the academic collocation list – a tool for teaching academic english kirsten ackermann iatefl...

The Academic Collocation List – A tool for teaching academic English

Kirsten Ackermann

IATEFL 2012, Glasgow

The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 20123

Contents

1. Motivation for the Academic Collocation List– The importance of collocation knowledge

2. The Compilation of the Academic Collocation List– Corpus – Methodology– Results

3. Collocational Usage and Academic English Proficiency

4. Teaching with the Academic Collocation List– Teaching learning strategies– Explicit teaching– Furthering inductive learning


Motivation for the Compilation of the Academic Collocation List

1


What is a collocation?

Words are typically associated with other words in systematic ways. These ‘collocations’ are part of the extended meaning of a word. (Firth, 1952)

Collocations are associations between two words, so that the words co-occur more frequently than expected by chance. (Biber & Conrad, 1999)

Collocation is the tendency of words to be biased in the way they co-occur. (t-score & MI score) (Hunston, 2002)

Collocations are arbitrarily restricted word combinations made up of more than one word and lexically and/or semantically fixed to a certain extent. (Nesselhauf, 2005)


The importance of collocational knowledge

1. Collocational knowledge has a central role in efficient language acquisition and proficient language production.

2. As linguists such as Sinclair have demonstrated, a language can neither be adequately understood nor fluently produced on a word-by-word or purely grammar-focused basis.

3. Traditional grammar-based approaches to material design and language teaching often fail to acknowledge this.


The Compilation of the Academic Collocation List

2


P I C A E

WRITTEN SPOKEN

Curricular

Extracurricular

Textbooks Articles

Administrative material

University/student/alumni magazines

Curricular

Extracurricular

Lectures Seminars

Broadcasts

Miscellaneous

Employment and career information


PICAE: Written curricular component

• 333 documents

– From 4 academic disciplines: Humanities, Social Science, Natural and Formal Science, Professions and Applied Science

– Covering 28 academic subjects: 7 subjects per academic discipline


Humanities Social ScienceNatural /

Formal ScienceProfessions /

Applied Science

Subject Words Subject Words Subject Words Subject Words

History 946,707 Anthropology 413,237Earth Sciences

1,343,723 Architecture 167,074

Linguistics 855,128 Archaeology 184,089 Chemistry 1,502,277 Business 1,644,180

Literature 1,562,046 Cultural studies 861,656 Physics 662,054 Education 405,202

Art incl. Music

728,532 Gender studies 520,395Computer sciences

1,124,097 Engineering 1,134,950

General academia

627,951 Politics 1,090,800 Mathematics 295,565Health sciences

1,429,679

Philosophy 602,233 Psychology 1,560,745 Biology 858,597Media studies

1,500,485

Religion 198,165 Sociology 1,832,588 Ecology 239,787 Law 1,962,002

Total 5,520,762 Total 6,463,510 Total 6,026,100 Total 8,243,572

PICAE: Academic disciplines and subjects


Methodology

The ACL was developed in four stages:

(1) Computational analysis of the written curricular component of PICAE

(2) Refinement of the data-driven list based on quantitative parameters and target part-of-speech combinations

(3) Expert review to judge whether each collocation is pedagogically relevant

(4) Systematisation of the list


Results


Collocational Usage and Academic English Proficiency

3


Research

Project:

Investigating the use of academic vocabulary and its effect on test taker performance in the Pearson Test of English (PTE) Academic

Research question:

Is there a difference in quality, frequency and/or range of the academic words and collocations used by the different proficiency groups?


Academic vocabulary use in PTE Academic Write Essay

Proficiency group

AWL tokens

AWL collocations

Off-listtokens

Off-list collocations

High 8.5% 46.5% 4.5% 55.0%

Medium 5.9% 36.8% 3.5% 43.9%

Low 3.9% 34.8% 2.2% 38.5%

Amongst others, knowing a word productively means being able to use it with words that commonly occur with it. (cf. Nation, 2001, pp. 26-28)


Collocation use containing AWL words: Write Essay High proficiency

Normed frequency in PICAE

Pre-collocate

AWL wordPost-collocate

Total AS HM NS SSMI

scoret-

score

1 appropriate action 2.06 3.57 0.63 0.80 2.53 4.90 6.55

2 next generations 5.03 6.28 3.35 6.03 3.97 7.74 10.53

3 global issue 1.08 1.28 0.21 1.81 0.90 3.98 4.59

4 global scale 4.94 4.28 0.42 12.47 2.89 7.08 10.41

5 single individual 1.21 1.00 1.68 1.21 1.08 3.05 4.57

6 individual level 3.23 3.85 0.63 1.61 6.14 4.00 7.96

7 public transport 8.26 17.13 1.68 2.82 7.59 6.47 13.41

8 perceived need 1.12 2.00 0.63 0.80 0.72 4.34 4.75

9 vital role 2.65 2.00 1.05 3.42 4.15 7.02 7.62

10 financial interest 0.36 0.71 0.00 0.40 0.18 3.55 2.59

11 negatively impact 0.40 0.43 0.00 0.60 0.54 7.08 2.98

12 individual consumers 0.49 0.71 0.21 0.40 0.54 3.99 3.11

13 global warming 7.27 5.42 0.63 19.31 4.52 11.13 12.72

14 innovative solutions 4.35 1.71 0.00 0.54 16.49 8.02 9.81

15 ensure compliance 1.26 2.57 0.00 1.26 0.60 8.53 5.28

16 global climate 4.17 2.00 0.42 1.08 14.28 5.22 9.38

17 green initiatives 18 eco-friendly transportation 19 reasonable alternatives 20 individual areas


Collocation use containing AWL words: Write Essay Medium proficiency

Normed frequency in PICAE

Pre-collocates

AWL word

Post-collocates

Total AS HM NS SSMI

scoret-

score

1 play x role 6.24 4.57 6.71 9.03 5.03 7.85 11.74

2 significant role 5.47 5.28 3.56 7.59 5.23 5.42 10.79

3 main source 3.28 3.43 2.93 2.17 4.63 5.37 8.34

4 public transport 8.26 17.13 1.68 7.59 2.82 6.47 13.41

5 create x problem 1.53 2.57 0.84 1.26 1.01 4.94 5.64

6 constantly changes 2.20 2.14 2.10 3.07 1.41 9.22 6.99

7 major reason 1.66 1.28 1.47 2.35 1.61 4.86 5.87

8 affected area 0.40 0.14 0.21 0.00 1.41 4.05 2.82

9 major drawback 0.58 0.57 0.63 0.54 0.60 9.41 3.60

10 resolve x problem 1.30 1.00 1.47 2.35 0.40 6.86 5.34

11 damage x environment 0.76 1.86 0.21 0.36 0.20 6.03 4.06

12 improve x environment 0.22 0.29 0.21 0.18 0.20 3.55 2.05

13 global climate 4.17 2.00 0.42 1.08 14.28 5.22 9.38


Collocation use containing AWL words: Write Essay Low proficiency

Normed frequency in PICAE (ACL)

Pre-collocates

AWLword

Post-collocates

Total AS HM NS SSMI

scoret-score

1 play x role 6.24 4.57 6.71 5.03 9.03 7.85 11.74

2 environmental change 13.24 1.00 0.21 56.72 0.90 7.28 17.07

3 global x change 4.17 2.00 0.42 14.28 1.08 5.22 9.38

4 serious issue 0.81 1.86 0.42 0.20 0.36 5.18 4.13

5 problem occurs 1.17 1.28 0.42 1.81 1.08 4.46 4.87

6 new policies 4.94 1.71 17.40 0.20 2.53 4.95 10.15

7 big challenge

8 big conference

9 strong economy

10 individual people


Findings

1. There is a strong correspondence between a test taker’s proficiency in academic writing and their academic vocabulary use.

2. PTE Academic tests academic English. There is a high correlation between prompt and responses in terms of the use of academic tokens.

3. More academic words seem to be relevant to learners than covered by the AWL.

4. Academic words seem to appear as a central element of collocations rather than ‘on their own’.


Teaching with the Academic Collocation List

4


Teaching collocations I

1. Teaching suitable learning strategiesEnabling learners to independently develop their collocational

knowledge beyond the classroom

2. Explicit teaching of new collocationsUsing a variety of activities suitable for the collocation type and the ability of the students

3. Furthering inductive learningUsing concordance lines and dictionaries entries of a particular collocation to illustrate its form and its use in context


Teaching learning strategies

Encourage students to do the following:

• Treating collocations as single blocks of language

• Being aware of collocations, and recognising them when seeing or hearing them

• Reading as much as possible to learn vocabulary and collocations in context

• Revising regularly and practising using new collocations in context as soon as possible after learning them

• Learning collocations in groups that work for the individual student, e.g. alphabetically; by part-of-speech combinations or by a particular word

• Using information on collocations in learner's dictionary and collocations dictionaries


Teaching learning strategies

When working with collocation cards

1. Writing each collocation on a card with its translation on the other side so that there has to be active retrieval of its form or meaning

2. Repeating the collocation aloud while memorising it

3. Spacing the repetitions so that there is an increasingly greater interval between learning sessions

4. Using mnemonic tricks putting the collocation into a sentence, and visualising examples of its meaning

5. Changing the order of the collocation cards to avoid serial learning

(adopted from Nation, 2001: 343)


Teaching collocations II



2. Explicit teaching of new collocationsUsing a variety of activities to suitable for the collocation type and the ability of the students



Teaching collocations III



2. Explicit teaching of new collocationsUsing a variety of activities to suitable for the collocation type and the ability of the students



Furthering inductive learning

1. Data-driven learning (DDL)

• Where the learner becomes a language researcher (inductive, self-directed language learning of advanced usage)

• Target learner: advanced, sophisticated language learners in higher education

• Identify-classify-generalise

2. Using learner’s / collocation dictionaries• Serving as a bridge between traditional classroom practice and

more demanding DDL• Having the potential to be used as tools for certain types of

inductive learning, e.g. in combination with concordance lines


Working with concordance lines

• Discovering grammar rules

• Differentiating near synonyms

• Extending knowledge about words already known

• Increasing pattern awareness

• Learning about collocation, colligation, morphology, frequency,

typicality, register, text type, discourse, style


Furthering inductive learning

1. Data-driven learning (DDL)

• Where the learner becomes a language researcher (inductive, self-directed language learning of advanced usage)

• Target learner: advanced, sophisticated language learners in higher education

• Identify-classify-generalise

2. Using learner’s / collocation dictionaries• Serving as a bridge between traditional classroom practice and

more demanding DDL• Having the potential to be used as tools for certain types of

inductive learning, e.g. in combination with concordance lines


Conclusion: An Academic Collocation List

1. Helping students from all academic disciplines increase their collocational competence and thus their language proficiency

2. Assisting EAP teachers in their lesson planning

3. Informing test development, i.e. item writing, item type, item analysis

4. Providing a research tool for investigating the development of academic language proficiency


David Crystal"An interesting list indeed. I saw my academic life passing before my eyes. You have captured academic hedging very well ('largely combined, almost certainly, almost completely, relatively easily, highly unlikely...'), (…). It's good to see the genre characterized so well (…)."

Lord Randolph Quirk"What splendidly sophisticated thought has gone into the Collocations project: I am full of admiration for all who've been involved."


Thankyou

[email protected]

Acknowledgments:

Douglas Biber & Bethany Gray for the computational analysis

David Crystal, David Leech, Lord Randolph Quirk, Diane Schmitt & Della Summers for being on the expert panel

Yu-Hua Chen, Chris Fox & Mike Mayor for being part of the team

the academic collocation list – a tool for teaching academic english kirsten ackermann iatefl...

Documents

academic words

list slide

academic subjects

academic disciplines

academic discipline

collocation use

academic english proficiency

list tokens