Thai learners’ acquisition of L2 collocations: an interlanguage perspective
The emergence of second language (L2) collocation studies has grabbed the attention of a number of scholars. However, few empirical studies from an interlanguage perspective have addressed the issue of how learners acquire L2 collocations. The current study investigated what grammatical and lexic...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2018
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/13578/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/13578/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/13578/1/20959-69143-2-PB.pdf |
| Summary: | The emergence of second language (L2) collocation studies has grabbed the attention of a
number of scholars. However, few empirical studies from an interlanguage perspective have
addressed the issue of how learners acquire L2 collocations. The current study investigated
what grammatical and lexical collocations posed difficulty to Thai EFL learners and whether
learners of different proficiency levels exhibited the same order of acquisition. The study also
attempted to explore whether task differences significantly affected the learners’ acquisition
process. The participants were organized into a high proficiency group (N = 45) and a low
proficiency group (N = 45). Receptive and productive tasks were devised to gauge the
learners’ collocation knowledge. In the receptive task, the learners were encouraged to
identify errors. In the productive task, they were asked to write a correct collocate required
for a certain context. The results illustrated that almost all target collocations were difficult
for both advanced and basic groups. Only verb-preposition collocations did not pose any
considerable difficulty to the advanced participants. In terms of acquisition order, there were
palpable differences between the two groups. It was also discovered that the different tasks
administered exerted a profound effect on the learners’ order of collocation acquisition. The
key findings are discussed in light of first language (L1) transfer, transfer of prior knowledge
of a particular congruent collocation, familiarity with receptive tasks, and effects of both
receptive and productive tasks. The findings suggest that teachers can teach students a group
of words rather than individual words by utilizing meaningful materials oriented toward
specific difficult collocations or receptive-productive integration tasks. Teachers can also
encourage their students to practice using frequency-based collocations and dictionaries in
English classes. |
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