knowledgeable and therefore should direct their learning
– a perspective commonly seen in a teacher-centered or dependent learning environment (Fowle
2002; Gao 2005). Out of the participants interviewed, only three reported that they developed
THE LANGUAGE LEARNING JOURNAL 45
their own methods of selecting collocations. For example, one participant mentioned that she
‘would underline unfamiliar and less seen collocations and collocations which are easy to recognize
but hard to produce’. Research has reported learners becoming more independent when teachers
were willing to provide guidance in how to overcome problems (Gao 2005). Thus, besides being a
knowledge source, language instructors may need to take on the role of adviser and guide, observ-
ing learners’ learning behaviours and listening to their learning problems to provide prompt
support. Based on the interview data, it appears that learners hoped that instructors would introduce
collocation selection criteria (e.g. frequency and range) or corpus tools that could help them identify
useful collocations (Chen 2011) or alert them to erroneous use of their own collocations (Reynolds
2015, 2016). In response to this, it is worthwhile teaching learners how to use online corpus tools to
search for collocations and check their frequency of occurrence in different genres.
4.2.2. Dependent learners and less motivating vocabulary teaching and learning approaches
Another difficulty faced by learners was a lack of pedagogical tools to motivate less engaged and
over-dependent learners to take responsibility for their own learning. The participants admitted
difficulty in becoming independent vocabulary learners. As one participant put it: ‘I could not get
myself accustomed to the transition from high school when the teacher prepared a list of words
and collocations for us to memorise to university when I have to take care of words and collocations
myself’. In Gao’s (2014) study, Chinese college non-English majors’ phrasal knowledge measured by
the PVST was below that of high school students at every collocation knowledge frequency in the
test. Gao (2014) suggested that this unexpected finding might be accounted for by the shift of
emphasis in the college English course to communicative teaching while ignoring form-focused
teaching of vocabulary and grammar. Gu and Johnson (1996) also found that ‘active strategies
users’ who tried out various vocabulary learning strategies only accounted for a minority of
Chinese college English learners.
The current study has highlighted the need to scaffold Chinese L1 college learners to take up
more autonomous learning approaches — it is not enough for teachers simply to advocate for a
communicative classroom teaching environment. For example, language instructors can assist the
transition from high school to college learning by helping learners to form a habit of recording col-
locations they deem useful and building up personalised collocation notebooks (Fowle 2002; Rey-
nolds et al. 2020). Learners can refer to corpus tools or digital/printed collocation dictionaries to
select collocations and record them according to the semantic meanings or categorisation topics.
Instructors can periodically organise writing activities which encourage learners to use their
recorded collocations. Peer and teacher feedback on the texts produced could help reinforce learn-
ing and set up an atmosphere of more responsible, autonomous learning. Prompt guidance from
instructors would also support learners’ emotional and affective needs and be helpful in fostering
independent learning (Gao 2005).
5. Conclusion
The current study explored the perceptions of Chinese university EFL learners of a collocation
instruction and practice component. Analysis of the semi-structured interviews with 15 first year
non-English major students revealed some interesting insights. Firstly, all the participants expressed
an overall positive attitude towards the collocation component, showing interest in learning and
using collocations. The participants felt that they became more capable of noticing the ubiquitous
nature of collocations. They also became less dependent on their L1 in interpreting and using English
collocations. Furthermore, the collocation components made the students value highly the role of
collocations in writing and translation tasks. These findings suggest that that teaching collocations
explicitly is useful, helping to raise students’ awareness of the importance of learning and using col-
locations. Intentional teaching of collocations can be likened to conducting an intensive reading
lesson; the aim should not be for students to rely on teacher explanations for understanding, but
46 C. DING ET AL.
rather that explicit instruction, drawing attention to key features of a text (here, collocations) should
prepare learners for independent encounters with future texts (Nation 2013b).
However, the participating students expressed some concerns when learning and using colloca-
tions. They felt somewhat lost, faced with a lack of criteria for deciding how many and what kinds of
collocations they should learn. They found it difficult to identify the collocations that might be useful
for them, including for examination purposes. Curriculum designers, coursebook authors, and tea-
chers need to pay some attention to how students can learn collocations effectively. The students
also expressed a desire for their teachers to use more innovative methods in teaching and engaging
them to learn and use collocations. This finding indicates that simply teaching collocations explicitly
might not be sufficient; innovative teaching approaches are needed to engage learners in learning
collocations. This is especially the case for less motivated learners. While the examples given in
Appendix 1 could be considered more innovative than traditional language classroom exercises in
the Chinese context, the incorporation of data-driven teaching with corpus tools that allow learners
to search for collocates and patterns is a further approach to getting learners more actively involved
in learning. For teachers that do not possess the knowledge of using corpora for English language
teaching, there are several very useful online tools such as youglish.com that can allow learners to
easily search for numerous examples of collocations. The results of these searches and the YouTube
clips they are linked to can be inspiration for further collocation activity construction.
Several limitations of this research need to be acknowledged. Firstly, the convenience sampling
method and the qualitative nature of the study allowed us to recruit only 15 participants for the
interviews. These students, who were initially selected as being ‘active participators’ and then volun-
teered to join the study, are likely to have been more highly motivated in learning English in general
and learning and using collocations in particular than other EFL students in a Chinese university
context. Further, we did not assess learning or retention of targeted collocation knowledge. This
would obviously have required quantitative data collection before and after the intervention focus-
ing on the learning and retention of targeted collocations. Future studies could benefit from employ-
ing a mixed-methods approach, including both such quantitative and qualitative data, and, for
example, using a questionnaire to collect data from a larger number of participants across
different institutions and regions to provide more generalisable findings.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Funding
The research reported in this paper was funded by the University of Macau under Grant No. MYRG2019-00030-FED.
ORCID
Chen Ding http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1869-0076
Barry Lee Reynolds http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3984-2059
Xuan Van Ha http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7538-0659
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