Asian Journal of Management Sciences & Education Vol. 11(1) January-April 2022__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________TEACHING VOCABULARY THROUGH COLLOCATIONS IN EFL
CLASSES
Juhaina Al Musa
Faculty of Arts & Sciences, University of Petra,
JORDAN.
jalmusa@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
When vocabulary teaching is taken into account in EFL classes in Jordan, teachers
generally prefer to use classical techniques. The purpose of this study is to find out theeffect of a relatively new vocabulary teaching technique; teaching vocabulary throughcollocations. Pre-test/Post-test, Control Group Design was employed in this study.
Sixty-seven freshmen students from two classes in an English 1 course at Petra
University in Amman participated in this study. The experimental group was taught new
words using collocation technique; the control group was taught new words usingclassical techniques such as synonyms, antonyms, definitions and mother tongue
translation as it was in the previous reading classes before the study. The statisticalanalysis showed that teaching vocabulary through collocations resulted in a better
learning of the words than presenting them using classical techniques and helped in
improving students’ achievement. Teaching vocabulary through collocations can be aneffective factor in helping students remember and use the new words easily in EFL
classes. Therefore, teachers of English could be encouraged to attach more importanceto vocabulary teaching rather than the acquisition of grammar and the use of current
vocabulary teaching strategies in their classes.
Keywords: foreign language learning; vocabulary teaching; teaching vocabulary to
freshmen learners; collocation; English as a foreign language

INTRODUCTION
Importance of vocabulary teaching in language learning
Big number of different approaches has been added to language learning, each with adifferent outlook on vocabulary (Richards & Rodgers, 2001; Jesa, 2008). At times, language
teaching methodologies have attached great importance to vocabulary learning, andsometimes it has been neglected (Schmitt, 2000). In practice, grammar and pronunciation areat the core of language learning, while vocabulary is neglected in most foreign language
classes (Farghal & Obiedat, 1995). Nowadays, vocabulary learning is one of the essential
elements of both native language acquisition and of learning a foreign language. Learning
vocabulary is seen as a key element to achieve a high level of proficiency in the target
language by a large number of theoreticians (Boers & Lindstromberg, 2008). Also
researchers, teachers and others involved in foreign language learning are paying special
attention to foreign language vocabulary acquisition. It is believed that having a large andvaried vocabulary is the indicator of communicative competence and it is one of theimportant aspects of language learning. Such as writing and reading, vocabulary knowledge
is one of the components of language skills (Nation & Waring, 1997). It should be considered
as an integral part of learning a foreign language since it leads the way to communication.
That is to say, even a sufficient knowledge of vocabulary alone could be enough for aconvenient degree of communication to take place. Many scholars approve on that
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vocabulary should be recognized as an essential element in language instruction from thevery early stages (Pellicer Sánchez 2015). They further state that having enough collection of
vocabulary with a minimum number of structures often helps the learner more not only inreading comprehension, but also in achieving more efficient survival communication thanhaving a perfect command of structures with an inadequate amount of vocabulary. The term
Lexical Approach, coined by Michael Lewis, concentrates on developing learners'
proficiency with lexis, or words and word combinations (Lewis, 1993). Within the Lexical
Approach, special attention is directed to collocations and expressions that include
institutionalized utterances and sentence frames and heads. As Lewis maintains, wedeliberatively try to think of collocations, and to present these collocations in our expressions
instead of individual words. That is, rather than trying to break things into ever smaller pieces,
we have a conscious effort to see things in larger, more holistic ways (Lewis, 1997).
Although deliberate vocabulary teaching is only one of the least efficient ways of developing
vocabulary knowledge, it is also significantly required for a well balanced vocabularyprogram. Boers & Webb (2018) determine that foreign language learners pay little attention
to collocations, the meaning of which they can easily misunderstand. Vocabulary teachinghelps learners when they feel it is most needed especially for the message-focused activities
involving listening, speaking, reading and writing (Nation, 2005).
Teaching vocabulary through collocations
With the recognition of the importance of vocabulary, many techniques and approaches forteaching and learning vocabulary have emerged, and collocation is just one of thosetechniques. It’s a widely accepted idea that collocations are very important part of knowledgeof second language acquisition and they are essential to non-native speakers of English inorder to speak or write fluently and accurately. One of the reasons among which teachers andlearners should be interested in collocations is that collocations improve learners’ language
fluency and ensure native-like selection.
English language teaching has changed its perspective on the teaching and learning of
vocabulary in foreign language classes. A word which collocates with others is thought to be
one of the significant aspects related to words besides multiple meanings, synonymy,
connotations and register according to dictionary makers. Besides being difficult to acquire
for both foreign language learners and second language learners, collocation plays animportant role in language acquisition and knowledge of collocation contributes to thedifference between native speakers and non-native speakers (Shei & Pain, 2000).
Collocations are really important for language learners to be better understood. To know themeaning of a word most effectively, students need to know its associations with other words.
Nattinger was one of the first researchers to discuss collocations. He states that the meaningof a word mostly depends on the other words that it collocates with; by the help of thesecollocates the learner keeps the words in memory and can easily infer the meaning from thecontext. He also argues that the notion of collocations is extremely important for acquiring
vocabulary but its potential has not been fully utilized (Nattinger, 1988). Similarly, Chan &Liou (2005) explained that teaching of collocations in English foreign language classes did
not get enough attention; as a result, students learning English as a foreign language are weakin collocation use. Rather than teaching vocabulary as single lexical items which causes alexical incompetence on the part of learners, students must be made aware of the necessity ofacquiring collocations (Farghal & Obiedat, 1995; Fan, 2009). Collocations can be defined inmany ways (Moon, 1997), and some of these definitions are as follows: collocations arewords that occur together with high frequency and refer to the combination of words that
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have a certain mutual expectancy. McCarten (2007, p. 5) states that the way in which two or
more words are typically used is generally called collocation. Stubbs (2002, p. 215) defines
collocation as the habitual co-occurrence of two unordered content words, or of a content
word and a lexical set.
Collocations consist of two parts: a pivot word which is the focal word in the collocation andit’s collocate(s), the word or words accompanying the pivot word (Shin & Nation, 2008).
There are two types of collocations: lexical collocations and grammatical collocations.
Lexical collocations are combinations of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs such as Verb +Noun, Adjective + Noun, Noun + Noun, Verb + Adverb. Grammatical collocations are
combinations of content words (nouns, adjectives or verbs) and a grammatical word such as apreposition or certain structural patterns.
Implementing new vocabulary teaching technique in Jordanian EFL classes
While vocabulary knowledge is central to language and of critical importance to the typicallanguage learner, in EFL classes in Jordan, by taking the easy way out, English teachers stilltend to allocate more time to grammar, the structure of the language. Maybe it’s because
many English language teachers prefer emphasizing grammar rather than vocabulary because
grammar is a finite system, whereas vocabulary is not (Sheehan, 2004). And when theteaching of vocabulary items is taken into account, teachers prefer to use classical vocabulary
teaching techniques such as synonyms, antonyms, mother tongue translation and definition.
As a result, students do not make any effort to reach the meaning and it is expected that they
probably will not remember the meaning of the new words, or they won’t be able to use the
new words they have learned even if they remember the meaning because they don’t know
the suitable collocates. Therefore, the problem this study deals with is that in most EFL
classes in Jordan new words are still generally taught with classical techniques. It is believedthat there is a vital necessity of implementing new vocabulary teaching techniques in foreign
language classes. Siyanova and Schmitt (2008) advise that teachers should makefundamental changes in their vocabulary teaching pedagogies by focusing on phrasal
elements rather than individual words.
Vocabulary learning both within and outside the domain of reading is an important part ofEnglish foreign language classes. More student centered approaches beyond rotememorization should be adapted for the purpose of improving retention and usage (Nation,2005). Teaching vocabulary through classical techniques is thought to be too mechanical forthe classroom learning. Acat (2008) states that mechanical vocabulary learning, justmemorizing new vocabulary word by word without interaction with existing knowledge, does
little to enrich students’ vocabulary. Also teaching vocabulary through classical techniques
can cause confusion and take more time and effort than expected. Genç (2004) states that inorder to arouse interest and awareness in students about vocabulary development and makethe vocabulary learning process more meaningful, teachers should try out different
vocabulary teaching techniques. Nizonkiza (2017) sightsees the influence of teachingcollocations on raising an academic vocabulary. New words could be presented withcollocation technique which is extremely important for acquiring vocabulary and has yet to
be exploited to its full potential, so that students will be able to use these words later in theirown performance. Despite the growing interest in teaching collocations in foreign language
classes, experimental studies in Jordanian foreign language classroom settings are still few.
Purpose of the study
The goal of this study is to find out whether teaching vocabulary through collocations will
result in better vocabulary learning than teaching vocabulary using classical techniques such
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as definition, synonym, antonym, and mother tongue translation. The purpose of this study is
to show the contribution of collocations to vocabulary learning of freshmen students in
English Foreign Language (EFL) classes. It is hypothesized that learning vocabulary throughcollocations is an effective strategy that positively contributes to the development ofvocabulary learning.
Research questions
This study intended to find answers to the following questions:
1. Does presenting new words through collocations result in a better learning of thewords than presenting them using classical techniques?
2. Does presenting new words through collocations enhance retention of new vocabulary
items?
METHODOLOGY
Pre-test/Post-test Control Group Design was employed in this study. This is the prototypicalgroup design, involving one experimental group and one control group. While theexperimental group receives treatment, the control group does not (Schlosser, 2003).
Participants
The participants were two English 1 sections that consisted of 57 freshmen students, the two
sections were being taught by the researcher. Before the study, a proficiency test was carriedout by the researcher. The results showed that the proficiency levels of the classes were
almost the same.
The groups were assigned one as the control group and the other as the experimental group.
In the experimental group (Section 1) there were 28 students and in the control group(Section 2) there were 29 students. The mean of the age of the students ranged 19-22 years
old. The participants of this study had been learning English for 12 years before this study.
Materials and Procedure
At the beginning of the study, a non-standardized general English proficiency test was
prepared by the researcher based on the curriculum to determine the proficiency level of theclasses. After revision by the researcher and two qualified English instructors at theuniversity, the test was administered to participants as the pre and post proficiency test. The
final form of the test was composed of twenty multiple choice items.
Nine small reading passages were chosen from the Global Intermediate student’s book. Those
passages were chosen as their level was appropriate for the students and they contained very
useful new words for the students. Also, the passages were really interesting and authentic. In
order to select the words that students do not know a list of words was given to students foreach passage. The aim of the lists was to find out the words that the students did not know
because these words were to be taught during the treatment. The two sections had to indicate
their knowledge of the words by circling one of the two options: ‘I know the word’; ‘I don’tknow the word’. And in order to get realistic results the students had to write the meaning of
the word if they had circled the ‘I know the word’ option. Only those words they indicatedthey did not know were selected for further use. Three passages were presented in a week andthe study went on for three weeks. Then for those unknown words, multiple appropriate
collocates were found by using Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English,
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, and Oxford Word-power Dictionary. And thesubjects were instructed for approximately nine hours during a three-week period until nine
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reading passages were presented. The new vocabulary was presented to the control groupthrough classical techniques such as synonyms, antonyms, definitions and mother tongue
equivalences as it was in the previous classes before the study. The experimental group was
introduced to the new vocabulary through their collocations which were thought to be themost frequent ones. The unknown word was written in a circle in the centre of the board.
Then, collocates especially which were thought to be the most frequent ones were written
around that word. Some presented examples are below:
affairsroots
airportinternationalculturaltrade

eventsvarietyfootball matchinterests

Figure 1. Examples of the presentation of unknown words to the experimental group
The researcher was teaching both the control and experimental groups during the treatment.
In the experimental group the students first read the passage and then the teacher presented
the new vocabulary items. She presented multiple suitable collocates for each word. In thisway, students were learning a new word through its collocations. After presenting all the newwords through the use of collocates, five comprehension questions related to the passage
were asked and answered to make the task more meaningful. A test containing gap-filling
exercises wherein the students were supposed to choose the answer from the list of words
was practiced for newly learned vocabulary at the end of each week after three reading
passages had been presented. Students were supposed to choose the best word and also fill inthe blanks with the appropriate word.
In each test, there were thirty words to choose from but there were twenty questions to beanswered to reduce the influence of chance factors on the results. After one week, a mixed
test containing the gap-filling exercises used in the previous tests was administeredsimultaneously to both groups to determine the retention. The students both in the control andexperimental group were used to those kinds of vocabulary tests especially multiple choiceand fill-in-the-blanks tests. It could be said that both the students in the control andexperimental groups were all familiar to the same degree with the design of the vocabulary
tests. For this reason, it is believed that the design of the vocabulary tests did not give theexperimental group an advantage. Finally, the same proficiency test was administered to see
whether there was a progress between the pre and post proficiency levels of the groups. The
participants were instructed that each gap should be filled in with only one word. The
participants were allowed to guess if they were unsure and they were asked to fill in every
gap if they could. Instructions were given orally and in writing. Each test contained twentyquestions and five points were given for each correct answer. So the maximum score a
student could get was 100.
The control group received the same reading passages and followed the same procedures. But
for this group while the teacher was presenting the new vocabulary, only classical techniques

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were used as it had been before. That is, the words were presented to this group as it was in
the previous reading classes before the study, no new application was implemented.
Statistical analysis
For the evaluation of the differences between the groups Independent Samples T-test wasused at the end of the tests. For the evaluation of the differences between the immediate anddelayed proficiency tests Dependent T-test was used. The results were analyzed. Values for
all descriptive are presented as means and standard deviation (SD).
RESULTS
After all the tests were practiced, the means of the two groups for each test were comparedwith Independent Samples T-test. Also, the difference between the pre-proficiency level test
and post-proficiency level test was compared with dependent T-test for the experimental andcontrol group. All the results were presented in the tables below:
Table 1. Proficiency level test results of Independent-Samples T-test. (Mean and Standard
Deviation)
Tests

GroupsPreProficiency
Level Test

Experimental 30.67
Control
32.24

PostProficiency

Experimental 43.00

Level Test

Control

M

29.48

SD

t

p

Mean
Differences

12.44
13.60

- 0.460.64- 1.57

4.48*

0.00

13.52

12.36
10.80

Note. *p<0.01

Pre-proficiency level test results showed that there was no significant difference between thetwo groups’ proficiency level statistically before the teaching practice (p>0.05). So thegroups were assigned, one as the control group and the other as the experimental group.
Post-proficiency level test was given three weeks after, including a one-week delay after the
instruction, the pre-proficiency level test to determine the specific impact of teaching practiceon each group. There was a significant difference between the two groups after three weeks
of vocabulary teaching practice (p<0.01).
Table 2. Proficiency level tests results of experimental and control group dependent (paired)T-testGroups

Tests

M

SD

t

p

Experimental
pair 1Pre- proficiency Level Test
Post- Proficiency Level Test
Pre- proficiency Level Test
Post- Proficiency Level Test

30.67
43.00

12.44
12.36

4.59*

0.00

32.24
29.48

13.60
10.80

1.01

0.32

Controlpair 1
Note. *p<0.01

Table 2 showed that after three weeks of teaching practice there was a significant increase in
the experimental group’s pre- to post-proficiency level test performance on this measure

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Asian Journal of Management Sciences & Education Vol. 11(1) January-April 2022__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________(p<0.01), while the pre-post scores of the control group did not differ significantly from one
another (p>0.05).
Table 3. Vocabulary tests results of Independent-Samples T-test. (Mean and Standard
Deviation)
Tests

GroupsM

SD

Vocabulary
Test 1
Vocabulary
Test 2
Vocabulary
Test 3

Experimenta
Control
Experimental
Control
Experimental
Control

23.17
14.66
25.67
15.86
51.67
27.41

23.62
14.39
26.02
20.53
30.30
25.45

Mean
Differences

T

p

1.68

0.10

8.51

1.61

0.11

9.80

3.33*

0.00

24.25

Note. *p<0.01

At the end of each week, a test containing gap-filling exercises was practiced for newly
learned vocabulary. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups’
test performance (p>0.05) in the first two tests. However, in the last vocabulary test there wasa statistically significant difference between the two groups’ performance in favor of theexperimental group (p<0.01).
Table 4
Retention test results of Independent-Samples T-test. (Mean and Standard Deviation)
Test

GroupsM

SD

T

Retention
Test

Experimental
Control

31.20
13.38

26.89
18.02

3.00*

Mean
Differences

p
0.00

17.82

After all the vocabulary tests were administered to both groups, a retention test was given
simultaneously to both groups to check the long-term effect of the experiment on the learningof the vocabulary covered throughout the study after a one-week delay. There was astatistically significant difference between the control and experimental group in terms of
vocabulary retention (p<0.01).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
The results yielded by this experimental research lead us to conclude that teaching
vocabulary through collocations resulted in a better learning of the words than presenting
them using classical techniques and enhance retention of new vocabulary items. Based on the
results, this paper has suggested that it would be advisable to teach vocabulary throughcollocations. Although the experimental group scored higher than the control group in all the
vocabulary tests, only in the last test there was a statistical significant difference. In fact, theexperimental group was expected to score higher than the control group in the othervocabulary tests too. This might be because the collocation technique was a relatively newtechnique for the learners. Before the study, they had not experienced such a vocabulary
learning technique. So maybe they needed some more time to adapt the new technique totheir own learning habits. It is believed that if they had more time, they would get used tolearn the new words through their collocations and get higher scores than the control group as
in the last vocabulary test. The same proficiency test was practiced again as a postproficiency test after the vocabulary tests. The experimental group was significantly more
successful than the control group in this post proficiency test. This might suggest that
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teaching vocabulary through collocations improved students’ proficiency levels in theexperimental group while the same positive effect did not occur in the control group. The
expected effect due to collocation technique was obtained. Collocation technique helped
learners to remember the vocabulary items better than the classical techniques did. On thebasis of this result, it could be stated that teaching vocabulary through collocations may
enhance retention of new vocabulary items in EFL classes.
Also for the experimental group, there was a statistically significant difference between the
Pre and Post Proficiency Tests. That is, the proficiency level of the experimental group
improved during the vocabulary teaching period. As a result, we might suggest thatcollocational vocabulary teaching is an effective technique for the learners’ proficiency
development. But for the Control Group there is not a statistically significant difference
between the Pre and Post Proficiency Test results. As it is clear in Table 2, the proficiency
level of the control group remained stable. This might suggest that classical vocabulary
teaching techniques did not do the same positive effect on the students’ proficiency levels.
Vocabulary plays an important role in communication as well as the other components oflanguage. In my opinion the lack of needed vocabulary is one of the most common causes ofstudents’ inability to express themselves in English in EFL classes in Jordan. Students cannot
use English outside the classroom in real life situations in spite of studying English for years.
Also, they have serious problems in finding suitable collocates of words mostly because of
the differences between the word order in Arabic and English. I believe that this study may
be helpful for teachers and students in terms of becoming familiarized with a comparatively
new technique which will be helpful in their vocabulary development. Nist and Simpson(1993) state that knowing the definition of a word is important and may be sufficient in many
situations, but it is just a beginning point. According to them a memorized definition is often
the tip of the iceberg, the part mistakenly believed to be the total iceberg because it is so
visible and obvious. Beneath the surface of the water is a much larger mass of ice which is far
more important. Their explanation about knowing the definition of a word which we think
one of the classical vocabulary teaching techniques supports the assumption that classicalvocabulary teaching techniques do not contribute to the development and retention of new
vocabulary items. Similarly, Maghsodi (2010) supports the same idea by stating that eventhough memorizing terms with their respective translations is quick and preferred by learners,
it is superficial and does not let students use the needed vocabulary correctly in context. Also
similar to this study, Hsu (2010) investigated the effects of direct collocation instruction on
Taiwanese college English majors’ reading comprehension and vocabulary learning.
Similarly, the author concluded that direct collocation instruction improved the subjects’
vocabulary learning and improved retention. His suggestion is in accord with the findings ofthis study in that collocation instruction could be worthwhile to explore as a teaching option.
To sum up; the results of this experimental study have supported the hypothesis that learning
vocabulary through collocations is an effective strategy which positively contributes to thedevelopment of vocabulary learning and retention of vocabulary. At the same time thefindings have supported the previous studies on collocation such as Maghsodi (2010), Hsu(2010), Nist and Simpson (1993) whose results emphasize its positive effect on foreign
language learning in many aspects.
IMPLICATIONSIn the past there was a period of time when vocabulary was neglected. With the current trends
vocabulary began to gain importance. So students should be aware of the different vocabulary
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learning strategies. The traditional memorization techniques, preparing bilingual word lists orother classical vocabulary learning techniques should be given up since they create a kind of
unwillingness on the part of the students. Teachers should be familiarized with the current
vocabulary teaching techniques and apply them in the class.
Collocational vocabulary learning is now considered as a widely-accepted modern technique,so it is suggested that it should be introduced to EFL classrooms. McCarten (2007) confirms
this suggestion about teaching vocabulary through collocation. He states that vocabulary canbe taught and practiced deliberately through collocation technique at higher levels.
This study showed that teaching vocabulary through collocations improved the vocabulary
learning more than classical techniques. Therefore, teachers of English could be encouraged
to spare some more classroom time for this type of training in their classes and to assign more
importance to the application of certain learning strategies in vocabulary development inorder to make vocabulary learning process more effective and more meaningful for the
students. Similarly, Deveci (2004) states that in recent years, English teachers and theorists
attach more importance to vocabulary teaching in the sense that grammar could help learners
sufficiently only with a wide range of vocabulary. Also he argues that a wide range ofvocabulary without sufficient grammar knowledge does not help learners too because a single
word rarely stands alone. Therefore, language teachers need to teach collocations in order tohelp learners acquire the language more quickly and efficiently.
Based on the results, it might be suggested that language teachers should keep in mind thefact that students have to be aware of what “knowing a word” means. They should know thatjust knowing the definition or mother tongue equivalent of a word does not mean that theyknow that word. For using a word in a context, they should know the collocations of thatword. Students should be encouraged to develop a system of vocabulary learning which willlead them to be independent vocabulary learners.
We might also say that teachers should not stick to certain vocabulary teaching techniques
and activities.
They should be open to innovations in the field and encourage students to develop strategies
for handling new vocabulary. They should tolerate any type of prejudgments towards
vocabulary learning and try to make the students like vocabulary learning and vocabulary
studies.
A suggestion to other researchers in the field is to study with a wider group of students in alonger time period. Because extended exposure to the collocations is an important factor. It isbelieved that longer time period will help a lot to have a better result especially for the
younger learners.

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