2. The Academic Collocation List – A tool for teaching academic English
Kirsten Ackermann
IATEFL 2012, Glasgow

3. 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
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4. Motivation for the Compilation of the Academic Collocation List1
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5. 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)
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6. The importance of collocational knowledge
Collocational knowledge has a central role in efficient language acquisition and proficient language production.
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.
Traditional grammar-based approaches to material design and language teaching often fail to acknowledge this.
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7. The Compilation of the Academic Collocation List2
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8. P I C A E WRITTEN SPOKEN Curricular Extracurricular Textbooks Articles
Administrative material
University/student/
alumni magazines
Lectures
Seminars
Broadcasts
Miscellaneous
Employment and career information
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9. 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
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10. PICAE: Academic disciplines and subjects
Humanities
Social Science
Natural /
Formal Science
Professions /
Applied Science
Subject
Words
History
946,707
Anthropology
413,237
Earth 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
520,395
Computer sciences
1,124,097
Engineering
1,134,950
General academia
627,951
Politics
1,090,800
Mathematics
295,565
Health sciences
1,429,679
Philosophy
602,233
Psychology
1,560,745
Biology
858,597
Media studies
1,500,485
Religion
198,165
Sociology
1,832,588
Ecology
239,787
Law
1,962,002
Total
5,520,762
6,463,510
6,026,100
8,243,572
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11. Methodology The ACL was developed in four stages:
Computational analysis of the written curricular component of PICAE
Refinement of the data-driven list based on quantitative parameters and target part-of-speech combinations
Expert review to judge whether each collocation is pedagogically relevant
Systematisation of the list
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12. Results
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13. Collocational Usage and Academic English Proficiency3
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14. 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?
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15. Academic vocabulary use in PTE Academic Write Essay
Proficiency
group
AWL
tokens
collocations
Off-list
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 )
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16. Collocation use containing AWL words: Write Essay High proficiency
Normed frequency in PICAE
Pre-
collocate
AWL word
Post-
Total AS HM NS SS MI
score t- 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
scale
4.94
4.28
0.42
12.47
2.89
7.08
10.41 5
single
individual
1.21
1.00
1.68
3.05
4.57 6
level
3.23
3.85
1.61
6.14
4.00
7.96 7
public
transport
8.26
17.13
2.82
7.59
6.47
13.41 8
perceived
need
1.12
2.00
0.72
4.34
4.75 9
vital
role
2.65
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
0.43
0.60
0.54
2.98 12
consumers
0.49
3.99
3.11 13
warming
7.27
5.42
19.31
4.52
11.13
12.72 14
innovative
solutions
4.35
1.71
16.49
8.02
9.81 15
ensure
compliance
1.26
2.57
8.53
5.28 16
climate
4.17
14.28
5.22
9.38 17
green
initiatives 18
eco-friendly
transportation 19
reasonable
alternatives 20
areas
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17. Collocation use containing AWL words: Write Essay Medium proficiency
Normed frequency in PICAE
Pre-
collocates
AWL
word
Post-
Total AS HM NS SS
MI score t-
score 1
play x
role
6.24
4.57
6.71
9.03
5.03
7.85
11.74 2
significant
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
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
4.05 9
drawback
0.58
0.57
0.63
0.54
0.60
9.41
3.60 10
resolve
1.30
1.00
6.86
5.34 11
damage x
environment
0.76
1.86
0.36
0.20
6.03
4.06 12
improve x
0.22
0.29
0.18
3.55
2.05 13
global
climate
4.17
2.00
0.42
1.08
14.28
5.22
9.38
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18. Collocation use containing AWL words: Write Essay Low proficiency
Normed frequency in PICAE (ACL)
Pre-
collocates
AWL
word
Post-
Total AS HM NS SS
MI score
t-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
0.20
0.36
5.18
4.13 5
problem
occurs
1.17
1.28
1.81
4.46
4.87 6
new
policies
4.94
1.71
17.40
2.53
4.95
10.15 7
big
challenge 8
conference 9
strong
economy 10
individual
people
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19. Findings
There is a strong correspondence between a test taker’s proficiency in academic writing and their academic vocabulary use.
PTE Academic tests academic English. There is a high correlation between prompt and responses in terms of the use of academic tokens.
More academic words seem to be relevant to learners than covered by the AWL.
Academic words seem to appear as a central element of collocations rather than ‘on their own’.
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20. Teaching with the Academic Collocation List4
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21. Teaching collocations I
1. Teaching suitable learning strategies
Enabling learners to independently develop their collocational knowledge beyond the classroom
2. Explicit teaching of new collocations
Using a variety of activities suitable for the collocation type and the ability of the students
3. Furthering inductive learning
Using concordance lines and dictionaries entries of a particular collocation to illustrate its form and its use in context
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22. 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
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23. Teaching learning strategies
When working with collocation cards
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
Repeating the collocation aloud while memorising it
Spacing the repetitions so that there is an increasingly greater interval between learning sessions
Using mnemonic tricks putting the collocation into a sentence, and visualising examples of its meaning
Changing the order of the collocation cards to avoid serial learning
(adopted from Nation, 2001: 343)
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24. Teaching collocations II
1. Teaching suitable learning strategies
Enabling learners to independently develop their collocational knowledge beyond the classroom
2. Explicit teaching of new collocations
Using a variety of activities to suitable for the collocation type and the ability of the students
3. Furthering inductive learning
Using concordance lines and dictionaries entries of a particular collocation to illustrate its form and its use in context
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25. Teaching collocations III
1. Teaching suitable learning strategies
Enabling learners to independently develop their collocational knowledge beyond the classroom
2. Explicit teaching of new collocations
Using a variety of activities to suitable for the collocation type and the ability of the students
3. Furthering inductive learning
Using concordance lines and dictionaries entries of a particular collocation to illustrate its form and its use in context
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26. 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
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27. 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
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28. 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
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29. The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012

30. Conclusion: An Academic Collocation List
Helping students from all academic disciplines increase their collocational competence and thus their language proficiency
Assisting EAP teachers in their lesson planning
Informing test development, i.e. item writing, item type, item analysis
Providing a research tool for investigating the development of academic language proficiency
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31. David Crystal "An interesting list indeed
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."
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32. Thank you kirsten.ackermann@pearson.com 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
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