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

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 2012

Motivation for the Compilation of the Academic Collocation List 1 The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012

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 2012

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. The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012

The Compilation of the Academic Collocation List 2 The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012

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 The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012

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 2012

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 The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012

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 The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012

Results The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012

Collocational Usage and Academic English Proficiency 3 The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012

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 2012

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. 26-28) The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012 15

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 The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012 16

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 The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012 17

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 The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012 18

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’. The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012

Teaching with the Academic Collocation List 4 The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012

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 The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012

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 2012

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) The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012

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 The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012

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 The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012

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 2012

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 2012

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 2012

The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012

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 The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012

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." The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012

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 The Academic Collocation List l 22 March 2012