Supporting Collocation Learning

Shaoqun Wu

The university of Waikato

a data-driven approach

look, see and watch

injury and wound

broad and wide?

What are you doing tonight ?

I am going to look TV.

look TV or watch TV?

Z Z Z

Why do many students make little visible progress?

They study hard.

They know many words, including Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism.

They know 20 different uses of the word as.

They know Simple Present, Present Continuous, Present Perfect, Present Perfect Continuous tense …

…

Do they know 10 common phrases associated with the word make?

What is collocation?

strong smoker

powerful tea

big rain

look book

one sex product

heavy smoker

strong tea

heavy rain

read a book

disposable product

horse horse tiger tiger

people mountain people sea

What is collocation?

Choice of one word conditions the choice of the next, and of the next again

John Sinclair

How to learn collocations ?

Collocation learning is difficult–too many of them

–they are arbitrary

No noticing, no learning

Deliberate learning

Use language resources

Dear JaneYou are very very very beautiful. I love you very much.

Joe

It would bring the health problem

bring the heath problem.

Parents have a wide range of options to cultivate their children with a good art understanding

cultivate their children

http://flax.nzdl.orgLibrary

Learning collocations

Web phrases

Wikipedia collocations

Text Checking