The Academic Collocation List – A tool for teaching academic English Kirsten Ackermann IATEFL...
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Transcript of 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
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 20124
Motivation for the Compilation of the Academic Collocation List
1
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 20125
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 Academic Collocation List l 22 March 20126
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 Academic Collocation List l 22 March 20127
The Compilation of the Academic Collocation List
2
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 20128
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
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 20129
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
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201210
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
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201211
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
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201212
Results
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201213
Collocational Usage and Academic English Proficiency
3
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201214
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?
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201215
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)
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201216
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
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201217
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
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201218
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
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201219
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’.
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201220
Teaching with the Academic Collocation List
4
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201221
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
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201222
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
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201223
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)
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201224
Teaching collocations II
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 to 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
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201225
Teaching collocations III
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 to 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
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201226
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
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201227
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
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201228
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
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201229
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201230
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
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201231
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."
The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 201232
Thankyou
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