Assessing English collocational knowledge among advanced language learners

Abstract EN

The aim of this study is to assess advanced English major students' knowledge of English collocations as to their ability to collocate words.

The study also aims at finding out strategies stndents employ when confronted with unfamiliar collocations.

For these purposes, a 50 item test was developed to assess students' collocational knowledge.

The test was administered to 120 second-year students majoring in English.

The article will (a) provide an overview of the relevant research literature, (b) describe the research design and (c) provide an analysis of the data collected.

The results of the study indicate that advanced students of English are incompetent in both their perception and production of English collocations.

Findings also identify three categories of strategies that students tend to employ (literal transliteration, semantic contiguity and lexical reduction).

Pedagogical implications and directions for future research are discussed toward the end of the study.

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