Abstract
Collocational competence largely contributes to vocabulary knowledge and hence to language proficiency. The present study examines the collocational competence of Arab undergraduate students who study English in a foreign language (EFL) environment. Focusing on lexical collocations, the study addresses four questions; (1) What is the learners’ level of collocational competence?, (2) How does their collocational competence develop with increased language exposure?, (3) Does their collocational competence vary based on the word class of the collocates?, and (4) What are the types of collocational errors they produce? Using a specially designed test, the collocational competence of 90 Arab undergraduate learners at three academic levels in a private Saudi university was assessed. Findings showed that the collocational competence of learners was notably unsatisfactory despite the fact that English is the medium of instruction at the University. It was also found that collocational competence improves with increased language exposure but at a slow rate, and that learners were more confident in their use of verb + noun collocations than adjective + noun collocations. The study also revealed that learners produce more intralingual than interlingual errors of collocations. The findings are discussed in relation to the literature on collocational competence and pedagogical implications are presented.
Highlights
After long years of neglect in language teaching and learning, the acquisition of vocabulary attracted attention in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and the attention has been increasingly on the rise ever since
The present study examines the collocational competence of Arab undergraduate students who study English in a foreign language (EFL) environment
The study addresses four questions; (1) What is the learners’ level of collocational competence?, (2) How does their collocational competence develop with increased language exposure?, (3) Does their collocational competence vary based on the word class of the collocates?, and (4) What are the types of collocational errors they produce? Using a specially designed test, the collocational competence of 90 Arab undergraduate learners at three academic levels in a private Saudi university was assessed
Summary
After long years of neglect in language teaching and learning, the acquisition of vocabulary attracted attention in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and the attention has been increasingly on the rise ever since. This came as a result of a relatively recent realization that vocabulary is a significant component in language learning and that “words are the building blocks of language and without them there is no language,” The study investigates the knowledge of Arab undergraduate learners of English collocations, which can be defined as “combinations of words which occur naturally with greater than random frequency” Arab undergraduate learners are required to achieve a high degree of English language competence and to be able to use the language both accurately and fluently to achieve a reasonable standard of living
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