collocation clusters to help the students of english

COLLOCATION CLUSTERS TO HELP THE STUDENTS

OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY

PROGRAM IMPROVE COLLOCATIONAL

KNOWLEDGE

A THESIS

Presented as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

to Obtain the Magister Humaniora (M.Hum) Degree

in English Language Studies

by

Siwi Karmadi Kurniasih

Student Number: 076332016

THE GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA

2011

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJIPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

ii

COLLOCATION CLUSTERS TO HELP THE STUDENTS

OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY

PROGRAM IMPROVE COLLOCATIONAL

KNOWLEDGE

A THESIS

Presented as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

to Obtain the Magister Humaniora (M.Hum) Degree

in English Language Studies

by



Approved by

F.X. Mukarto, Ph.D. ______________________________

Thesis advisor Yogyakarta, August 23, 2011


iii

A THESIS

COLLOCATION CLUSTERS TO HELP THE STUDENTS OF

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

IMPROVE COLLOCATIONAL KNOWLEDGE

Presented by



Defended before the Thesis Committee

and Declared Acceptable.

THESIS COMMITTEE

Chairperson : F.X. Mukarto, Ph.D. _________________

Secretary : Dr. B.B. Dwijatmoko, M.A. _________________

Members : 1. Dr. Fr. B. Alip, M.Pd., M.A. _________________

: 2. Dr. J. Bismoko _________________

Yogyakarta, August 23, 2011

The Graduate Program Director

Sanata Dharma University

Prof. Dr. Augustinus Supratiknya


iv

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

This is to certify that all ideas, phrases, sentences, unless otherwise stated,

are the ideas, phrases, and sentences of the thesis writer. The writer understands

the full consequences including degree cancellation if she took somebody else's

ideas, phrases, or sentences without proper references.

Yogyakarta, August 23, 2011



v

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN

PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS

Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma:

Nama : Siwi Karmadi Kurniasih

Nomor mahasiswa : 076332016

Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan

Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:

Collocation Clusters to Help the Students of English Language Education Study

Program Improve Collocational Knowledge

beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan

kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan

dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data,

mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di Internet atau media

lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun

memberikan royalty kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai

penulis.

Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya.

Dibuat di Yogyakarta

Pada tanggal: 23 Agustus 2011

Yang menyatakan

(Siwi Karmadi Kurniasih)


vi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My profound sincere gratitude goes to Jesus Christ who has always had

infinite mercy to me so that I could complete my study. He has always guided me and

led me through the hard time. And, I eventually managed to step on the final stage.

I also would like to express my deep gratitude to my thesis advisor, F.X.

Mukarto, Ph.D. He had continuously given me invaluable support, encouragement,

supervision and useful suggestions throughout my research work. I would like to

thank all the lecturers in English Language Studies who really helped me doing this

thesis. They, in fact, have opened up my mind and inspired me to learn more and to

be better.

I also thank my beloved family. My family is always there when I need them,

particularly my beloved husband, Kumara, for his endless love and encouragement. I

also received a great moral support from my parents and brother, Adek. I also wish to

thank my friends, Mas Koko, Mbak Pipin, and Atiek for their support and suggestions

for this study. In addition, I also would like to express my thanks to all my friends for

their encouragement and input into this research.

Finally, my heartfelt thanks go to the head of English Language Education

Study Program of Yogyakarta State University (UNY), who has allowed me to

conduct the research in my class.


vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE …………………………………………………………………… i

APPROVAL PAGE …………………………………………………………….. ii

DEFENSE APPROVAL PAGE ………………………………………………… iii

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY …………………………………………….. iv

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI ……………………. v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………………………………………….. vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS ……………………………………………………….. vii

LIST OF TABLES ………………………………………………………………. viii

LIST OF APPENDICES ………………………………………………………… ix

LIST OF FIGURES ……………………………………………………………... x

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS …………………………………………………… xi

ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………….. xii

ABSTRAK ………………………………………………………………………. xiii

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background ………………………………………………………………….. 1

B. Problem identification ……………………………………………………….. 4

C. Problem limitation ………………………………………………………….. 6

D. Research question …………………………………………………………… 7

E. Research goal and objectives …………………………………………….. 7

F. Research benefits ……………………………………………………………... 8

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW

A. THEORETICAL REVIEW

1. Learning vocabulary ……………………………………………………….. 9

a. The nature of vocabulary ………………………………………………. 10

b. Building learners‟ vocabulary? ………………………………….…….. 12

c. The influence of L1 …………………………………………………….. 15

2. Learning collocation ……………………………………………………….. 17

a. The importance of collocations ………………………………………… 20

b. Collocational knowledge ……………………………………………….. 22

c. Explicit teaching of collocation ………………………..………………. 23


viii

d. Collocation clusters (Collocation notebook)………… ………………… 27

3. Independent Learning ……………………………..………………………. 30

4. Review of related research ……………………………………………...…. 32

B. Theoretical framework ………….…………………………………………….. 33

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A. OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH METHOD

1. Action research …………………………………………………...………... 37

2. Research setting ……………………………………………………………. 40

a. The nature of the class ………………………………………………….. 41

b. The nature of the students ………………………………………………. 41

3. Research design (or procedure)

a. Research procedures ……………………………………………………. 43

b. Data collection methods ………………………………………………... 45

c. Organization of data ……………………………………………………. 46

4. Course design ………………………………………………………………. 47

5. Ethical issue ………………………………………………………………… 51

B. DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

1. Data summary ……………………………………………………………… 52

2. Data organization ………………………………………………………....... 52

3. Interpretation ………………………………………………………………. 53

CHAPTER IV RESEARCH PROCESS AND FINDINGS

1. Students‟ problems of learning collocations ………………………………. 54

2. Responding to the situation…………………………………………………. 56

a. Teaching collocations explicitly ……………………………………….. 56

b. Introducing collocation cluster ………………………………………… 58

c. Introducing BNC ……………………………………………………….. 59

3. Students‟ feeling and learning……………………………………………… 59

4. Dealing with students‟ difficulty learning collocation..……………………. 61

a. Using an English collocation dictionary ……………………...……….. 62

5. Students‟ learning development …..……………………………………….. 63

a. Students‟ learning achievement …………………………………… 63


ix

b. The students‟ collocation learning strategy …………………………… 67

c. Student‟s learning independence ………………………………………. 68

d. Students‟ learning sustainability ……………………………………….. 69

6. Limitations of the findings ………………………………………………… 70

CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

A. CONCLUSIONS ……………………………………………………………… 71

B. SUGGESTIONS ………………………………………………………………. 72

BIBLIOGRAPHY ………………………………………………………………. 74

APPENDICES …………………………………………………………………... 77

Appendix 1. Questionnaire ……………………………………………………….. 78

Appendix 2. Students‟ weekly journals …………………………………………… 81

Appendix 3. Student‟s first and second reflections ………………………………. 84

Appendix 4. The blueprint of interview ………………………………………….. 88

Appendix 5. Interview transcript – Student 1…………………………………….. 89

Appendix 6. Interview transcript – Student 2 ……………………………………. 93

Appendix 7. A samples of student‟s collocation clusters ……………………….. 96

Appendix 8. Teacher‟s journal ………………………………………………….. 98

Appendix 9. A sample of an input text …………………………………………. 99

Appendix 10. Pre and post test questions ……………………………………….. 101


x

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. The scope of learner‟s task in learning vocabulary ………………….….. 13

Table 2. Collocation grid ………………………………………………….……… 27

Table 3. Research course ………………………………………………………… 47

Table 4. The results of pre test and post test …………………………………….. 64

Table 5. Data of standard deviation (SD) ………………………………………... 65


xi

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. A sample of collocation cluster on „memory‟ ……………………….… 28

Figure 2. Theoretical framework ……………………………………………….… 36

Figure 3. Cyclical AR model based on Kemmis and McTaggart‟s …………….... 39

Figure 4. Action Research model proposed by O‟Leary ………………………… 40

Figure 5. Research Design ………………………………………………………... 43

Figure 6. A sample of collocation clusters ……………………………………….. 51


xii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

L1 : First language

L2 : Second language

FL : Foreign Language

A : Adjective

V : Verb

N : Noun

T : teacher

S/Ss : student/students

Coll : collocation

SD : standard deviation

PCK : prior collocational knowledge

FCK : final collocational knowledge

PEE : pleasant emotional experience

LI : learning independence

LS : learning sustainability

OP : obstacles of the process

CCII : Collocation clusters impact on collocational knowledge improvement


xiii

ABSTRACT

Siwi Karmadi Kurniasih. 2011. Collocation clusters to help the students of English

Language Education Study Program improve collocational knowledge. Yogyakarta:

The Graduate Program in English Language Studies, Sanata Dharma University.

Vocabulary learning plays a major role in English language learning, and

learning vocabulary for the students of English Language Education Study Program

is no exception. Some problems emerged and were identified. First of all, the students

were used to using bilingual dictionary to check word meaning and translation.

Secondly, they were not aware of the importance of learning collocation.

Encountering new words, they tended to look for meaning and part of speech.

Thirdly, the students had not been formally introduced to one particular technique to

learn vocabulary.

An action research was performed to discover the answer of the research

question “How can collocation clusters improve collocational knowledge of the

student of English Language Education Study Program?” An action research was a

wise choice since it was conducted by a practitioner. A prior observation and

reflection started the process of cycle one. The results of the reflection were used as

the basis for planning interventions (or actions) to improve the situation. The

interventions and modifications were carried out based on the students‟ problems and

suggestions, and also the teacher‟s reflection. During the implementation of the

actions, an observation was done which was followed by a reflection. When problems

were found, another action for cycle two was planned. The same process was

repeated and ended with another reflection.

The results of the research were the presented in description of the process and

the interpretation of what went on and what the students gained during the process.

The process was quite smooth but the learning progress was slow. Before the

collocation dictionary was introduced in class, the students got much difficulty in

recognizing collocations. At the end of the course, the students got a slight increase in

their scores. They also enjoyed the learning process and some got knowledge

improvement which was depicted on the results of the tests.

The research brought some benefits not only to the students but also to the

teacher. The students were aware of the importance of collocation in language

learning and use. They also got immediate advantage in doing tasks on other classes,

such as reading and writing. Even though the collocation clusters did not significantly

promote independent learning, it could be the basis of independent learning.


xiv

ABSTRAK

Siwi Karmadi Kurniasih. 2011. Collocation clusters to help the students of English

Language Education Study Program improve collocational knowledge. Yogyakarta:

The Graduate Program in English Language Studies, Sanata Dharma University.

Pembelajaran vocabulary (kosakata) memiliki peranan penting dalam belajar

bahasa Inggris, dan hal ini berlaku juga bagi mahasiswa Program Studi Pendidikan

Bahasa Inggris. Beberapa masalah timbul dan teridentifikasi. Yang pertama, para

mahasiswa terbiasa menggunakan kamus dwi bahasa (Inggris – Indonesia) untuk

mencari arti kata atau terjemahannya. Yang kedua, mereka tidak menyadari

pentingnya collocation. Ketika menemukan kata baru, mereka cenderung mencari

artinya atau jenis katanya. Yang ketiga, para mahasiswa belum pernah dikenalkan

atau diajari secara formal (disengaja) teknik belajar tertentu untuk belajar vocabulary.

Action research (Penelitian tindakan) dipilih sebagai metodologi penelitian

untuk mencari jawab pertanyaan penelitian “How can collocation clusters improve

collocational knowledge of the student of English Language Education Study

Program?” (Bagaimanakah collocation clusters dapat membantu meningkatkan

collocational knowledge mahasiswa Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris?)

Penelitaian tindakan adalah pilihan yang tepat karena penelitinya adalah praktisi.

Pengamatan awal dan refleksi mengawali proses siklus pertama. Hasil refleksi

digunakan sebagai dasar penyusunan rencana tindakan untuk peningkatan. Tindakan

dilakukan atas dasar pertimbangan kebutuhan, masalah dan saran mahasiswa, juga

refleksi pengajar. Selama pelaksanaan tindakan, pengamatan dilakukan kemudian

diikuti refleksi. Ketika ditemukan masalah, rencana tindakan pada siklus ke dua

dirancang. Proses yang sama diulang dan diakhiri dengan refleksi.

Hasil penelitian disajikan dalam bentuk deskripsi proses dan interpretasi akan

apa yang terjadi dan apa yang mahasiswa peroleh dari proses tersebut. Prosesnya

berjalan lancar tapi kemajuan belajar berlangsung lamban. Sebelum penggunaan

kamus collocation diberlakukan, para mahasiswa mengalami kesulitan mengenali

collocation. Pada akhir penelitian, mahasiswa memperoleh sedikit kenaikan skor.

Mereka juga menikmati proses dan beberapa mengalami peningkatan pengetahuan

akan collocation yang tergambar dari hasil tes.

Penelitian ini memberikan keuntungan tidak hanya bagi mahasiswa namun

juga pengajar. Para mahasiswa menjadi sadar akan pentingnya collocation dalam

pembelajaran dan penggunaan bahasa. Mereka juga mendapatkan keuntungan dalam

mengerjakan tugas di mata kuliah lain seperti reading dan writing. Meskipun

collocation clusters tidak sepenuhnya mendorong pembelajaran mandiri, collocation

cluster dapat mejadi langkah awal.


1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

In this early part of Chapter One the overall introduction to the thesis will

be supplied. The background of the study, the problem identification, the problem

limitation, the research questions, the research goal and objectives, and the

benefits that can be taken from this research will be discussed respectively.

A lot of research on the techniques of learning and/or teaching vocabulary

has been conducted. The research on the effectiveness of keeping vocabulary

notebook to learn vocabulary conducted by Walters and Bozkurt (2009, 403-423)

as reported in their article is one of the inspiring work affected my study. I would

like to modify the use of it for a more specific purpose i.e. recording collocation

clusters.

A. Background

There has been a change in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research

in recent times. Lexicon used to get less attention than other parts of language;

however it is getting more attention now. One of the factors contributing to the

change is the availability of computerized database of words or corpora (e.g.

British National Corpus, Cambridge International Corpus, etc.); it has revived the

interest in vocabulary teaching and research (Thornbury, 2002).

That lexis is important in SLA is admitted by some linguists. Gass &

Selinker (2001, 372) point out that “… there are numerous reasons for believing

that lexis is important in second language acquisition. In fact, the lexicon may be


2

the most important language component for learners.” Zimmerman (1997a, 5)

states “vocabulary is central to language and of critical importance to the typical

language learner.” In addition, among the error types being the subject of research

in SLA, vocabulary errors are considered as the most serious by learners (Politzer,

1978, cited in Levenston, 1979, 147).

Further, collocation in particular is an essential part of vocabulary aspects

as what Hill (in Lewis, 2001, 49) expressed “within the mental lexicon,

collocation is the most powerful force in the creation and comprehension of all

naturally-occurring text.” He added that lack of collocational knowledge lead to

confusing language productions (writing and speech). Seesink (2007, 7) even

cited a strong comment made by Kennedy (1990) about the importance of

collocation that some researchers believed that collocations are “overwhelmingly

pervasive” in English. In addition, since collocations occur in combinations (or

chunks), acquiring them enables learners to be an efficient language users. They

just need to recall those readily-made units, not individual words and put them

together. As Nation (2001, 323) comments “most of the language we use consists

of familiar combinations.” All those comments affirm that collocations are

important in language use.

The salient facts of how vocabulary plays major role in language learning

is one ground for providing the vocabulary subject in English language study at

universities. Problems in teaching vocabulary often come about, though. Students

seem to easily forget the words they have learned and discussed in class. And the

further impact is when the students have lack of vocabulary, whether it is in terms

of size or the depth of knowledge: they have difficulty comprehending texts in


3

listening and reading classes. Then, the problem continues when they have to

articulate their ideas in speaking and writing. Having lack of collocational

knowledge, students combine words that do not belong together that often confuse

the listeners or readers. As language receptors, having good collocational

knowledge is important as well. It enable them to understand the language as it is

exactly intended.

Being a Vocabulary teacher in a state university for about five years, I

have not found the students‟ learning result satisfactory even though more and

more learning facilities are available to make learning easier. Many students in

every year have to retake the subject twice or even more due to failure.

Moreover, I have heard complaints about students‟ limited proficiency in

English; they show low competence of receptive skills like reading and listening

and even lower competence of the productive skills. The complaints mostly were

made by lecturers teaching writing and translation as students were requested to

produce a piece of writing that usually turned out to be „grammatically incorrect,‟

„lexically poor,‟ or „collocationally awkward.‟ And, frequent complaints were

made by those who were appointed as students‟ language advisors in doing

bachelor‟s thesis (skripsi); they usually „suffer‟ most since they have to assist

students complete their thesis in which a complicated process goes on. It is often a

pains taking task for the lecturers when the students can not express their ideas in

correct sentences. Many students find it difficult to pick the right word and even

more difficult to determine the collocation to convey their ideas. Often, the

advisers have to frown thoughtfully as they read students‟ writing and reconstruct


4

the sentences to convey the intended meaning. I was quite skeptical about it until I

experienced it myself.

The indispensable role of vocabulary in language learning and the

aforementioned condition aroused my curiosity about whether I could do

something to help the students improve their vocabulary learning especially the

knowledge of collocation by introducing an appropriate learning strategy that they

can use even outside the classroom to support their individual and independent

learning.

B. Problem identification

The students were barely aware of the importance of collocation in

language use. When they read, they focus on comprehending the content. When

they learn vocabulary, they learn individual words. Students at the beginner level

prefer to use a bilingual dictionary to the monolingual one to learn vocabulary.

They feel more secured to know the translation of the words they learn, even

though it often creates problem in the usage as the translations carry grammatical,

semantic, or even pragmatic aspect in them. Moreover, aside from the translation,

students usually look only the definition or the meaning of words up in the

dictionary. So, their knowledge of vocabulary is limited only on the definition or

meaning of individual words. When they have to use them in speaking and/or

writing, they produce wrong pronunciation for they do not know how to

pronounce it correctly or put them on the wrong combination since they do not

have the idea of the word collocation. Their L1 acquisition usually influences their

choosing the wrong combination. For example, „mistake‟ that is translated into


5

„kesalahan.‟ In Indonesian it is an action that is done (dilakukan or melakukan) so

that students tend to combine it with „do‟ like in „I do a mistake.‟ The problem

previously discussed leads to another problem that the students were not familiar

with collocation because the dictionary they referred to did not provide any

information about collocation.

One thing I perceived to be a potential problem was the students had not

been introduced formally to one particular strategy for learning vocabulary in

general and collocation in particular. They mostly learned vocabulary through

reading and/or listening to songs that they did in casual way. And, it turned out

that the aforementioned strategy did not help the students hold the memories of

the learned vocabulary. Whereas, intentional learning put the focus of learning on

the vocabulary knowledge per se that traditionally it is in the form of a word list.

On the other hand, in incidental vocabulary learning, “learners are focused on

comprehending meaning than on the explicit goal of learning new words”

(Wesche and Paribakht, 1999b cited in Gass and Selinker, 2001).

Hereby, I think collocation has to be taught explicitly, and collocation

cluster is one of the alternatives. Collocation clusters technique is a modification

of the so-called Vocabulary cluster that was introduced by West Virginia

department of education in its web page

http://wvde.state.wv.us/strategybank/VocabularyCluster.html to help learners

learn “difficult” words. It is in the form of graphic organizers in which learners

put related information of a word (definition, synonyms, antonyms, etc.) and add

new words. Thereby, it gives the students holistic and comprehensive

understanding of vocabulary. Different from vocabulary clusters that are based on


http://wvde.state.wv.us/strategybank/VocabularyCluster.html

6

individual word to start the clusters with, the collocation clusters concentrate on

developing learners‟ proficiency with lexis, or words and word combinations. It is

based on the idea that an important part of language acquisition is the ability to

comprehend and produce lexical phrases as unanalyzed wholes, or “chunks,” and

that these chunks become the raw data by which learners perceive patterns of

language traditionally thought of as grammar (Lewis, 1993 as cited in Maudraia,

2001). Furthermore, most linguists agree that vocabularies are not just collections

of words, and that vocabularies are essentially interlocking network (Meara,

2004).

C. Problem limitation

To answer the research question, I set up some limitations to the research.

The limitations are on the group participants and technique of learning

vocabulary. Since the research was conducted during my teaching in my

department in accordance with the classes assigned to me, I conducted the

research at one of the two Vocabulary classes of the English Education Study

Program in Faculty of Arts and Languages of Yogyakarta State University. In

fact, there are two majors in English Department i.e. English Education and

English Literature. The choice of participants is based on the reason that English

Education students only get the subject once during their study, and it is given in

the beginning. Moreover, the participants were all „retakers‟ i.e. the students

retake the subject(s) they have taken before because they fail or dissatisfied with

the result. In fact, there were two classes of vocabulary class which had 38

students. However, I selected one class as the subject of my research since in the


7

beginning of the class the numbers of students joining the vocabulary classes were

small that it was possibly dropped. However, by the time the number was

increasing and two classes were held by the department. However, they were

uneven in the number of the students between the two classes.

The second limitation was on the technique of collocation cluster that was

chosen to see its effect on students‟ vocabulary learning development especially in

the receptive or passive vocabulary. The study also tried to find out how this

technique gives different impact on the students‟ learning that was revealed

through interview. The technique is believed to accommodate learner‟s needs in

learning vocabulary holistically and comprehensively.

D. Research question

Vocabulary in its broad meaning plays fundamental role in mastering

English for the students of English Language Education Department. The lack of

lexicon leads to low competency of the language skills.

This study is employed to find out the positive impact of an alternative

technique i.e Collocation clusters in building up learner‟s collocational

knowledge. The research question is:

How can collocation clusters help the students of English Language

Education Study Program improve their collocational knowledge?

E. Research goal and objectives

Vocabulary teaching and learning especially in L2 setting have been

taking more attention and techniques in teaching and learning are developed. That


8

collocation clusters is one of promising ways in developing learners‟ collocational

knowledge was examined in this research. The goal of the research is to empower

students to develop their collocational knowledge using collocation clusters. The

objectives of the research are 1) to improve students‟ collocational knowledge and

2) to foster learner‟s collocation learning independence.

F. Research benefits

The research is expected to offer meaningful contribution to learners and

teachers in collocation learning/teaching. It provides practical benefits to the

participants. The result of the research provides evidence that collocation clusters

technique gives positive and immediate impact on the learners. The learners do

not only develop their collocational knowledge but also their writing and reading

skills. It encourages them to learn collocation consciously and intensively that in

the long run they make a good habit of considering collocation important in

language use. Furthermore, this technique is expected to provide the base for

independent learning. Following the learning strategy through, a learner will have

a tool to develop his collocation and a mini collocation „dictionary‟ consisting of

collocations they will frequently encounter in the future. The research

dissemination will present teachers an alternative in teaching collocation.

For the future researchers, this research is to encourage in-depth

exploration of collocation learning especially in the outer circle countries like

Indonesia. Here, English is positioned as foreign language but it becomes more

important nowadays.


9

CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter is devoted to elaboration of the construct and concept as well

as the theoretical framework of the study. A brief overview of some theories on

teaching and learning vocabulary is presented prior to the discussion on

collocation learning. One particular technique i.e. vocabulary notebook (in which

learners record collocation clusters), however, is the main focus.

A. Theoretical review

In this chapter I provide brief explanation of what learning vocabulary is

and its complexity. I go into detail discussing what collocation is, why it is

important in language learning, why it is essential for L2 learner, and how to learn

it.

1. Learning vocabulary

Vocabulary is an essential and integral part of learning languages; without

vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed. As what Wilkins (1974) comments in

Lewis (2001, 8) “Without grammar little can be conveyed; without vocabulary

nothing can be conveyed.” Let us take an example, a person who does not know

any English word will not be able to communicate with a native speaker unless he

and the other interlocutor master sign language. On the other hand, if he knows

few words he will be able to „communicate‟ by making use of the words even

though (s)he makes a lot of grammatical mistakes. For example, to use wrong


10

plural form „peoples‟ and determiner „much‟ in the sentence „There were too

much peoples in the room‟ may not confuse the listener. In addition, learners

generally consider lexical errors as a fatal error compared to other types of error

(Gass, 2008 cited Politzer, 1978).

Learning vocabulary is no longer memorizing a long list of words that will

be put into questions to test vocabulary knowledge. Memorizing words without

deep understanding and comprehensive knowledge is likely to fade away.

Teachers and researchers (McCarthy, 1997; Nation, 1990; O‟Keefe, 2007) have

been working hard to formulate and define vocabulary learning, and to find

effective ways to learn vocabulary and retain them.

a. The nature of vocabulary

It is necessary to discuss what vocabulary is since defining vocabulary is a

challenging and tricky business. Laypersons usually consider vocabulary as the

individual word that has a meaning and we can find it in the dictionary. However,

the current development in language teaching brings a broader perspective in

vocabulary learning. It will not be enough to memorize a list of L2 words when

we learn vocabulary.

As pointed earlier, word is not an easy concept to define as admitted by

Read (2000). Discussing vocabulary, we need to talk about some vocabulary-

related terms such as type and token, function word and content word, lexical

item, word family, collocation, idioms, etc. When we count every single word

form occurs in a text, no matter how many times it occurs, it means that we

consider the word as token. On the other hand, when words are counted based on


11

the form, we consider them as type. For example, the sentence „It is difficult to

define what a word is‟ contains 9 tokens but only 8 types since we do not count

„is‟ again on its second occurrence.

Words of such kind like a, the, to are referred to as function words which

belong more to the grammar of the language. Content words like adjective, verb,

noun, and adverb serve more to provide links within sentences, modify the

meaning of content words and so on (Read, 2000, 18). Next, a set of word forms

which share a common meaning such as develop, developed, developing, and

development is known as a word family. When words come together with their

partners in combination we have collocations, for examples, entirely free, long-

term memory, and have no right to interfere in.

Vocabulary does not always occur as single words. For a start, there are

phrasal verbs (sit down, look up, put up with) and compound words (pen pal,

nature lover, applied school science). Then, there are also idioms like a piece of

cake, beat around the bush, and bite off more than one can chew. These

constructions can add L2 learner‟s learning complication since their meanings can

not be figured out from the meaning of the individual word.

Some distinctions are made to classify vocabulary. The first is between

potential and real vocabulary (Berman, Buchbinder, and Beznedeznych, 1968,

cited in Gass and Selinker, 2001, 374). Potential vocabulary is the words that

learners will recognize even though they have not seen them yet in L2. Real

vocabulary consists of words that the learners will be familiar with after (and

because of) exposure.


12

Another distinction is drawn by other researchers i.e. active and passive

vocabulary (Meara, 1990; Laufer, 1998; Nation, 2001). However, lexical

knowledge cannot be simply described using simple dichotomy (Teichroew, 1982

cited in Gass and Selinker, 2008, 452). Rather, he makes an important point that

“vocabulary knowledge can best be represented as a continuum with the initial

stage of recognition and the final stage of production.” Vocabulary building will

not stop at certain phase or level; it continues to expand and deepen.

b. Building learner’s vocabulary

The next thing to discuss is what a learner should know about a word if

they are to acquire it completely. Richards (1976) in Read (2000, 25) suggests the

required knowledge to know a word wholly. First, one knows the frequency of the

word recurrence in speech or text. Secondly, she knows the word limitations on

the use and its syntactic behavior. Next, she has the knowledge of its derivational

aspects and the knowledge of its possible associations in the language. Besides,

she knows the semantic value and possible different meanings it has.

Nation (2001, 27) takes the assumptions further by combining them with

other components into a table to specify the scope of the learners‟ task. Nation

incorporates receptive and productive knowledge into the table (see table 1). The

table tells us that building up vocabulary will not be sufficient only to know its

single form and the meaning. Developing vocabulary in this sense refers to the

breadth of vocabulary knowledge. Nonetheless, language which is not sufficiently

accurate or appropriate can be an obstacle in communication, and may well create

the wrong effect or understanding on the receptor. Therefore, the knowledge of


13

collocation, fixed expressions and idioms, grammatical patterns, awareness of

style and register, connotations of words and phrases will be essential. In this

sense, the vocabulary is learnt with the emphasis on the depth of the vocabulary

knowledge.

Table 1. The scope of learner‟s task in learning vocabulary

Form

Spoken form R What does the word sound like?

P How is the word pronounced?

Written form R What does the word look like?

P How is the word written and spelled?

Word parts R What parts are recognizable in this word?

P What word parts are needed to express the meaning?

Meaning

Form and meaning R What meaning does this word form signal?

P What word form can be used to express this meaning?

Concept and referents R What is included in the concept?

P What items can the concept refer to?

Associations R What other words does this make us think of?

P What other words could we use instead of this one?

Use

Grammatical functions R In what patterns does the word occur?

P In what patterns must we use the word?

Collocations

R What words or types of words occur with this one?

P What words or types of words must we use with this one?

Constraints on use

(register, frequency …)

R Where, when, and how often would we expect to meet

this word?

P Where, when, and how often can we use this word? R = Receptive, P= Productive

Nation (2001, 27)

The next really essential question to answer is how vocabulary should be

learnt. Considering the nature of vocabulary, learner should learn vocabulary

entirely in terms of form, position, function, and meaning. Instead of memorizing


14

a list of vocabulary containing the necessary information, students need to

experience using them.

…learners who wrote compositions using a set of target words remembered

them better than those who encountered the words in a reading

comprehension task and, in the Israeli experiment, the learners who wrote

the missing words in gaps in the reading text retained more of the words

than those who just read marginal glosses (Hulstijn & Laufer, 2001 in

Read, 2004).

Another important thing for learners to learn is of the meta-cognitive aspect i.e.

knowing what to learn and learning how to learn. Knowing the best learning

strategy for oneself can help learners to be independent.

Another consideration in vocabulary learning is the word selection. The

studies on vocabulary size of native speakers (i.e. educated native speakers of

English know around 20,000 word families) (Nation, 2001, 9) seem demand that

L2 or FL learners know those large numbers as well. It is quite impossible to cope

with for one reason; the studies see “all words as being of equal value to the

learner.” Nation (ibid.) states that several studies of word frequency report that

some words are more useful than others (and have higher frequency than others).

Since high-frequency words cover approximately 80%, whereas, low-frequency

words make up about 5% of the running words in an academic text. Therefore,

teaching high-frequency words is more expected than the low-frequency ones.

The claim that word frequency may affect lexical development has been

proven by numerous studies, especially in psychology research. Balota &

Chumbley‟s (1984, 1985) experiments reveal that lexical access and word

retrieval is faster for high-frequency words than for low-frequency words.


15

c. The influence of L1

When L2 adult learners start learning L2 vocabulary, they already acquire

and develop the language system of their L1. Therefore, they automatically link

the new L2 words to the existing conceptual meaning of L1 (Tacac, 2008, 8; Gass

and Selinker, 2008). As cited by Schmitt (2008), psychological studies reveal the

most convincing evidence of L1 exertion in L2 learning; L1 is active during L2

lexical processing in both beginning and more advanced learners.

Singleton (1999) as cited by Gass and Selinker (ibid.) points out the

„connectivity‟ between L1 and L2 lexicon. Furthermore, Jiang (2000, 2002, and

2004 in Gass and Selinker, 2008) suggests three-stage model of adult secondary

vocabulary learning. The first stage is called “lexical association” in which

learners associate the form (spelling and sound) of L2 words with those of L1 and

it is processed through L1 translation. The second stage is “L1 lemma mediation”

in which learners do not only have recognized the lexical representation of L2

form, but also been able to transfer the semantic-syntactic information of their L1

to L2. The third stage is “L2 integration” in which learners do not employ L1

representation at all. The semantic, syntactic, and morphological features of L2

words are gained through exposure and use.

Thereby, we can say that L1 acquisition plays an important role in learning

L2 and building L2 vocabulary as well. It facilitates the learning when the words

have close and direct equivalences, for example, the group of words „gain new

knowledge‟ and „mendapat pengetahuan baru,‟ „ingatan jangka pendek‟ and

„short-term memory.‟ Prince (1996) in Schmitt (2008) finds that “more newly

learned words could be recalled using L1 translations than L2 context, particularly


16

for less-proficient learners”. On the other hand, the L1 acquisition interfering can

also mislead, for example, „menurut saya‟ which is simply translated as

„according to me,‟ instead of „in my opinion,‟ and „merapikan tempat tidur‟ as

„tidy the bed‟ not „make the bed.‟

Bahn in Lewis (1993, 93) points out that some collocations have direct

equivalents in another language but some do not. Those without direct equivalents

create more difficulty for L2 learners. He suggests that those having high

meaning-content are likely to have close or exact equivalent in word by word

translation. Those of low meaning-content with complex patterns, especially the

de-lexicalized words, less likely have direct correspondence.

Nesselhauf (2003) in Seesink (2007) and Schmitt (2008) find in her study

conducted on 32 essays of German-native university students that a quarter of the

collocations had some sort of error caused by wrong choice of verb from which

she concluded that about 50% of the mistakes were influenced by their L1.

Another study of lexical errors found in Thai university EFL students‟

compositions shows that nearly one-quarter were caused by L1 influence

(Hemchua and Schmitt, 2006).

Granger in Seesink (2007) also reported the influence of L1 in the adverbs

used in the L2. She found that non native speakers underused native-like

collocations and used atypical word-combinations. She also discovered that

“learners‟ phraseological skills were severely limited: they [used] too few native-

like prefabs and too many foreign-sounding ones.”

Considering the results of the previous studies, I suggest that teachers

teach L2 vocabulary explicitly. By doing so, teachers can raise students‟


17

awareness of L2 collocations occurrence in everyday texts. Besides, teachers can

show the differences of L1 and L2 collocations and how they are not always

transferable.

2. Learning collocations

Grammar-based language teaching was dominant until 1970‟s. Lewis

(1993) suggests that language teaching was based on the assumption that

mastering a language was achieved from mastering the language structures –

sentence patterns with slots to fill in with words. It was believed that once

students mastered the patterns, they would immediately learn how to use them to

produce correct expressions by simply putting the right words on the slots within

sentences. The introduction of Lexical Approach by Lewis was then an

implication of the decreased role of sentence grammar. Lexical approach posits

that lexis performs the central role of language learning.

It is essential to discuss lexis as a start, and discuss collocation later. Lexis

does not only include single words but also the word combinations that we store

in mental lexicons (Moudraia, 2001). Recently, lexis plays an important role in

language learning. Lewis‟ refrain (1993) “A language consists of grammaticalized

lexis, not lexicalized grammar” echoes in many discussions of language learning.

He suggests some considerable points regarding the principle: a) lexis is the basis

of language; b) lexis is misunderstood in language teaching because of the

assumption that grammar is the basis of language and that mastery of the

grammatical system is a prerequisite for effective communication; c) one of the

central organizing principles of any meaning-centered syllabus should be lexis.


18

In any normal situation when people establish communication, they use

words together to build discourse or context. The words they put in the

combinations are not just any words they like (arbitrary) but the words that

naturally and linguistically belong to each other to represent certain meaning or

idea. We must not use horse and barks together since the two words will not

represent a correct and acceptable intended meaning. Horse goes with neigh or

whinny, and dog goes with barks. Thus, learning vocabulary in chunks is essential

to build a whole understanding. Also, using words in combination make

communication effective, natural and fluid.

It is not simple to describe collocation. It represents a wide spectrum of

word combinations; from the loosest ones to the most fixed combinations as

idioms. For example, rancid butter, speak a language, native speaker,

neighboring country are few of the varying degree of the fixedness. Oxford

Collocations Dictionary for Students of English defines collocation as “the way

words combine in a language to produce natural-sounding speech and writing”.

Indeed, forming a collocation is not as simple as putting arbitrary words

together. The words have to co-occur naturally. It usually creates problems for L2

learners since they are not usually aware of the natural co-occurrence and their

learning is affected by their L1 knowledge. For example, in Indonesian people say

„minum obat‟ but they can not say „drink medicine‟ in English. Instead, the

combination has to be „take medicine‟ because „drink‟ and „medicine‟ are not

collocates. It is confusing for the learners. Besides, non-reciprocal nature of

collocations makes matter worse. Lewis put it this way “One element of a

collocation pair may strongly, perhaps almost uniquely, suggest the other element,


19

but this degree of fixedness is non-reciprocal." Nattinger in Lewis (1993) takes

„rancid‟ and „butter‟ as examples. „Rancid‟ has a very limited collocates so that it

almost always determines its collocate „butter’ while butter does not suggest any

preceding adjective with the same degree of certainty.

Given the complexity of collocation, an operational definition can be

proposed like “groups of words that are frequently used together to convey

meaning precisely.” Some terms are frequently used to refer to collocations such

as „prefabricated patterns,‟ „formulaic speeches,‟ and „fixed expressions.‟ And

some writers as pointed out by Lewis (2001) classify collocations into lexical and

grammatical collocations. Lexical collocations refer to the combinations of lexical

components (open class words), for instance, grey area (adjective + noun) and

language acquisition (noun + noun), while grammatical collocations are the

combinations of a lexical component and a grammatical component such as good

at (adjective + preposition) and knowledge of a (noun + preposition).

Collocations are often similar to idioms, and they even sometimes are

overlapping. Lewis (2000, 130) suggests that we need to consider it as part of

wider concept of idiomaticity. Furthermore, there are categories to consider as he

cited the compilers of The Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English (1984)

to describe idiomaticity: 1) Pure idioms: they are almost fixed and can not be

interpreted literally; 2) we cannot guess the meaning of the whole expression by

getting the meaning of individual word. For example: beat around the bush; 3)

Figurative idioms: they are fairly fixed such as catch fire and tread water; 4)

Restricted collocations: they have one element used non-literally and the others


20

literally such as jog someone’s memory; 5) Open collocations: they have free-

combined elements with each having literal meaning.

Further help to clarify idioms and collocations is from Chitra Fernando

(1996) as cited by Lewis (2000)

“The same group of words may be treated as both an idiom and a

collocation but the focus of the two descriptions is different. Idioms

focus mainly on the meaning of the whole, while collocation is

concerned with combination of words which do or do not occur.”

a. The importance of collocations

Aside from the problems discussed initially, collocations play substantial

role in language use. To communicate effectively, the parties involved in it have

to have good command of the language in which collocation serves a substantial

role. Moreover, Hill cited by Lewis (2000, 53) posits some reasons of the

importance of collocation:

1. Lexicons are not arbitrary

When a person produces expressions, the combinations are actually

predictable. Let us take an example of „eat‟ that is usually combined with

„kinds of food‟, and we may expect „pizza,‟ „banana,‟ „rice,‟ etc. The words

such as „wood‟ and „grass‟ are the least expected.

2. The size of the phrasal mental lexicons is large

The fixed expressions possibly make up 70% of all naturally-occurring texts;

one of the forms is collocation. It means that ideas conveyed in any text,

spoken and written, make use of „ready-made chunks.‟ Getting exposed to the

chunks as input text, L2 learners start to build their collocation storage. Later

on it enables L2 learners to use English in fluent way by retrieving the chunks.


21

In addition, Williams (1998) as cited by Lewis (2001, 139) in her analysis

learns that native speakers regularly rely on a large amount of fixed and semi-

fixed expressions when negotiating. It offers them two advantages: firstly the

expressions that are generally conventionalized ensure that the parties

involved in the negotiation know exactly the „here and now‟ situation and

secondly they are largely pragmatic and used as whole units so they allow the

users to concentrate on the content of negotiation since they need the least

processing. Furthermore, Hill (2000) states that collocational competence

enable learners understand and produce language in more efficient and fluent

way in terms of using the „chunks.‟ Learners can produce proper expressions

and convey complicated ideas which are lexically accurate.

3. Human brain has retentive memory

Native speakers have a large store of fixed expressions which are ready for use

when required. Linguists now give much more attention to memorized,

familiar and idiomatic expressions.

4. Complex ideas are often expressed lexically

Intermediate or lower learners usually employ simple words to express simple

and complex ideas. Complex ideas are usually difficult to express in simple

language, though. They are generally conveyed in complex lexical

expressions.

5. Pronunciation is integral

The way learners utter an expression is usually the result of their saying

individual words so that the pronunciation, stress, and intonation will not


22

sound correct. Learning collocations, learners know the stress patterns of an

expression as a whole.

Oxford Collocation Dictionary (2002, vii) ensures learners that “choosing

the right collocation will make his speech and writing sound much more natural.”

Even though, in this period of „world English‟ to sound like native speakers is not

an issue for L2 learners, acquiring collocation is crucial since it makes the

learners‟ language products accessible to a wide public. Further, Oxford

Collocation Dictionary (2002, vii) affirms “A student who chooses the best

collocation will express himself much more clearly and be able to convey not just

a general meaning, but something quite precise.” A learner will not use an

expression like He treats me badly to get something good for his own benefit, if he

has learnt the expression of He takes advantage of me. In other words, having

good knowledge of collocation, a language user can use the language effectively

and a language receiver can understand it easily. Using collocation, a language

user can express his ideas more precisely and effectively. Instead of “I got

confused and I thought that she was her sister,” one can simply say “I mistook her

for her sister.”

b. Collocational knowledge

O‟Keefe, McCarthy and Carter (2007, 59) state “Collocations are not

absolute or deterministic, but are probabilistic events, resulting from repeated

combinations used and encountered by the speakers of any language.” A learner

of English as L2 or FL is expected to have collocational knowledge to use the


23

language well and effectively. Having collocational knowledge, a learner

understands how a word occurs in a combination with other words in actual use.

She also learns that many word combinations are easily recalled when stored in

units and that they establish speech routines.

Nation (2001, 321) underscores the importance of having collocational

knowledge “The strongest position taken on the importance of collocational

knowledge is that it is essential because the stored sequences of words are the

bases of learning, knowledge and use.” He also suggested that the collocational

knowledge is acquired through frequent meeting with the language chunks in

order that they are stored in the long-term memory.

Collocation is used pervasively in English language use, written or oral.

Moreover, the readily available input texts are produced by native speakers who

inevitably use native language system. Thus, language learners, either as receivers

or as producers, are used to it and have to embrace it in communication. Having

the knowledge of collocation enables language users produce the language

accurately and comprehend the language fully.

c. Explicit teaching of collocation

Having the knowledge of vocabulary in the form of individual words will

not guarantee the learning of collocation. Learning collocation requires awareness

of the natural co-occurrences of words; complete understanding of the

construction and use. Learners need various exposures of different strength

spectrum of collocations, from the loose ones like read a book, eat rice and two-

month-old baby, to the strong ones like rancid butter and sprained ankle.


24

At early stages, L2 learners usually are not aware of the occurrence of

collocations. Since at this stage learners have insufficient knowledge of English

language system that enables them to recognize them in the context they read or

listen, the teacher has to provide materials that can make them aware of their

„true‟ occurrence in any text the students encounter. Careful selection of the text

has to be done so that the students are exposed to good examples and get ample

opportunity to practice recognizing the recurring chunks in real texts. As what

Lewis (2001, 163) suggests “the more aware learners are of the chunks of which

any text is made, the more likely that the input they notice will contribute to

intake.”

Raising learner awareness of collocation, the teacher has to be aware that

the learners need a sense of purpose during the learning process. There is no better

way to instill it than to put the learning in communicative activities.

Communicative language teaching creates the needs for learners to learn and use

the language. In communicative language learning activities, learners are “forced”

to absorb knowledge that they need to be able to function well in communication.

L2 learners tend to see collocations having no patterns or unpredictable

combinations. Therefore, teachers should teach collocations in groups by patterns

e.g. Verb + Noun, Adjective + Noun, Preposition + Noun, Verb + Adverb, etc., so

that learners are first aware of the patterns of collocation. The teacher can guide

the learners to recognize one type of pattern at a time. For example, in one

meeting the class reads a text and focuses on the identification of N category (see

appendix 9). Identifying the collocations, the students organize them into clusters


25

(appendix 7). In the following week, the same text can be used for another

category.

At a higher level, many experts believe that raising awareness of

collocations can be done by teaching them explicitly in which the learners practice

them overtly that is followed by the process of writing the words in order that

learners can easily check and recheck for collocational words (McCarten, 2007).

However, whether vocabulary should be taught explicitly (directly) or implicitly

(indirectly) is still a key issue among researchers. Nation and Newton (1997) in

Seesink (2007, 21-22) describe explicit teaching by

…explicit vocabulary exercises, which may include word-building

exercises, matching words with various types of definitions, studying

vocabulary in context, semantic mapping and split information

activities focusing on vocabulary.

To contrast with the previous description, they state that implicit vocabulary

learning involves “communicative activities like listening to stories, information

gap activities, and group work.”

Furthermore, a teacher needs to provide learners with a guide about what

words naturally occur together and which words do not. Teacher has to help

learners understand and have the knowledge of what Lewis (2000) calls “blocked

collocations,” i.e. impossible combinations. Teacher should explicitly point out

the unacceptable combinations by contrasting them with collocations, for instance,

conscious thought is a collocation but aware thought* is not.

They need their teacher to point out and guide them to recognize and

identify existing collocations. Teachers can employ various techniques to build

learners‟ awareness, such as underlying collocations, matching collocates, finding

collocations based on given clues, etc. Besides, the teacher has to help learners


26

select out the language which is useful and deserves more attention and which is

not useful enough for learners to devote their time to on the limited course of time

(Lewis, 2001).

In addition, examples for L2 learners are of their necessity, but selecting

appropriate examples for teaching has to be done carefully. What mostly taught

are dictionary-like expression such as suggest an idea and believe in something.

Such an assumption about how „general‟ rule will enable learners to acquire and

produce real-life expressions like She suggests that we wait and see and I don’t

believe in what she said (Lewis, 2007).

Explicit teaching is proposed and supported by many experts. Coxhead

(2000) as cited by Seesink (2007) advocates “courses that involve direct attention

to language features have been found to result in better learning than courses that

rely solely on incidental learning.” Schmitt (2001) as cited by Seesink (op.cit., 29-

30) also believes that

“…attention [was] what allows speakers to become aware of a

mismatch or gap between what they [could] produce and what they

need[ed] to produce, as well as between what they produce[d] and

what proficient target language speakers produce[d].”

In addition, Harwood (2002) proposes two principles in collocation

learning on which teachers should base their teaching: teach real language, not

„TEFLese‟ and recycle and revisit. The first principle suggests English teachers

not base the teaching solely on course books but also on corpora so that learners

can gain access to authentic language. The second principle warns that teaching

vocabulary without necessary recycling is wasted effort (Nation, 1990). EFL

learners‟ need for “recycling/revisiting material is even greater since they are not

constantly surrounded by the target language from which they can get repeated


27

exposures that later they can use for spontaneous production” (Kojiic-Sabo and

Lightbown, 1999 in Harwood, 2002).

d. Collocation clusters (Collocation notebook)

There are some names used to call the technique of organizing vocabulary

such as „vocabulary clusters‟, „word clusters‟, „lexical notebook‟, or „vocabulary

notebook‟. The technique with different names basically provides a tool for

learners to record and store newly encountered vocabularies; it usually makes use

of notebooks. The way vocabulary recorded in a notebook can vary. It can have

different organization like semantics-based, theme-based, form-based, or

collocation-based. An example of the organization is given by Cohen (1990) in

Schmitt and Schmitt (1995) where learners include topics, parts of speech,

themes, and speech acts. Of course, collocation-based organization is the

appropriate way for learning collocations. Lewis (2001) proposes a collocation

grid in which learners complete it with (+) or (-) to show possible collocates. For

example,

Table 2. A sample of a collocation grid of A – N

events furniture history ideas movies

old - + - + +

antique - + - - -

ancient ? - + ? -

Another way to organize and record the collocations is to include pronunciation,

translation, definition, use in context, and the collocates. For example,


28

CRITICISM

(ˈkrɪt.ɪ.sɪ.z ə m)

- definition: when you say that something or someone is bad; disapproval

- use: The designs for the new mosque have attracted widespread criticism.

- V= attract, …

- A= widespread, …

Considering the incremental nature of vocabulary learning, teachers have

to accommodate it in the procedure of recording collocations. Collocation clusters

may be an alternative (see Figure 1). Using a collocation cluster, learners can add

and store collocational information to an entry every time they find a new

collocation. For example, from the text „Five Ways to Hold on to Permanent

Memory‟ (see Appendix 9) the students at first encounter „memory.‟ The students

record its part of speech, phonetic transcription, meaning, and one of its collocate

„long-term,‟ that is found together with „memory.‟ Later, when they meet its

another collocate from another reading text, for example, a Verb „search,‟ they

can add the information in the collocation cluster, as seen below.

Figure 1. A sample of collocation cluster on the word „memory‟

Memory (N)/ˈmem.ə r.i/ meaning: the ability to

remember information,

people and experience

A+ __ : long-term, short-term,

V+ __ : regain, search,

phrase: in recent memory Blank cell for future

addition (if, any)


29

More information which is obtained from reading can be added to an

entry, either added to one cell of the same category or to the cluster by adding a

new cell. It gives learner opportunity to re-visit what they have learned

previously. This regular action builds learner‟s vocabulary gradually and helps the

learner preserve the memory of the vocabulary. To help L2 learners acquire

vocabulary successfully, teachers need more than providing the students a list of

words to memorize or a reading material in which they may encounter new

vocabulary and unconsciously learn the new vocabulary. Schmitt in Walter and

Bozkurt (2009) describes a taxonomy of learning strategy that distinguishes

between discover strategies (used to find the meaning of a word) and

consolidation strategies (used to store the new word in long-term memory).

Keeping vocabulary notebook (in which learners take notes of related information

of the collocations they encounter) is a strategy that is classified in cognitive

strategy that is of consolidation strategy. Furthermore, vocabulary notebook is

often referred as an effective tool in learning vocabulary (McCarthy, 1990;

Nation, 1990; Schmitt and Schmitt, 1995; Lewis, 2000; Fowle, 2002 in Walter

and Bozkurt, 2009).

Woolard (2001) points out that it is essential for teachers “to train their

students to record, visit, re-visit, and re-activate the significant vocabulary they

meet.” This strategy to learn vocabulary is also suggested by some writers

(Schmitt and Schmitt, 1995; Woolard, 2001; Nation, 2001; Seesink, 2007):

recording the new words together with the lexical information in a notebook i.e.

vocabulary/lexical notebook.


30

Many believe that some significant benefits can be reaped from

vocabulary notebook (Walter and Bozkurt, 2009): 1) it enhances vocabulary study

(Schmitt and Schmitt, 1995); 2) it improves ability to use dictionaries and guess

from context; 3) it keeps teachers informed about learners‟ progress (Fowle, 2002;

Nation, 1990); and 4) it enhances learner autonomy (Fowle, 2002).

Walter and Bozkurt (2009) prove empirically that vocabulary notebook

enhances vocabulary knowledge. They find that the treatment group out-

performed the control groups on the receptive and controlled productive

vocabulary tests. The treatment group could even use some of target words in free

writing that was not exhibited by the control groups.

3. Independent learning

In this rapidly changing and full-of-challenge world learners need to equip

themselves with something that can make them always keep up with the world.

They also need to excel themselves not to be discriminated by others. They have

to be the best on their own right to emancipate.

Considering the pervasiveness of collocation presence in English, teachers

have solid ground to teach collocation. They may utilize competency-based

teaching that allows teachers to establish and maintain standard of competency

that they expect their learners to meet i.e. specific collocational knowledge. The

use of collocation cluster helps learners meet the standard accordingly. Besides,

collocation cluster gives the students autonomy to work at their own pace since

the strategy can also be implemented outside the classroom.


31

Learning autonomy is essential for students or learners since they are the

subjects of the teaching learning process, especially in higher education level.

Students should be able to determine and choose for themselves what they want to

learn. Two features of autonomy as proposed by Lier (1996) are choice and

responsibility. Being autonomous, learners are able to choose what they want or

do not want to do. When they decide not to do a task, they are aware of what they

may miss or waste (Scharle and Szabo, 2005). There is a quality of responsibility

in making the choices. It means that they are aware of what they are doing and

understand the consequences.

Some experts estimate that average native university graduates know about

20,000 word families (Goulden, Nation, and Read 1990 in McCarten 2007). The

number is too huge for English learners to cope with. However, there is less

number of words that are used more frequently than others. Knowing the most

frequent 2,000 words, a learner can understand 80 percent of the average texts

(Francis and Kucera in McCarten 2007) originally from Nation. It still presents

teachers problem on how to teach the words in class with limited time available.

As what Ellis (1994) cited by Seesink (2007) points out that it is unrealistic to

teach all the necessary L2 vocabulary in class. A way out to the problem is

learners‟ independence; learners have to be taught to be self sufficient. The

teacher‟s role is more to suggest the learning strategies that the learners can use to

develop their lexicon since learners‟ lexicon is immense (Lewis, 2007). Besides, a

teacher has to select the words to teach in class whether it will be based on the

students‟ need of oral or written vocabulary.


32

4. Review on related research

How vocabulary is acquired is still the most intriguing question in Second

Language Acquisition (SLA) studies. As cited by Schmitt, Nation noted:

There isn‟t an overall theory of how vocabulary is acquired. Our

knowledge has mainly been built up from fragmentary studies, and at the

moment we have only the broadest idea of how acquisition might occur.

We certainly have no knowledge of the acquisition stages that particular

words might move through. (Schmitt, 1995b, p. 5)

Several researches (Sinclair, 1991; Lewis, 2001; Woolard, 2001) on

vocabulary reveal findings supporting the rationale why the idea of separating

language learning into two basis, “vocabulary” and “grammar,” has to be

abandoned since they are actually inseparable. Another finding reported a word

does not usually occur by itself but in combination with others. Thus, one should

learn vocabulary together in chunks (i.e. collocations), including fixed expressions

and idioms.

The interest in vocabulary teaching/learning has been revived lately;

searching and developing effective learning strategies is gaining more attention.

Keeping a vocabulary notebook is one of the strategies recommended by some

researchers (Schmitt and Schmitt, 1995; Lewis, 2000; Fowle, 2002). Despite little

research done on how the strategy works on a classroom setting, Walter and

Bozkurt (2009) find vocabulary notebooks can be an effective learning tool in

EFL classrooms.

Laufer (1994) in Seesink (2007) is one of those supporting the explicit

teaching of vocabulary. She conducted a research on academic writing of

university students. The students were non native speakers whose L1 are Hebrew

and Arabic, and she found out that “explicit vocabulary teaching [was] needed to


33

compensate for the insufficient quantity of input” (p. 31). Further, she suggests

that “if explicit vocabulary teaching became an integral part of a written

proficiency course, the lexical profiles of the students might be more impressive at

the end of such a course.” Carrying out explicit teaching, a teacher can provide

students the proper and essential inputs on collocation. It also enables teachers to

eliminate the strong influence of students‟ L1 in their learning since it turns out to

be one factor of students‟ difficulty combining words (Nesselhauf, 2003).

Thus, teaching collocation explicitly using collocation clusters can help

learners to improve their collocational knowledge independently. The explicit

teaching helps learners be more aware of the occurrence of collocations and learn

them intensively. In addition, collocation clusters provide learners a learning

strategy that they can use outside the classroom. It is beneficial for vocabulary

learners since most of the learning process takes place outside the classroom.

B. Theoretical framework

The brief review above is served to justify my decision to focus on teaching

collocations. The fact that L2/FL learners (the students of English Education

Department) generally learn vocabulary in the form of individual words is my

concern. It results in lexically „awkward‟ sentences or utterances even though

grammatically correct. Considering that a word does not normally occur in

isolation when it is used in real-life situation, teaching collocation is essential. In

other words, teaching vocabulary using lists of words is not applicable to

vocabulary learning but vocabulary in its true contexts.


34

In addition, Coady (1997), Paribakht and Wesche (1997) state that

consciousness-raising and direct teaching will produce even greater gains. Thus,

vocabulary teaching (i.e. collocations) should employ activities arising learners‟

awareness of collocations, and that the teacher has to point out important

collocations to promote awareness. Moreover, collocation recording is likely to be

useful because it leads the learners to a focus on form and increases awareness.

The collocation recording is done in learners‟ vocabulary notebooks. Therefore,

such a technique like a vocabulary notebook where learners keep a record of

related information is effective and psychologically justified because it leads the

learner to process the items to be learnt and to set them in a rich matrix of

associations (Leeke and Shaw, 2000).

The principles of teaching vocabulary as suggested by Nation (2005) as

follows are my guide in running the vocabulary class:

1. Keep the teaching simple and clear. Don‟t give complicated explanations.

2. Relate the present teaching to past knowledge by showing a pattern or

analogies.

3. Use both oral and written presentation - write it on the blackboard as well as

explaining. Give most attention to words that are already partly known.

4. Tell the learners if it is a high frequency word that is worth noting for future

attention.

5. Don‟t bring in other unknown or poorly known related words like near

synonyms, opposites, or members of the same lexical set.

Language learners need to always enrich and develop their vocabulary to

have good command of the language. Knowing suitable learning strategies is


35

essential. Learning strategies that can encourage learners to be independent

learners is likely more recommended since learners get or are introduced to a kind

of learning strategies perhaps once whereas their learning lasts a lifetime. By

introducing an effective learning strategy, I worked toward a long-term goal that

the students have a tool to use throughout their academic life, especially for

writing thesis.

The availability and use of concordancer, electronic collocation dictionary,

and BNC (British National Corpus) to complete the collocational information was

introduced. I aimed at providing another tool for the students to check how the

collocations are used in real contexts.

Instead of enhancing their skill of academic writing, I focused primarily on

the receptive skill and awareness. Students were exposed to various academic

texts to get as many examples of collocation as possible. The evaluation was

conducted on their identifying collocations.

The research was conducted in the class mainly to improve the class

performance related to the collocational knowledge. Being an action research, it

supplied me in-depth understanding of the process. I was totally involved in the

process: selecting the material, teaching the collocations, providing necessary

supporting tools, assigning students to write vocabulary notebook, evaluating the

outcomes, and exploring students‟ perception of the learning strategy.


36

Figure 2. Theoretical framework

Collocation

learning

Given texts

Dictionary use

BNC checking

Improved

collocational

awareness

Independent

learning

Improved

collocational

knowledge

Collocation

notebook/

Collocation web

Collocation

teaching

Memorizing

words


37

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

This chapter describes all relevant factors about the method of solving my

research problem empirically. Elaboration is made on the research setting

including the nature of the class and the students, the data collection methods, the

nature of the data collected, data source, and the intended outcomes of the study.

The techniques used for the analysis of the data are also discussed.

A. Overview of the research method

For teachers, research gives important contribution to their improving

teaching. Carrying out research in their classroom, teachers know what is really

going on in the process of teaching-learning, whether there are shortcomings, and

how to deal with them. In short, research can help teachers to be more effective

teachers (McKay, 2006).

1. Action research

Action research is a part of a critical theories approach which aims to

emancipate (Cluskey, 1997). It insists that participants work together to improve

the situation. In the classroom, teachers together with other stakeholders enhance

lives by improving practice in education at schools. The role of the participants is

the key of action research (Kroeger, 2003). In addition, Hopkins (1985) suggests

"The original purpose of teacher research was to free teachers from the limiting

constraints of prespecified research designs".


38

I find action research is appropriate research methodology applied in

education since the researcher can employ either qualitative or quantitative

enquiry or both. As we understand that in education the research often investigate

the people involved in it like learners, teachers, or other stakeholders who are

unique and impossible to quantify their responses. Moreover, action research is

cyclical that make it possible for innovation and modification to occur during the

process to improve the practice in the classroom continuously.

In fact, action research has been conducted intensively since it was

introduced in 1940s to respond to the challenges emerging in educational settings.

Action research is regarded as the right treatment to solve the problems in

education since the subjects of the research are human beings who are unique

individuals. They have different way to learn from the experience.

In general, action research has the following characteristics (Cohen and

Manion, 1980; Burns, 1999 in McKay, 2008, 30):

1) situational, contextual, small-scope, and localized and relevant to the real

situation;

2) evaluative and reflective;

3) participatory;

4) the changes in practice are based on the information or data gathered that

encourage the changes.

One research model adopted by many action researchers is proposed by

Kemmis and Taggart (1988) as shown in Figure 3. Even though the model

received criticisms as it looked rigid, it was not what they proposed. Kemmis and

Taggart (1988) as cited by Koshy (2005, 5) suggest that researchers not use the


39

model rigidly. In reality the process may be dynamic and far from what has been

preplanned. In actual fact, the process is flexible and adaptable.

Figure 3. Cyclical AR model based on Kemmis and McTaggart‟s (1988).

I do believe in the nature of action research as flexible and adaptable, and

that the ultimate goal of the process is better understanding and developed

situation. Thereby, I adopted the model as suggested by O‟Leary (2004) in Koshy

(2005) that the preceding cycles continually refine the methods, actions, data

gathered, and interpretations of the next cycles.

As a practitioner of English teaching (and learning), I found carrying out

action research essential since it offers advantages as what Koshy (2005, 21)

stated:

a) action research is contextual or situational;

b) the researcher does not have to be „outside‟ but attached in the situation;

c) evaluations and modifications can be made as the project progresses;


40

d) theory may be proposed from it;

e) it can produce open-ended outcomes and the researcher can bring a story to life.

Figure 4. Action Research model proposed by O‟Leary (2004)

2. Research setting

The research was carried out at English Language Education, Yogyakarta

State University. The students were given Vocabulary as one of the subjects in

their study. The subject was given once, on the first semester. Regarding the

importance of vocabulary acquisition for them and the time limitation, vocabulary

teacher has to find a way that can build their learning foundation so that when

they pass and do not take the subject again, they can continue developing their

vocabulary in an effective way.


41

Regarding the condition that Vocabulary is a compulsory subject given to

the students, the teaching conducted is more to help intentional learning. The

vocabulary is taught directly to the students using various activities and tasks.

a. The nature of the class

The class of vocabulary was normally held once a week for about 16

weeks or less, however, the research was performed in 10 weeks. On the first few

weeks the students came and go because they were still arranging the classes they

planned to enroll in. The class usually has around 20 – 25 students, but the class

on which I conducted the research had only around 15 students. The students were

„retakers‟ meaning it was not the first time they took Vocabulary. They got as low

as C on the previous class. They were from different groups of class (A to G) and

year (2005, 2007, and 2008).

b. The nature of the students

The students were in their late teens or early twenties. They mostly got Cs

for their former vocabulary class(es), meaning they had limited vocabulary

knowledge. Thereby, I wrote the questionnaire in Indonesian to avoid

misunderstanding.

In addition, they did not talk a lot and quite shy to articulate their ideas to

the class, but they worked well in small group discussions. Their shyness may be

caused by their coming from different classes so that they did not know each other

well.


42

3. Research design

As the guidance of my research design, I referred to a list of processes

involved in an action research as suggested by O‟Leary (2004, 139) which was

cited by Koshy (2005, 26-27):

1. addresses practical problem: the problem I found during my teaching was that

the students found difficulty combining words in collocation so that often I

found „awkward‟ or „funny‟ phrases or sentences;

2. generate knowledge: I explained what collocation is, why it is important, how

to form it, how to learn it using collocation clusters and exemplified it;

3. enact changes: I introduced collocation clusters to organize collocational

information for easier learning;

4. keep it participatory: the students were involved during the process. They

wrote their thoughts and suggestions in their journals and reflections;

5. go through cyclical process: I introduced the use of collocation cluster in the

beginning, then I also introduced the use of collocation dictionary to

accompany it.

The depiction of the process is presented by Figure 5.


43

a. Research procedures

Conducting action research, I followed some procedures as depicted on

Figure 5. First of all, I asked the head of department for permission to perform the

research in my class. When it was granted, I started to make a plan on when, how

Giving a questionnaire and

a pre test to the students of

Vocabulary 1.

The use of

Collocation clusters

- Teacher‟s

field notes

- Student‟s

journals

- Student‟s

reflection

Post test of

collocation

knowledge

Data analysis

- Comparing the result of pre and post test composition

- Analyzing student‟s journals, reflections, and interview

- Triangulation data for cross validation

The use of

collocation

dictionary

Interview with

selected

students

Identifying the students‟

problems.


44

long, and where the research was to be done which included deciding who the

participants/respondents were.

Secondly, I selected the class to conduct the study since there were

actually two vocabulary classes. I chose the class that was not too heterogeneous

in terms of the year of the students (2005, 2007, and 2008) joined it. The other

class consisted of the students of year 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007. It was a

„repeater‟ class of English Language Education Study Program. However, the

students who were selected to take part on the study were only those who

completed the whole process.

Thirdly, the data collection methods were determined: using questionnaire,

conducting interviews, gathering documents, and conducting a pre and a post test.

At the same time, the instruments to implement the methods were prepared.

Fourthly, in the class I gave clear explanation about the research: why it

was pursued and how it was done. I also gathered information on students‟

learning background using a questionnaire. Then, the course design including the

syllabus, reading materials, tasks was made on the basis of the questionnaire

responses.

Finally, the course was run as planned and observed. An intervention was

made during the process to improve the situation. All the research participants

then made reflection on the process. The reflection formed the basis for the next

plan on the next cycle.


45

b. Data collection methods

To get the most reliable and valid data, I employed several methods of

data collection like questionnaire, interview, field notes, and students‟ collocation

notebooks.

1) Using questionnaire

At the start of the research, two Vocabulary 1 classes available were

asked to fill in a questionnaire to collect information regarding students‟

vocabulary knowledge, learning preference and strategies. The information

supplied the baseline data to plan the actions. I employed multiple choice

questions that the students could answer with ease. Besides, it avoided or at

least minimized misinterpretation. Nevertheless, I provided open-ended

option to give the students opportunity to reveal their aspirations.

2) Conducting interview

An interview was done to selected students representing different

groups. One student was representing those whose scores demonstrate an

increase; the other was representing those of decreasing score of the posttest

compared to the pre test. It was to gain more information on the student‟s

feeling, learning strategy, and the effect of collocation web on their learning.

3) Gathering documents

Some types of documents were examined e.g. teacher‟s field notes or

diary, students‟ reflections and journals, and students‟ notebooks. The

information obtained was especially to show progress during the process.

Another purpose was to understand the factors affecting the different tests

results achieved by the students.


46

4) Conducting collocation tests (pretest and posttest)

Numerical data were also gathered by conducting pretest and posttest.

The data gained were to reveal to what extent collocation web affects

students‟ vocabulary learning and improvement. The results were processes

using descriptive statistics to see whether the students‟ post test scores

increase.

c. Organization of the data

The data obtained were organized in tables. Some of them were in

numbers such as the results of the questionnaire and tests. The others were

descriptions of what the participants understood from the process such as those

of the journal, reflection and interview. The data then were coded.

Within this stage, there were some actions to do:

1. collecting, selecting, and organizing the target collocations to be used in the

pre and post test;

2. preparing the key answers, scoring system, and test administration;

3. designing the lesson plans to be carried out;

4. providing teacher‟s field note;

5. preparing guiding questions for the students‟ journals;

6. providing reflective questions for the students to answer at the end of every

cycle;

7. designing interview questions.

Next, I conducted a pretest, prior to teaching collocation using collocation

web. The results of the pretest were used as the baseline that later were compared


47

with the posttest results. Finally, based on the result of the tests, I interviewed

three of the participants representing different categories: those whose score of the

posttest was higher and lower than the pretest. Also, I checked their documents

i.e. collocation notebooks.

Triangulation of the research data was obtained by simultaneously

collecting both quantitative and qualitative data, merge the data, and use the

results to understand a research problem (Creswell, 2002). The quantitative data

were obtained through pretest and posttest scores and the qualitative data were

collected from the documents checking and an interview. The flowchart below

represents the process of the study.

4. Course design

The whole process of the course took place 10 weeks of the even semester.

I started the process with performing reconnaissance to reveal students‟ learning

background. Then, I carried out some actions to help the students enhance their

collocational knowledge using collocation web. The process was illustrated by

Table 3.

Table 3. Research Course

Meeting Day/Date Phase Description

1 6 October

2009

Taking an

inventory of

students‟

learning

background

(reconnaissance)

1. Ss filled in questionnaire about their

vocabulary learning habits and strategies.

2. T gave Ss questions on word family and

collocations to do.

3. T examined and observed Ss‟ work.

4. T started organizing plans for teaching.

2 Planning 1. T designed lesson plans based on the result

of the observation

2. T selected the teaching material

3. T selected the collocates to be used in the


48

pre/post tests from the selected material.

4. T sorted the collocates out based on their

frequency of recurrence using BNC.

3 10 Nov‟ 09 Action

Reading text:

Collocation

1. T conducted pretest (multiple choice/30

questions).

2. T introduced the patterns/categories of

English collocations.

3. T introduced one technique of recording

information of a newly-encountered word

using collocation clusters.

4. Ss identified the collocations of Noun

category in a text.

5. Ss recorded the basic information of the

collocations such as meaning, part of

speech and important collocation-related

information i.e. the patterns of the

collocation in their notebooks.

6. Ss shared their work to the class.

4 November

17, 2009

Observation

Reading text:

Five Ways to

Hold on to

Permanent

Memory

1. T explained and gave examples of other

collocation patterns i.e. V and A.

2. Ss identified the collocations of V and A

categories in a text.

3. Ss recorded the information such as

meaning, part of speech, and pattern of the

collocation in their notebooks using

collocation clusters.

5 November

24, 2009

Observation

Reading text:

From Corpus to

Classroom

(preface)

1. T reviewed the previous discussion.

2. T checked the students‟ understanding of

the previous lesson.

3. Ss shared what they have done to the class

(the collocation pattern and samples.

4. T together with the Ss checked the Ss‟

work on the board, discussed it together

with the class, found any mistakes, and

revised them.

5. Ss completed the collocation clusters based

on the discussion.

6 December

01, 2009

Observation

Reflection

Reading text:

The Incremental

Nature of

Vocabulary

1. T checked Ss‟ understanding on the

previous discussion; Ss identified

collocational phrases and their patterns.

2. Meanwhile, T checked Ss‟ notebook on

how they did the assignment and their

reflections.

3. T gave a new reading text to the class.

4. The class took several minutes (about 10


49

Acquisition

minutes) to read and grasp the main idea

of the text.

5. Ss shared their understanding one

another.

6. T completed the ideas of the content of

the text

7. T assigned Ss to write their opinion on

whether the use of corpus in learning

vocabulary is important and why. It was

to see how they used the collocations.

8. The class was ended by writing

reflections on what the Ss feel, what they

have learned, what obstacles or

difficulties they had, and their

suggestions to improve the class learning

process.

7 December

08, 2009

Planning 1. T asked Ss to trade their notebooks to

check what they had written at home

2. Ss read the work for its content; they

didn‟t need to pay attention to the

mistakes.

3. Ss gave comments on the content of their

friends‟ work

4. Ss checked any collocational mistakes

their friends made on their homework and

gave their feedback on how to revise

5. Ss returned the notebooks to the owner.

6. Ss studied the mistakes they made and

their friends‟ suggestions

7. Some Ss shared the mistakes they made

to the class by writing them on the board

8. T asked Ss to answer reflection questions

and submit them together with their

notebooks.

8 December

15, 2009

Action

Reading text:

Scaffolding for

Motivation and

Engagement in

Reading

1. T utilized Oxford Collocation Dictionary.

2. T gave Ss a quiz where Ss have to

provide the contexts for the collocations

given. T allowed Ss to open their

dictionaries. T gave 15 minutes to do 10

questions.

3. T explained how they had to put the

information they got about certain

collocation from the text into word net.

4. T gave the class some examples.

5. The class then discuss homework (new

reading material)


50

6. T assigned the Ss do the same thing at

home (recording information in the

collocation clusters).

9 December

22, 2009

Observation

Reading text:

Taboos and their

origins

1. T checked Ss‟ notebooks for the

homework on the collocation clusters.

2. T gave comments and suggestions on

how Ss can improve it

3. T asked Ss what problems they still had

in learning collocations

4. T showed Ss how to develop a collocation

cluster into a linked clusters

5. T gave Ss new text

6. T gave them exercise

7. T supervised Ss writing their journal.

8. T assigned Ss the rest of the text to be

identified and record the information in

the collocation clusters.

10 December

29, 2009

Observation

Reflection

1. T continued discussing the exercise given

in the previous meeting

2. Ss volunteered themselves answering the

questions.

3. T checked on the Ss whether any of them

had questions about the exercise

4. T gave Ss new text about

5. Ss read the material for several minutes

6. T lead the discussion on the idea of the

text

7. T together with Ss identify collocations of

the new text

8. T asked Ss to continue doing the building

of the collocation webs at home.

9. Ss answered the second reflection

questions.

10. T repeated her instruction for Ss to

continue developing the collocation

clusters and bring along their notebooks

to the final exam.

During the course, the students were expected to record the collocational

information together with the new vocabulary they encountered from the texts

discussed in class. They got the samples of collocation web and imitate the

technique in their notebooks (Figure 6).


51

Figure 6. A sample of collocation cluster

5. Ethical issue

The most considered ethical issue in my action research was permission to

conduct the research from participants and authority. In the research I conducted,

the participants were the students taking Vocabulary class that I taught. And, the

authority was the head of the study program i.e. English Language Education

Study Program.

In order that the participants and the authority of the study program gave

me the permission to carry out the study, I explained the purpose of the research

and the expected outcomes. The students in particular were to whom I shared the

information gained during the process intensely. They controlled the accuracy and

relevance of the information that I interpreted.

Difference (N)

/dɪfərənts/ the way in which two or more

things which you are

comparing are not the same.

___+ P = from, between [students can add more

words on] Its basic difference from short-term memory is that it is permanent. These studies deal with similarities and differences

between the L1 and L2 mental lexicon.

Phrase = no difference There is no other difference in the form of

a compound.

Adj +___ = basic Its basic difference from short-term memory is that it is

permanent.


52

B. Data analysis and interpretation

1. Data summary

The questionnaire given to the Vocabulary students in the beginning of the

class was to reveal their vocabulary learning background whether they had used

collocation web when they learned collocation before, and how they previously

learned vocabulary.

Another type of data collected was to answer the research question “To

what extent do collocation clusters help learners improve their collocational

knowledge independently?” It was the test scores gained from a pretest and a

posttest. The scores were also the baseline for further process of data gathering

from which I determine the participants to be interviewed. The selected

interviewees‟ notebooks were examined to see how they recorded the collocation

webs. In addition, learners‟ reflections were summarized and grouped. My field

notes and reflections were another source of data.

2. Data organization

Descriptive and inferential statistics were provided to display the data in

numbers. The data were processed statistically to determine the Mean and

frequency, and one-tail t test to see whether the improvement is significant. They

were organized into tables to make them easily understood. The reflections of the

students were also summarized into tables. The data gained from a questionnaire

were coded and put into a table.


53

3. Interpretation

The data which were organized were then interpreted. To establish the

validity of the research, I consider the triangulation of the data. As what Seesink

(2007) stated in her dissertation that triangulation which means to gather

information from different sources does not only help the researcher establish the

validity of the study but also reduce its bias.

Interpreting the data, I refer to the research question: “To what extent does

a collocation clusters help students improve their collocational knowledge?” To

answer the question, I firstly compared the scores obtained from the pretest and

posttest. Then, students‟ notebooks were collected to see how they recorded the

information in the collocation webs. Later, the results were used to see whether

the way they recorded the information affected their results of the test.


54

CHAPTER IV

RESEARCH PROCESS AND FINDINGS

The description of the cyclical processes taking place in the classroom

setting is elaborated in this chapter. The process began when the problem of

learning collocation was identified. Reflecting on the problem, I planned an

intervention to be implemented to improve the situation. Then, the process of

implementation was observed and reflected to see whether the intervention

brought about some changes. When the next process suffered from some

shortcomings, I took another intervention and another cycle began again.

1. Students’ problems of learning collocations

Instead of making generalization of the findings of the study, I would like

to supply descriptive analysis of the study and elaborates the process of the

administration of the action. According to Koshy (2005, 109) in classroom action

project the researcher examines what is going on without bias and analyzes the

data gathered based on the observation. This part describes what problems

students had, what can be done to solve the problem, what happened in class

during the intervention done, the results yielded, the obstacles, the understanding

reflected, and the development of the action undergone.

The whole process was initiated by distributing a questionnaire consisting

of 9 questions to gather information concerning the learners‟ learning background

and problems. The questionnaires were distributed to 22 students who were

initially registered in Vocabulary 1 class. The number of the students changed


55

when the actions took place, though. It was because some students had to move to

the other class, or even to drop the class due to a particular reason. When the

classes settled in the fifth meeting, only 16 students remained in Vocabulary 1

class in which I conducted the study. Nevertheless, three of them were not eligible

for the study due to incomplete scores leaving 13 students as the subject of the

study.

The questionnaire revealed that 19 (86%) of the student respondents (22

were sitting in Vocabulary 1 when the questionnaires were administered) took the

subject for the second time and three others took it for the third time. It did not

mean that they failed the exam on the previous class but most of them were

unsatisfied with their grades. Their former grades were between C and C+. More

than half of the students attributed the „failure‟ to „not knowing the appropriate

strategy to learn vocabulary‟ and the others to „are not able to memorize

vocabulary‟. Most students used reading and listening to songs as the strategy to

enrich their vocabulary. However, considering the fact that they did not get good

grade, I supposed that the strategies they adopted did not work well.

The questionnaire also revealed that students were not familiar with

collocation. Learning vocabulary, students believed that what they had to learn

was how to pronounce the word. The next considered important aspects of

learning vocabulary is the translation and the part of speech. The most important

word-related information to seek when they encounter new words is its meaning

and translation. None of the student respondents referred collocation as a „must-

to-know‟ element in learning vocabulary. As a consequence of the unfamiliarity,

the students had difficulty recognizing, identifying, and combining collocations. It


56

was demonstrated by the students‟ journals and first reflection that at first they did

not know what collocation is and how to form it and they were confused about

collocation and compound words (Appendix 2 and 3). Learning collocation was

even harder for some students since they had limited knowledge of English

collocation. The students‟ average score of pretest was 14.62 of the total 30

points. Some even could not identify the part of speech of a word.

In fact, I learned that some students just got acquainted with the

knowledge of what collocation is from the pre test questions they did. The pre test

was to find out the students‟ prior knowledge of collocation. They conveyed their

thoughts in their journals. Some students stated “Soal itu lumayan ‘donk,’

membuat saya tau jenis-jenis soal collocation,…”(The questions of the test helped

me understand collocation) and “I could understand about collocation by doing

this test. But, unfortunately, there are many words that I don’t know what is the

meaning of it. So I done it by my feeling” (cited as written).

2. Responding to the situation

To respond to the shortcomings that my students have in learning

collocation, I carried out some actions.

a. Teaching collocations explicitly

Identifying the problems the students had in learning vocabulary or

collocation in particular: having very little or even no knowledge of collocation,

not knowing any particular strategy to learn vocabulary, and having difficulty

memorizing vocabulary, I planned to teach them collocations explicitly. During

my teaching I also introduced BNC as one tool to check collocations. To help


57

them memorize the collocations they learned, I taught the students how to make

and use collocation clusters to record collocations found from reading.

The fact that the students hardly knew what collocation is and its

importance encouraged me to teach collocation. In stages the students were

introduced to the patterns of collocation (V – N, V – Adv, A – N, etc), what

necessary information they can record together with a newly encountered word,

how they can get the right information, and how they can organize the

information. The collocations were presented in written context. The students

were given academic texts on the grounds that they would have to read a lot of

them and write tasks during their study.

In the first stage, the students were introduced to the Noun category since

it is the most frequently used. At the same time, they were also introduced to

some available tools to help them learn collocation such as collocation dictionary,

BNC (British National Corpus) and some other web sites available to check

whether the word combinations the students encountered are frequent

collocations. Then, Verb category and Adjective category were taught

respectively. At this initial stage the students were in the state of confusion and

had difficulty identifying word partners/word combinations as collocations.

To facilitate the learning process, I asked the students to share their ideas

and discuss their collocation clusters one another. It was meant to provide

assistance to the students who had limited language proficiency to correct their

mistakes and facilitate their understanding. Besides peer correction, the students

understood the lesson better through group discussion. Class discussion was also

considered enjoyable, as the result of the interview done with S2 (student 2):


58

R: “What did you enjoy most? Yang paling dinikmati atau

disenangi dari proses belajar itu bagian apanya?”

S2: ”Eh…kalo lg diskusi di kelas. Itu enak gitu lho, ....” (when we

were having a discussion in class. It was fun, ...)

b. Introducing collocation cluster

During the process of learning collocation in the classroom, the students

were also introduced to collocation clusters to organize the information in the

form of graphic organizers. The students started a collocation cluster by drawing a

rectangular shape (I named it a cell) into which they wrote a head word of a

collocation. Then, they developed it by adding another or other cells to record the

collocates of the word. The shapes were organized and linked with lines. After

reading a text, the students identified the collocations based on certain category

and put them in the collocation clusters. If they already had a cluster of the same

head word or entry, they could simply add the information to the available cell or

add a new cell. For example, in the first reading the students enter „memory‟

together with „long-term.‟ In the second reading, they encountered „long-term

goal‟ and wrote the new information „goal‟ in the cluster in a new cell. However,

when they encountered „short-term,‟ they did not need a new cell but wrote it in

the same cell as „long-term‟ since both the collocates of „memory‟ were of the

same category (A + ____) (see Appendix 7).

In addition, they were shown the benefits of it that they could easily add

new information to the cluster as their vocabulary expands. And, their notebooks

could function as their mini English collocation dictionary. Also, the clusters gave

clear border to each category that the students could easily identify. However, I

found some students did not organize the information as they supposed to.


59

Instead, they preferred to put them in a list that did not leave necessary space to

add more information.

c. Introducing BNC

In fact, I introduced the BNC (the British National Corpus) as a tool to

check collocations to accompany the collocation clusters. The BNC is a corpus

that can be accessed for free for limited display. What the students had to do was

to enter a word or combination into its searching machine. It would process and

display the occurrence of the word or word combination from the corpus. Then, I

learned that it was not very practical since the class had to stay connected to the

internet to access it. Even, it was impossible to be done in the classroom because

not all the students had portable computers that they could bring to the class. One

student expressed her idea “It‟s complicated if we have to check BNC to get the

correct collocations.”

3. Students’ feeling and learning

During the process, the students and I (as the teacher) kept journals to

express our thoughts and feeling of an ongoing situation. The students wrote it in

their notebooks together with the collocation clusters. The journals were used as

the ground to take necessary actions to help the students in class. Aside from the

journal, the students wrote their reflections twice during the 10-week course; one

was written after completing one cycle of action (week 7) and the other was at the

end of cycle two (week 10).


60

I found that in general, the collocation cluster technique brought valuable

experience for the students. Some students expressed their good feeling during the

course like “I‟m happy, I understand collocation…” “I‟m interested with this class

today…” and “I‟m happy because I really understand...” However, few students

expressed their feeling bored of always discussing „similar‟ reading materials.

They wrote “I get bored with the material…;” “…I want to discuss different

topic;” “Get bored of studying the same thing” (Student‟s Journal, Appendix 2).

The journals also revealed the students‟ difficulty learning collocations. It

took them almost the whole course to figure out the best way to identify and use

collocations. When they thought they had understood collocations, it turned out

that they still had to struggle to identify them on the other texts (Appendix 2). A

new reading material brought new challenges to the students. What they do was

mostly guessing. It might be because the students did not give themselves

sufficient exposure of academic texts outside the classroom. They relied on what

they discussed in the classroom. “…I still have less handbook/material of learning

collocations;” “I must find many resources to make me understand;” “…since I

have never seen the words before.” (Student‟s reflection)

Some students stated that they got difficulty identifying collocations as

they had never seen them before. One of them stated:

“I found some questions difficult. I never met with those collocations

because (when I opened the website to search collocations) I only

search collocations for the words which I got from the handout.”

(The student‟s reflection, Appendix 3)


61

Nonetheless, the students acknowledged on their reflection that the

technique did help them learn collocation in an easier way. The collocation

clusters helped them check whether a word combination is a collocation.

“Yes, it can help me to finding collocation word easily because the

source of collocation is very limited”. (sic)

“I think it can help me to learn collocation more details”. (sic)

“The technique is good I think, it help me to understand

collocation‟. (sic)

(Some student‟s original writing on the student‟s reflection)

There were some problems emerged along the way, though. One of them

was the students‟ lack of grammatical knowledge that caused some fundamental

mistakes in the information organization such as wrong categorization (e.g.

recognize „clear‟ (which is an Adjective in the text) as a Noun or „teaching‟ (N) as

a V). To support the learning process, the students discussed their work to each

other from which they got correction and feedback. Another problem was that

while they are reading, the students kept their focus on the patterns of collocations

that they needed to put into the collocation clusters. They were so focused on the

forms that they did not pay attention to the content of the text. Hence, class

discussions on the content of the text were necessary to be conducted in which the

class shared their understanding of the text in turn. At this phase, the students

were in the state of confusion: they still had difficulty identifying and forming

collocation.

4. Dealing with students’ difficulty learning collocation

Cycle two was an attempt to better the learning process in class. On the

second cycle I tried to facilitate students‟ learning more to remedy shortcomings

recognized on the previous cycle. Considering the fact that the students still had


62

difficulty identifying collocations, I plan to give them more explanation and

examples. I also introduced the use of English collocation dictionary (Oxford

Collocations Dictionary for Students of English) since it is more practical than the

BNC.

a. Using an English collocation dictionary

The first reflection done by the students reported that after few meetings of

learning collocation using collocation clusters, most of the students remained

confused about how to recognize and form collocations (see appendix 3).

Considering the fact that the students still got considerable difficulty identifying

collocations, I made another intervention that was introducing the use of an

English collocations dictionary. The dictionary was a supplement to the

collocation clusters.

Asking the students to buy an extra dictionary would be too demanding.

Asking them to borrow it from the library would not be possible since if there

were any at the library, they would not be enough for all the students. So, I did not

only introduce the dictionary but also made it available for the students. I made a

copy of an electronic dictionary (in PDF format) of Oxford Collocations

Dictionary for Students of English (2002) that I downloaded for free from the

internet. The dictionary served as a reference book to determine whether a word

combination is a collocation.

In addition, my action was based on the students‟ reflections “Kamus

collocation penting” (Collocation dictionary is essential) and “Hope that we can

providing the needed material such as: collocation dictionary, etc.”(I hope that


63

you provide necessary material such as collocation dictionary for us). The

dictionary could help the students learn and extent their vocabulary by themselves

outside the classroom. The dictionary helped the students to check whether the

combinations they encountered were collocations. They could make anything they

listened to or read a source of learning with the collocation dictionary, from which

they can look up the words. In other words, the provision of collocation dictionary

was to span the gap between the students‟ present and the expected knowledge.

5. Students’ learning development

At this point, the learning process continued better. Given the fact that

some students had not yet fully understood, the students in general acknowledged

that their learning collocations helped them perform better, even in other classes

they took. Besides, some students admitted openly the importance of collocation

dictionary. Five students wrote in their reflections that one supporting step to help

them learn collocations better was by looking words up in the dictionary to check

whether they were collocations, for example, one wrote “Use collocation

dictionary as often as possible,” and another wrote “I think I must always check

the dictionary, always read to find the new words.” (Appendix 3)

a. Students’ collocational knowledge development

To complete the process, I collected the data of the students‟ learning

achievement. The data were obtained by giving the students a post test with the

same questions as they did on the pre test. The results then were compared with

those of the pre test. Comparing the results of the pre test and post test, we can see


64

the average of the post test scores is higher than the pre test (Table 4). The post

test average is 17.31 and the pre test is 14.62. The difference between the averages

is 2.69.

Based on the result below, I can say that the particular learning strategy

i.e. collocation clusters brought positive impact to most of the students. The result

showed that 9 out of 13 students achieved any increase of the score. One student

(student no. 13) could even increase her score dramatically from 7 (out of 30) to

16 (out of 30).

Table 4. The results of pre test and post test

Student X1 (Post

test) X2 (Pre

test)

1 19 14

2 14 18

3 16 18

4 16 17

5 17 17

6 16 12

7 17 15

8 18 16

9 19 16

10 18 14

11 22 15

12 17 11

13 16 7

Total 225 190

Mean 17.31 14.62

Xi (ideal mean) 18.75

Furthermore, I discovered that those who retook the class normally had

limited knowledge of English language. One of the obvious proofs was the

average of the students‟ previous grades (C). Another proof can be produced from


65

the following calculation. The pre and post tests given to the students consisted of

30 multiple choice questions with four options (o = 4) for each question. The

highest possible score was 30 (Xh = 30). It means that the chance score is 7.5 (cs

= 30/4 = 7.5). Finding out the chance score, we can look for the ideal mean of the

scores that is Xi = (Xh + cs)/2 (37.5/2 = 18.75). Table 4 shows that all of the

students‟ pre test scores are under the ideal mean scores, but on the post test three

students achieved an increase in their scores.

Further calculation of the data also depicts the variability of student‟s

learning achievement which was reflected by the value of SD (standard deviation)

of the post test (see Table 5). The value of SD of the pre test that was 3.124 and

the SD of the post test was 1.974, it means that the students‟ learning achievement

was heterogeneous and became more homogeneous by the end of the course.

Another implication was that the collocation clusters could help low achievers to

learn more or less at similar pace with the others. One obvious example was

student no. 13 who got seven (7) on the pre test but could manage to increase her

score to 16 on the post test.

Table 5. Data of standard deviation (SD)

n X1 (Po)/post test X2 (Pe)/pre test

n 13 13

∑ X 225 190

∑ X² 3941 2891

X 17.31 14.62

∑ x² 46.77 117.08

SD 1.897 3.001


66

Another finding was that difficulty identifying collocations remained a

problem for some students even at the end of the course (student‟s second

reflection – appendix 3). One of the causes was probably they had not yet fully

embraced the idea and principles of collocation. It was the first time they

consciously learned collocation, organized it in such a way that it is easily learnt

and they realized its importance. Formerly, they only valued word meaning and

translation as they learned new words (questionnaire – appendix 1). The problem

escalated when the students encountered synonyms which are non

interchangeable. For example, they were uncertain whether it was „look‟ or „see‟

to be combined with „an interesting point‟.

Although collocation cluster could make the students‟ learning easier, the

collocation clusters alone did not help the students to enhance their collocation

knowledge since they had limited lexicons. The collocation dictionary provided a

bridge between lack of vocabulary knowledge and collocation knowledge

acquisition.

All in all, the technique gave more benefits for the students who learn best

by doing. So they got input text, identified the collocations with the help of

collocation dictionary, and put them in the collocation clusters. The activity then

was followed by doing exercises in which the students put the lexicons into use.

The results of the test can not be a sole factor of consideration to assess the

success of implementation of the strategy. Learners‟ experience, both cognitive

and affective aspects, during the process is another essential.


67

b. Students’ collocation learning strategy

In another aspect, the students thought that collocation cluster helped them

enrich their vocabulary as one stated “Collocation is useful to developing

vocabulary.” Some more specific expressions of how their vocabulary was

enriched were conveyed

“I just learnt that not all suffix of/in are collocations,”

“I got many new vocabulary today,” and

“I got new vocabularies and knowledge that not all prepositions are

interchangeable in collocations. And I know more about collocation.”

Moreover, one student‟s statement “Every week I get enlightenment for

collocations” (student‟s original writing) cherished the belief of the vocabulary

learning nature that it was built by small incremental pieces.

Another discovery was made based on the students‟ journals and

reflections that the learning experience got in Vocabulary 1 contributed to

learning other subjects such as reading, writing, and translation as another claimed

“Learning experiences that I’ve got, help me when we do writing and translate

English.” Furthermore, for those who were working on their theses, it facilitated

correct expressions in conveying ideas. The interview with Triana who was doing

her thesis presented the fact (R: researcher; T: Triana):

R: Did the technique give you other impacts in learning than

broader knowledge? Did it give other impacts?

T: Iya, terutama itu, di itu buk, writing a thesis juga bisa

membantu, itu membantu, terutama help me to write a

sentence…to make statement, to make sentences in my

thesis. (Yes, especially in writing the thesis. It helps me to

write a statement or a sentence.)

R: So far, how did you feel the impact in writing thesis?

T: Maksudnya? (What do you mean?)

R: When you write the thesis then what the ….impact give you?


68

T: Untuk meng-arrange the sentences, kan kadang kita

menemukan…apa…kayak collocation, nah, kata ini

tuh…harus cocoknya dg apa… (To construct the sentences,

what words have to collocate with others).

R: Now, do you think that you already have improvement in

writing the thesis?

T: Yes.

R: Do you consult your thesis writing to your advisor? And,

does he or she?...Do they (advisors) tell you that you

already improved in terms of writing the thesis?

T: Yes.

Yet, the selection of the reading material as the main input text had to be

done more carefully. Academic texts such as „What collocation is and how to

memorize vocabulary‟ were considered boring by few students. During the

process, three students declared that they got bored having similar topic of

vocabulary/collocation learning. The others did not complain about it. When I

responded to their wish by selecting different topics to vary the texts, still few

students wished to have different materials, but they did not tell specifically what

topics they would like to have. I learnt that academic text was dull to some of

them.

c. Student’s learning independence

One thing that I expected to achieve from the research was the students‟

learning independence. Yet, the students‟ seemed to depend their learning on sole

class activities and what the teacher gave them in the class. The evidence could be

revealed from the teacher‟s field note (Appendix 8). For example, when I asked

the students to copy of the electronic collocation dictionary on their computers, it


69

took at least 2 weeks to remind them to do so. Without tight supervision, some

students would not do the necessary things as they should.

Another proof could be obtained from the interview conducted to two of

the students. One student admitted that she worked independently to advance her

knowledge outside the class.

R: When you study vocabulary, did you read any text and then you

record the information in the notebook

T: just text from you…

Given the fact that the students seemed to spare little effort to develop

their collocations outside the classroom, I thought they did realize it needed to be

done. One student reflected “I must find many resources to make me understand.”

d. Students’ learning sustainability

The students generally agreed that their experience in class was valuable

for their learning. They stated that they wanted to continue doing the strategy to

learn collocation after they passed the class. One student stated that she would

keep consulting the collocation dictionary when she was writing. Another wrote

that she wanted to write her own research for her Bachelor‟s thesis about

collocation learning. If it really worked the way they stated, it could also support

learning sustainability.

The results of the interview with two selected students give a part of the

picture of the learning strategy sustainability outside the class. Both the students

stated that they no longer kept a collocation notebook to help them learn and

develop collocational knowledge.

R: Apakah kau msh menggunakan buku, semacam spt yang kita punya

di kelas vocab ato sekedar menuliskannya misalnya di sembarang


70

kertas? (Do you still keep a vocabulary notebook like the one we had

in vocabulary class?)

S: kadang yo sembarang kertas sih, gak di buku… (sometimes I wrote

on any paper, not in a book...)

R: …do you have a notebook?

T: No, but a notebook kayak gitu tidak, tapi di catetan (not

particularly, but I wrote it in a notebook)

6. Limitations of the findings

I acknowledge that the findings of the research had some limitations. First,

the classroom research was limited by a period of one semester. The class on

which I carried the research was the last vocabulary class, meaning the class

would not be held anymore by the department of English Language Education.

Due to the limited time, I could not conduct a thorough study on student‟s

collocation learning experience.

If I have another chance to redo, I would like to plan it better. First of all, I

would reword some of the reflection questions since some students understood

them in different ways. As a consequence of the misunderstanding, some

information did not count for the research. Another thing that I wish I had done

better was to give more detailed instructions or guiding questions for the students

to write their journals. In fact, they expressed their feeling and thought without

profound reflection. Finally, I would select more various input reading texts so

that students did not get bored of discussing “heavy” topics. If students‟ interest

could be maintained, the results would probably better.


71

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

This very final chapter provides the summary of the answers to my

research question. In addition, it attempts to suggest practical applications in

language teaching and discusses some suggestions to me as the researcher and

others who are interested in the same field and are willing to conduct similar

research in the future.

A. Conclusions

The actions I conducted in the research were to seek the answer to my

question “How can collocation clusters help the students of English Language

Education Study Program improve their collocational knowledge?” The results of

the study discovered that collocation clusters gave positive impacts on student‟s

collocation learning. The explicit teaching of collocation using collocation

clusters accompanied by English collocations dictionary brought about a small

increase in most of the students‟ scores. By the end of the course, the students‟

post test scores compared with the pre test scores were improved slightly. Three

out of 13 students could achieve higher scores than the ideal average/mean.

Moreover, the learning process in the classroom affected the students

psychologically and cognitively. They were happy to learn something new using a

new way that they had never done before. The students acknowledged that it

helped them learn vocabulary and collocation easier. It also helped them to

perform better in writing and reading. Besides, the students who were working on

their theses gained the advantages of the technique in writing their theses. The

collocation clusters helped them construct proper sentences.


72

However, collocation clusters did not function successfully without other

actions and factors; class discussions, exercises, and dictionary use were a good

combination the collocation cluster mixed with.

The results of the study contribute to language teaching in general and

vocabulary teaching techniques in particular. It gives English teacher an

alternative of teaching collocation. It also teaches teachers to develop along with

their students. For the students, the technique also offers them an alternative of

learning collocations in a more independent and sustainable way. In the long run,

it has the potential to promote autonomous learning.

B. Suggestions

Teaching collocation using collocation clusters offers three advantages: 1)

developing students‟ collocational knowledge, writing, and reading skills, 2)

making students aware of the importance of collocation, and 3) establishing a base

for independent learning. Collocations should be taught purposefully because it

makes students learn consciously and intensively. Learning consciously, students

devote their attention to one thing and have a sense of purpose. Besides, teachers

should always make thoughtful consideration of what students need in planning

the teaching materials. The materials that are balanced in fulfilling both the needs

and wants will seemingly maintain students‟ interest. A modification to the

technique will possibly lead to different result.

The university should reevaluate the curriculum and reestablish

Vocabulary as one of the subjects offered in English Language Education


73

Department. Learning collocation using an appropriate technique helps the

students in writing, even writing Bachelor‟s thesis (skripsi).

Finally, I would like to encourage a study on the sustainability of the

technique practiced by students after the research is completed. I think it will be

interesting to find out whether the learning strategy introduced in class really

affects students‟ learning in their daily basis.


74

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Zimmerman, C. B. (1997a). Historical trends in second language vocabulary

instruction. In J. Coady & T. Huckin (Eds.), Second Language Vocabulary

Acquisition (pp. 5-19). New York: Cambridge University Press.


77

APPENDICES


78

Appendix 1. Student’s questionnaire

Instruksi:

Jawablah pertanyaan di bawah ini dengan memilih satu atau lebih pilihan yang tersedia

atau dengan menulis jawaban Anda sendiri bila pilihan jawaban yang telah tersedia tidak

mewakili jawaban Anda.

1. Berapa kali Anda mengambil mata kuliah Vocabulary I (termasuk kali ini)?

a. dua kali

b. tiga kali

c. empat kali atau lebih

2. Tolong sebutkan skor nilai yang Anda dapatkan pada pengambilan mata kuliah

Vocabulary I pada kali sebelumnya.

a. kali pertama =

b. kali kedua =

c. kali ketiga =

3. Bagaimana Anda menggambarkan pengetahuan kosakata (vocabulary knowledge)

Anda?

a. Saya memiliki sedikit pengetahuan kosakata sehingga saya kesulitan dalam

memahami materi kuliah dan dalam mengerjakan tugas

b. Saya memiliki cukup pengetahuan kosakata sehingga saya dapat memahami materi

kuliah dan mengerjakan tugas dengan cukup baik, meskipun kadang-kadang masih

mengalami sedikit kesulitan

c. Saya memiliki pengetahuan kosakata lebih dari cukup sehingga saya dapat

memahami materi dan mengerjakan tugas dengan baik

4. Mengapa Anda gagal/atau mendapat nilai yang kurang memuaskan sehingga Anda

harus mengambil mata kuliah Vocabulary I lagi?

a. Saya tidak tahu strategi belajar kosakata

b. Saya malas menghafal kosakata

c. Saya kesulitan mengingat kosakata

d. Saya tidak mengerjakan tugas dengan baik.

e. Saya tidak mengumpulkan tugas dengan lengkap

f. Saya tidak mengikuti ujian tengah semester

g. Saya tidak mengikuti ujian akhir semester

h. Kehadiran saya di kelas kurang

i. ………….

5. Apakah Anda berusaha mempelajari kosakata baru di luar kelas?

a. Ya

b. Tidak


79

6. Dari mana Anda mendapatkan kosakata baru?

a. Acara TV seperti berita dalam bhs Inggris

b. Lagu

c. Film

d. Buku

e. Majalah

f. Game computer

g. ………..

7. Ketika Anda mempelajari sebuah kosakata baru, informasi apa yang Anda serap dari

kata baru tersebut selain artinya?

a. Pronunciation

b. Part of speech

c. Translation

d. Synonym

e. Antonym

f. Collocation

g. Idiom

h. …………

8. Bagaimana cara Anda mengingat dan menambah kosakata?

a. Membuat daftar kosakata baru dan menghafalnya

b. Bertanya pada seseorang mengenai arti kata-kata baru

c. Membaca teks/buku dan mencatat kata-kata asing yang ditemukan dari bacaan,

mencari artinya dari kamus dan membaca ulang bacaan

d. membaca, menebak kata-kata baru berdasarkan konteksnya

e. mendengarkan lagu berbahasa Inggris, mencatat kata-kata baru yang ditemukan,

mencari arti dari kamus dan membaca ulang dan/ menyanyikan lirik berulang-

ulang

f. mendengarkan lagu, membaca liriknya dan menebak kata-kata asing berdasarkan

konteksnya

g. Menggunakan kata baru berulang-ulang dalam berbicara dan/atau menulis

h. Membuat visualisasi kata dalam pikiran

i. Menghubungkan kata dengan benda tertentu

j. Meminta orang lain mengetes saya

k. Mengetes diri sendiri dengan latihan dari buku

l. ………………

9. Informasi apa yang biasa Anda cari tahu bersama dengan kosakata baru yang Anda

pelajari?

a. Arti kata

b. Phonetic transcription

c. part of speech

d. kata lain dalam word family yang sama

e. synonyms


80

f. antonyms

g. homonyms

h. translation dalam bahasa Indonesia

i. collocation

j. the use in context

k. …………….


81

Appendix 2. Students’ weekly journals

27 October 2009 3 November 2009 10 November 2009 17 November 2009 24 November 2009 2 December 2009 15 December 2009 22 December 2009

1. I feel confused.

But I think the

explanation can

make me

understand

‘compound’

I have little spirit

because I missed

the quiz and I still

don’t understand

collocation.

I haven’t

completely

understood (msh

samar2).

I get more

confused. I thought

I have understood

but many of my

answers were

wrong.

I get understand

collocation a bit

more. But when I

learn more, I get

confused again.

I get understand

collocation a bit

more. We have to

be able to identify

the part of speech

before we are able

to identify

collocation.

I get bored with

the material but I

have to keep my

spirit.

I get my spirit back

because today’s

class was fun.

codes PCK CCII OP

2. It’s difficult and

confusing how to

combine

collocations.

The questions of

the test help me

understand

collocation but

synonymous

options confused

me.

I have understood

N category better.

I am still confused

with some words.

I think explanation

using LCD can

make us

understand better.

Exercise help me

understand

collocations.

codes PCK CCII

3. It’s difficult to

identify collocations. I must

find many

resources to make

me understand.

I’m still confused.

I can’t do the test

because I didn’t

study last night.

The explanation

was clear, but I still

get confused how

to use collocations.

I get bored because learning

coll takes a lot of

time.

Sleepy. I

understand a bit

better.

Discussing the tests

will help

understand

collocation.

The text for the

exercise help me

understand

collocation

Codes PCK OP

4. I don’t have any

idea what the test

is all about. But

doing it give me an

idea of what

collocation is.

I can understand

today’s material

pretty well, about

what coll is, the

forms, and how to

distinguish them.

I understand the

material, but

explaining using

LCD will be much

better.

I just learnt that

not all suffix of/in

are coll.

Codes CCII FCK


82

5. I’m little confused.

There are some

words in the

explanation and

material that I

don’t understand.

It’s better if

exercise given to

follow explanation.

I understand

better today because I have an

exercise to do after

listening to the

explanation. But, I

still have difficulty

differentiating

collocation and

compounds. Using

LCD may help me

understand better.

Doing the test

help me

understand what

collocation is but

there were many

words I don’t know

the meaning so I

did it as I feel right.

I understand

better since the

lecturer ask us to

identify the

patterns of

collocation found

on the text.

I’m still confused

with the material as

the language used

is more difficult

than before.

I could do the quiz

quite well. I got a

new text, it’s

difficult, there were

many difficult

words.

I got many new

vocabulary today.

And I know more

about collocation

Codes OP CCII PCK CCII

6. I’m confused. I

still don’t know

how to make

collocation

I could do the test

well. I found some

questions difficult

since I have never

seen the words

before.

I could do the test

well. Some coll

make me doubtful

since I have never

seen the words

before.

My lecturer was

angry because we

kept silent when

we were asked to

discuss collocation.

They’re still

confusing.

Get bored of

studying the same

thing.

I didn’t come to

class as I had to go

home to Kaltim.

Codes PCK OP OP

7. Collocations and

compounds are

difficult to

differentiate.

I need more

exercise to make

me understand

collocations better.

The test given help

me understand

collocations.

Exercises really

help me understand

collocations and

make them familiar

I have understood

collocations and

not worry to use

them in

communication.

But, I want to

discuss different

topic.

I got new

vocabularies and

knowledge that not

all prepositions are

interchangeable in

collocations

Codes PCK OP OP FCK

8. I sometimes can’t

differentiate collocations from

compounds

I could do the test

well. I found some

questions difficult

since I have never

seen the words

before.

Some explanations

were not clear on

how to identify

collocations

I have enough

knowledge of

collocation

I still have similar

topic. I hope next

meeting we

discuss something

different

Codes PCK OP


83

9. I still have

difficulty writing

compounds

correctly (combine

the words,

separate, or put a

dash)

I’m happy, I

understand

collocation but still

confused diff coll

from compounds

I could do the test

well. I found some

questions difficult

since I have never

seen the words

before.

I feel happy. I

understand better

and better.

I understand better

because the

lecturer give us

examples.

I need a lot of

examples to make

me understand

better

I enjoy the class

because I have the

collocation

dictionary so I can

do the tasks easily

Codes PCK CCII LI PEE OP PEE

10. I learn collocation

and compound but

still confused. I

prefer individual

task so that I won’t

be sleepy.

I’m interested

with this class today, because we

did exercise so

there was no

sleepiness. I love

the assignment.

I found some

questions difficult.

I never met with

those collocations

because when I

only search for

the collocations on

the handout.

Every week I get

an enlightment

for collocations. I

love this subject.

The teaching-

learning process is

good.

If the lecturer give

us a quiz every

week, it will be

helpful. Doing a

quiz shows me how

far I understand

collocation.

I always love this

class. It will be

better if there is a

quiz in the

beginning of the

class so we can

restore our

memory.

Codes PCK PEE LI CCII PEE

11. It’s better if the

teacher give us

quiz to do to

improve our

knowledge

I understand what

collocation is

I know more about

collocations. It’s

complicated if we

have to check BNC

to get the correct

collocations

Today the

discussion is still

about collocation.

I got more

experience . it is

fun

Codes PCK CCII PEE

12. I haven’t

understood what

collocation is.

I understand better. I ‘m a bit confused

to identify

collocations.

I need a handout so

I won’t easily

forget the material.

Codes PCK CCII

13. I want to get good

mark so I try to

work hard (I got a

flu)

I can’t do some

questions. I thought

I have understood,

but I haven’t

I’m still confused.

Some combinations

look like

collocations but

they turn out to be

not

The more I learn

the more difficult it

is. But many

examples given are

helpful.

I understand

better, but the text

is more difficult to

understand

Codes PCK FCK


84

Appendix 3. Student’s first reflections

No.

of

stude

nts

What do

you feel of

the class?

How do

you

understand

the class

discussion/

the

material so

far?

What

has been

unclear

to you?

What do

you think

of the

technique

used in

class for

learning

collocations

; does it

help you to

learn

collocations

?

What do

you

disagree

with?

What

obstacles

do you still

have in

learning

collocation

s?

What do

you

conclude

from the

learning

experiences

?

How are the

learning

experiences

reflected in

other things

you read,

see, or do

outside the

class?

What

would you

like to do

as a result

of the

learning

experiences

?

What do

you

suggest for

improve-

ment?

Code PEE PCK PCK CCII OP CCII LI/LS

1. A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9 A10

2. B1 B2 A3 A4 A5 A6 B7 A8 B9 B10

3. C1 C2 B3 A4 A5 B6 A7 B8 A9 C10

4. A1 C2 B3 A4 A5 A6 C7 C8 C9 B10

5. A1 A2 A3 A4 B5 A6 D7 D8 D9 D10

6. A1 D2 C3 B4 B5 A6 E7 E8 D9 D10

7. D1 A2 C3 A4 B5 A6 E7 E8 E9 E10

8. E1 A2 C3 A4 B5 A6 E7 D8 D9 D10

9. A1 A2 D3 A4 A5 A6 F7 F8 E9 F10

10. A1 C2 D3 A4 A5 C6 G7 E8 E9 G10

11. B1 C2 A3 A4 A5 D6 H7 E8 F9 G10

12. A1 A2 A3 A4 B5 A6 F7 G8 E9 D10

13. A1 A2 A3 A4 C5 A6 A7 H8 D9 A10


85

The meaning of the codes

A1 = comfortable/good feeling A5 = nothing A8 = Improve vocabulary to write skripsi

B1 = fun B5 = monotonous materials B8 = to do exercise

C1 = hot C5 = class atmosphere C8 = know more about coll than others not take vocab class

D1 = free D8 = Learning corpus is useful; it’s used in another class

E1 = enthusiastic B6 = the materials bored me

C6 = memorizing A9 = useful in writing skripsi

A2 = understand adequately D6 = have to check the words in writing B9 = Writing skripsi about vocabulary learning

B2 = the class is interesting C9 = I know more about collocation

C2 = understand well A7 = Improve vocabulary by using it D9 = it helps me to write

D2 = understand partially B7 = vocabulary is difficult E9 = continue learning collocation

C7 = Do the exercise and look for other sources F9 = Always check the collocations in writing

A3 = how to form collocations D7 = Know what collocation is and how to use it

B3 = grammatical errors E7 = know about collocations more A10 = Collocation dictionary is important

C3 = how to use collocation in writing F7 = New friends, knowledge and experience B10 = Use LCD

D3 = everything is clear G7 = Learning vocabulary is interesting C10 = I hope I can improve my knowledge

H7 = collocation is useful D10 = Vary the material and select simple texts

A4 = yes E10 = Study more based on one’s weaknesses

B4 = good enough F10 = more examples

G10 = more exercises


86

Appendix 3. Student’s second reflection

What do

you feel

of the

whole

course of

the

vocabular

y class

you took

this

semester?

What do you

find

different on

the second

cycle from

the first

one?

So far, do

you

understand the class

discussion/t

he material

presented in

the

vocabulary

class well?

What is still

unclear to

you?

Do you

think the

technique

used in class

(Wordnet)

help you

learn

collocations

? How does

it help you

learn

collocation?

What do

you

disagree with the

technique

?

What

obstacles (hambatan)

do you still

have in

learning

collocations

?

What

benefits do

you get from

the

technique?

How are the

learning

experiences

you got in

the

vocabulary

class

reflected in

other things

you read,

see, or do

outside the

class?

What can

you

conclude about the

learning

experiences?

What do you

suggest for

improving

the

vocabulary

learning?

Code PEE FCK CCII OP CCII CCII CCII LS

1. 1a 2a 3a 4a 5a 6a 7a 8a 9a 10a

2. 1a 2b 3a 4a 5a 6b 7b 8b 9b 10a

3. 1a 2c 3b 4a 5b 6c 7a 8b 9c 10b

4. 1a 2c 3b 4a 5c 6a 7a 8c 9c 10c

5. 1a 2d 3c 4a 5d 6a 7b 8d 9d 10a

6. 1a 2b 3b 4a 5e 6d 7b 8e 9d 10d

7. 1a 2b 3a 4a 5f 6e 7a 8b 9c 10b

8. 1b 2c 3b 4a 5g 6e 7c 8f 9d 10d

9. la 2e 3a 4a 5a 6f 7b 8g 9a 10e

10. 1a 2e 3a 4a 5a 6g 7d 8b 9e 10f

11. 1a 2d 3a 4a 5a 6a 7a 8g 9f 10f

12. 1a 2d 3b 4a 5a 6a 7d 8h 9b 10a

13. 1a 2d 3b 4a 5a 6a 7a 8b 9b 10a


87

The meaning of the codes

1a = happy, enjoy, satisfied 6a = how to identify collocation 9a = Vocabulary is an important to improving the

English

1b = my vocabulary knowledge increases 6b = I can hardly imagine the new words I found 9b = I got much knowledge and can use it in my

life

6c = it makes me bored 9c = It helps me understand collocation easier

2a = I feel comfortable and understand

about the material

6d = memorizing patterns 9d = Get more information about collocation

2b = The second one is easier 6e = A lot of unknown collocation 9e = Collocation is useful to make good sentences

2c = more explanation 6f = To put collocations into sentences 9f = Nice and helpful

2d = Different topic and technique 6g = nothing

2e = Learn more focused on collocation 10a = I think I must always check the dictionary,

always read to find the new words

7a = I can understand about collocation, and how to use 10b = get other media

3a = yes 7b = enrich my vocabulary 10c = keep the spirit

2b = partially 7c = easier to get the material 10d = Provide more various material

3c = Recognizing collocations in a text

with many unfamiliar words

7d = can memorize collocation better 10e = no suggestion. It’s good.

10f = more exercise is better

4a = yes 8a = it can make me rich about my vocabulary and it is

important for me

8b = I can understand while reading

5a = nothing 8c = conventional class is boring

5b = can’t see my score 8d = Help me in writing and translation

5c = LCD is better 8e = I can share my opinion

5d = the material 8f = Help me in reading and writing

5e = sometimes I feel bored 8g = Use it in other lessons

5g = read and find collocation 8h = Help me in writing


88

APPENDIX 4. Interview Question Blueprint for Students

CONSTRUCT CATEGORY SUB CATEGORY INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Collocational

knowledge is

the way in

which words

co-occur in

natural text in

statistically

significant

ways

Collocation

notebook is

students’

notebook in

which they

record

collocations

together

with their

associated

information

Collocation

webs

Feeling Memory What do you remember about

the vocabulary class last

semester?

Likes or

dislike

Did you enjoy the vocabulary

class?

What made you enjoy it (or

not)?

Technique Did you enjoy the use of the

technique used in the

vocabulary class? Why?

Technique Feeling of

like or

dislike

What do you like about the

technique?

Information

organization

How did you organize the

information you recorded in

your vocabulary notebook?

Notebook

use

How did you use the notebook

to learn collocation?

Benefits Did the technique help you

learn vocabulary, and

collocation in particular?

Results What made you get higher/the

same/ lower result for the post

test do you think?

Effect Learning Does the technique change

your vocabulary learning

strategy?

Independ-

ence

Did the technique give you

other impacts in learning than

broader knowledge of

collocation? (Like to be more

independent, to be more aware

of new vocabulary)

Other

subjects

Does the technique give you

benefits in learning other

subjects?

What subjects are affected by

the way you learn collocation?


89

Appendix 5. Interview transcript

February 15, 2010

Setting: classroom

Atmosphere: semi formal

R: Researcher S1: Student 1

Interview Codes

R: What do you remember about the vocabulary class?

S1: Yes, of course I remember. (R: repeat the question). Learning collocation,

er…and then, sebentar buk tak inget2. The teacher, you, give me er… the

master of dictionary, and I learn about words,… and then, I think that… we

er…learn more about collocations, suffixes… affixes…

R: Did you enjoy the class?

S1: Yes. I enjoy the class.

PEE

R: What made you enjoy the class?

S1: You explained clearly and give assessment and… er…I enjoy about the

material.

R: What did you enjoy most from the class activity?

S1: about the assessment.

R: so, you enjoy the assessment?

S1: Yes. Because before you give me the material first so we can study before

we do the assessment.

R: so did you enjoy the use of the technique of word web at that time, in the

vocabulary class?

S1: Yes, about the technique? (pake bhs ind ya bu). Mungkin teknik yang itu

apa namanya (R: wordweb)…ya…terus yg kita suruh nyari collocation di teks

itu, found the collocation in the text.

PEE

R: but what I call technique here is the way you record the information in the

notebook,

S1: iya, itu yang buat bagan2. (R: yes.)

R: What made you enjoy the technique?

S1: We can learn about the vocabulary, is not only from find in the text or

what, but we can learn how to make… diajari ibu buat draft 2 itu, jadi

memudahkan. kayak diajari ibuk

CCII

R: how did you organize the information in the wordweb?

S1: looking in the dictionary. Looking for the part of speech, and then the

meaning, the phonetic.

R: so what do you have in the chart there, in the bagan…yang dituliskan apa

saja

S1: words, phonetic, part of speech, collocationnya dg apa (what does it

collocate with), trus meaning sama contoh kalimat.

CCII

R: When you study at home using the notebook, how do you use the notebook

to study?

S1: ya, dibaca …terus itu bu misalnya menemukan kata baru, itu yg

lebih….dicek di dictionary itu collocate dg apa…

R: kalo penggunaan notebooknya sendiri itu?


90

S1: dibaca.

R: Tidak dilakukan hal yang lain di notebook itu?

S1: ya kadang kalo menemukan kata...katanya itu nanti dicari lagi bercollocate

dg apa

R: so, did the technique help you learn the vocabulary…how did it help

you?

S1: yes…because in the draft there is the phonetic symbol, and the word

collocate with other words, so we can learn more with using the draft.

CCII

R: when you study vocabulary, did you read any text and then you record the

information in the notebook

S1: just text from you…

R: so what you did with the text from me

S1: read, and then looking for difficult words, and the new words and then…I

am looking for the collocation and then dictionary

LI

CCII

R: What about the collocation? So…you look for the collocation?

S1: I’m looking for the collocation and then I check in the dictionary, read the

er…apa…contoh kalimat yang ada di dictionary

R: so you learn more from dictionary than from your notebook?

S1: lebih dari dictionarynya

CCII

R: jadi waktu belajar itu jadi notebook digunakan utk apa?

S1: ya paling kalo ada tugas dari ibuk (only when I got assignment from

you) kalo ada...nyari kata2 yang ada di teks lewat itu dictionary

LI

R: terus, selanjutnya?

S1: itu dibaca

R: jadi di notebook itu sdh ada kata-kata collocation

R: but did you use the notebook to record new collocation you found from the

text

S1: yes. (So, you recorded there?)

R: What do you think made you get lower result for your post test?

S1: I think, mungkin itu…kata2nya lebih sulit

R: really? Because I had the same tests for pre test and post test. (S1:

maksudnya, bu?) Itu soal yang sama yg saya berikan utk pre tes dan post tes.

S1: oh…tapi hasilnya berbeda gitu ya? harusnya naik ya buk…

R: that’s what I expected, tapi the reality tells…

S1: mungkin kurang teliti... tapi maksudnya, padahal saya yakin, ibu kan

sdh memberi teks, terus says baca… misalkan …hardly imagine kayak gitu

OP

R: because it is decreasing, then I was so curious kira2 knp, that is why I want

to have an interview with you probably you have different knowledge or ideas

why it goes down

S1: Ya mungkin karena kurang teliti

R: Does the technique change your strategy in learning vocabulary?

S1: yes, learning collocation, especially.

R: do you still use the same strategy until now?

S1: yes, I still remember what you give.

LS

R: did you keep a notebook too for your…?

S1: yes, about the material and about the notebook.

R: I mean, do you have a notebook?

S1: No, but a notebook kayak gitu tidak, tapi di catetan

LS


91

R: did the technique give you other impacts in learning than broader

knowledge? Did it give other impacts?

S1: iya, terutama itu di itu buk, writing a thesis jg bisa membantu, itu

membantu terutama help me to write a sentence to make statement, to make

sentences in my thesis.

CCII

R: so far, how did you feel the impact in writing thesis? (S1: maksudnya)

When you write the thesis then what the ….impact give you?

S1: untuk meng-arrange the sentences (help me construct sentences), kan

kadang kita menemukan apa kayak collocation na kata ini tuh harus cocoknya

dg apa

CCII

R: did you still use the dictionary to check?

T jd belajarnya itu ya pake buku itu, ya pake dictionary yang ibu berikan

R: so did it give you more awareness of collocation? So, you become more

sensitive S1: ya

LS

R: for now, what do you do when you find new collocation

S1: check in the dictionary

R: in what way do you check the dictionary, for the meaning or…

S1: kata itu berkolokasi dg apa

R: I mean if you, let say read a book, check the book…do you now realize

when there are collocations?

S1: oh…sometimes. Not all.

R: When you find collocations from book…what do you do now?

S1: er…I think that I just read and if I know it is collocation…and perhaps I

check in the dictionary, but ya kalo tidak ya udah biarin aja gitu, misalkan gak

terlalu…kalo misalkan menemukan kata collocation kalo masih ingat, oh…tadi

itu collocation ya…tapi kalo misalkan nggak ya…diliat artinya apa.

R: but you didn’t try to record the information like what you did in …

S1: oh, no. tapi kalo misalnya butuh utk referensi saya ya…

LI/LS

R: you still do the record especially for, especially for important quote..

R: so what subjects are affected by the way you learn the collocation. Do you

still take subjects?

S1: No.

R: so the impact it gives is that when you write a sentence you will always try

to look for the dictionary?

S1: iya

LS

R: can you give me an example that you have in your writing thesis related to

collocation

S1: If I go to library and then I read a book…if I found reference, and then I

take reference to…as my references, and then… I just copied but I learn about

those words… which one is collocation

LS

R: how much do you aware that certain groups of word are collocations…

S1: 50 percent (R: of their occurrence?)Yes.

CCII

R: Now you do not always write it in a notebook?

S1: not always

LS

R: When you copy or..record beside the importance of the quotes or the

text,…you decide ok I will copy this on a piece of paper. Biasanya yang


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membuatmu memutuskan mau menuliskan sesuatu itu…ini harus saya

catat…gitu, apa?

S1: paling yang itu bu,..apa… teori2 itu. (R : berarti bukan karena menemukan

collocation) Tapi, cari teori dulu, nah baru setelah itu dibaca itu baru kita

menemukan collocation

R: setelah menemukan collocation itu, apa ada catatan lanjutan yang dibuat?

S1: gak selalu menemukan collocation, terus dicari

R: now, do you think that you already have improvement in writing the

thesis?

S1: yes.

CCII

R: Do you consult your thesis writing to your advisor? And, does he or she?

Do they (advisors) tell you that you already improved in terms of writing the

thesis?

S1: yes.

R: Do you think that it is because one way or another because you have learn

collocation?

S1: yes.

R: do you have any questions that you want to ask?

S1: No.


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Appendix 6. Interview script

March 3, 2010

Setting: classroom

Atmosphere: semi formal

R: Researcher S2: Student 2

Interview codes

R: I want to know first about your feeling. So, what do you remember about

the vocabulary class you got last semester?

S2: mmm…in the er…my vocabulary class I feel happy and relaxed er… more

than vocabulary di semester yg dulu saya pernah ambil… soalnya kayaknya

materinya jg beda. Kalo dulu kan… Kalo ibu kan collocation. Kalo itu kan

kayak verb… gitu2 lho jd kayak lebih bervariasi yg collocation, lbh menarik

gitu lho, kan kayak itu jg bisa mbantu saya bikin kalimat misal cocoknya

ini, ini, ini, jadi bisa diterapin gitu lho bu…

PEE

R: what did you enjoy most? Yg paling dinikmati ato disenangi dari proses

belajar itu bagian apanya?

S2: eh…kalo lg diskusi di kelas. Itu enak gitu lho, kalo mau ngomong apa,

juga nggak ada gimana, mungkin krn ngripit, kayak lbh gimana gitu lho. Kalo

dulu kan msh pertama, mungkin msh malu, po piye.

PEE

R: ada yg tdk disukai dr proses itu?

S2: kalo suruh nyari collocation yang banyak itu bu. Berapa puluh…itu

suka… duh…males.

OP

R: malesnya itu lbh krn apa?

S2: Karena, yo kan dulu itu saya belum bawa laptop, jadi kan kadang itu

pinjem punya Novi ato ke warnet itu kan yo lama… gitu2 lho buk. Tp kalo dah

punya itunya sih yo gampang. Soale saya kan gak bawa komputer.

R: did you enjoy the technique? Yg membuat wordnet itu?

S2: itu enak kalo menurut saya, jd kita tu tau kalimat ini ini ini, gitu. Kan

sebelumnya mungkin gak tau pasnya ini...ini...tapi bagus kok, jd enak gitu lho.

Jd kalo bkin kalimt

CCII

R: yg berbeda dari sebelumnya, dari teknik di vocab sebelumnya?

S2: Kalo...yo sama sih, ngasih tugas, ngasih kayak gitu-gitu, sama, Cuma

mungkin suasanannya aja yg beda.

R: dari temen2nya kah? Ato...

S2: kalo tmn2 nya dulu tu banyak yg repeater jd banyak banget tu lho, kalo

kita kan dikit, jd enak gitu lho, kalo kelas sedikit tu enak.

PEE

R: Now, er…what do you think about the technique itself? Kalo tekniknya

sendiri menurutmu apa sudah sesuai ato kurang sesuai utk mempelajari

collocation?

S2: yo sesuai sih kalo ada dukungan itunya lho, kalo itu kan hrs diinstal to bu,

kadang kan yo gak semuanya, kayak saya dulu kan gak ada alatnya

R: Sekarang sudah ada laptop? Dulu belum ada?

S2: belum bawa

R: sesudah menginstal dictionary, kmd ada teknik wordweb itu, utk belajar

vocab bagaimana?

S2: yo bisa nggunain itu (I can make use of it), kadang kalo mbukak itu

mbukak Cambridge juga

CCII


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R: so how do you organize the information you recorded in your vocabulary

notebook…di buku tulisnya kan ada word web…itu caramu mengatur

wordweb…kan itu ada teks, ada wordweb…apakah hanya seperti yg saya

terangkan di kelas jadi misalnya…di setiap chartnya ato kotak2nya itu,

misalnya kita menemukan kata benda kmd diberi plus kata kerjanya apa

S2: he, agak lupa e…carane bikin…ya kayak gitu2 jg, tp ibu jg akhirnya kan

bilang kalo ini kan gak cocok jg sama ini eh gak hanya cocok sama ini to, ya

dikasih gitu2 jg.

R: jd itu berkembang setiap minggunya (does it develop each week)?

S2: he eh, iya

CCII

R: how did you use the book to learn collocation…notebook itu kau gunakan

utk apa?

S2: kalo bkin kalimat itu kadang yo sering buka itu buat ngecek2 gitu kan itu

sudah banyak contoh2nya, kayak gitu

CCII

R: apakah hanya digunakan selama menghadapi kegiatan yg ada hubnya dg

vocabulary, ato jg utk mata kuliah yang lain?

S2: yo kadang…misale structure kan kadang cari contoh2 dari situ kan

tinggal di, misale kalo kita belajar kan gak Cuma dari situ, kadang kita nyari2

sendiri…kan tekse itu banyak jadi cari2 dari situ

CCII

R: tapi lbh banyak mana yg digunakan, notebooknya yg berisi wordnet ato

kamus ato?

S2: kalo saya sih lebih banyak kamus collocationnya

R: jd seberapa membantu utk wordweb itu terhadap pembelajaran?

S2: yo sangat membantu, kan kalo kamus kan harus diituin lagi jg ke wordweb.

kan saya agak lama gitu kalo ngapalin vocab.

R: What made you get higher result for the post test do you think? Menurutmu

peningkatan itu terjadi karena apa

SS2: mungkin krn terbiasa ngerjain tugas, Otomatis kita kan mbaca

CCII

R: Now, talking about other effect, does the technique change your vocabulary

learning strategy?

S2: mm, iya…kalo dulu kan kalo saya ngapalin vocab cuma saya baca. Kalo

sekarang bisa dikembangin (I can develop it), jadi dengan adanya itu saya

bikin wordnet saya bikin kalimat ato apa

CCII

R: Bentuknya gimana kalo belajar vocab, setelah mengenal teknik itu

S2: yo dibikin itu, kadang2 buk, kayak gitu

R: did the technique give you other impacts in learning? Selain pengetahuan

ttg collocation yang meningkat, Misalnya membuatmu lebih mandiri dalam

belajar vocab ato membuatmu lebih curious kalo ada kata baru…lebih…

S2: iya kayak gitu. Jadi kadang kalo ada kata baru,… kan buat nambah

pengetahuan

R: apakah kau msh menggunakan buku, semacam spt yang kita punya di kelas

vocab ato sekedar menuliskannya misalnya di sembarang kertas

S2: kadang yo sembarang kertas (any piece of paper) sih, gak di buku…o, ya

kan pernah nulis

LS

R: does the technique give you benefits in learning other subjects?

S2: iya, kan jg bisa dipake ngerjain tugas yang lain (I used it when I did

assignment from other subjects). (Misalnya tugas apa?) Kalo structure kan

butuh kalimat banyak to. Kalo translation kan yo biasa mbukak2…kan ada

artinya

CCII

R: selain itu, selain translation dan structure? Bagaimana dengan Writing?


95

S2: o, iya…. Misale mo bikin apa…mengurangi kesalahan lah

R: so, apa impact terbesar dari mempelajari collocation dg technique itu?

S2: vocabnya jd tambah (I developed my vocabulary)

CCII

R: Ada secara khusus…pengaruh thd pembelajaran collocation. misal menjadi

sangat aware. Jadi begitu melihat collocation langsung “thing” ini collocation.

S2: ya nggak kayak gitu lah, nggak segitunya, ya dicari dulu,…tapi yang

kayak…oh…misalnya…masih agak keinget

R: menurutmu apakah technique itu baik utk di…. Saya sebagai guru untuk

saya terapkan terus di kelas vocabulary?

S2: bagus itu, buk…


96

Appendix 7. A sample of a student’s collocation cluster


97

continuation


98

Appendix 8. Teacher’s journal

October 06, 2009

Students obviously had difficulty doing the test. They needed more

time than I expected, around 30 minutes.

October 22, 2009

To understand Ss’ difficulty, I asked some questions to the Ss. One

came up with “It’s difficult to memorize the words”. And to answer

my next question on how I can help them, some stated “give us a lot of

samples and assignment.”

PCK

November 17, 2009

They looked more confident in doing the task and had more

enthusiasm.

PEE

December 1, 2009

T found that only one students wrote her reflection that the T assigned

them to do at home last week Ss seemed not to be ready yet to

work independently.

T found some Ss didn’t do as they should (two Ss didn’t do the

assignments in her notebook) so the notebook was barely used to record

the class activities and tasks. One S didn’t bring the notebook to the

class.

LI

December 15, 2009

I asked whether Ss already had a copy of Oxford collocation dictionary.

I actually offered them to borrow from the other class or from me but

no one has got it, let alone installed it. (T tried to figure out what

made Ss so indifferent or lazy not to get one. One reason: “We don’t

know any of the Ss in the other class, ma’am.”). It was silly reason

since they had the second choice to borrow it from me.

LI

December 22, 2009

T checked Ss’ notebooks for the homework on the wordnet

T gave comments and suggestions on how Ss can improve it (some

made it in the form of list NOT word net)

T asked Ss what problems they still had in learning collocations

T showed Ss how to develop a wordnet into a linked wordnet

T gave Ss new text, but T had to show them the collocations since they

didn’t bring the dictionary.

T gave them exercise. Ss succeeded doing the exercise (no 2-9).

T supervised Ss doing their reflection. T assigned Ss the rest of the text

to be identified and record the information in the wordnets.

LI


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Appendix 9. A sample of Input text (1)

Five Ways to Hold on to Permanent

Memory

Many people confuse long-term memory with events that happened a long time ago. That may or may not be so. Long-term memory holds data that were learned 30 years ago as well as material learned 30 minutes ago. In recent years, the term long-term memory has been replaced with permanent memory. This is more accurate. Its basic difference from short-term memory is that it is permanent. It holds items as varied as the following:

Your birthday What a now-deceased relative looked like Which keys on your ring fit which locks How to operate your microwave oven Your spouse’s new phone number at work

Permanent memory refers to any data that are no longer in conscious thought or short-term active memory but are stored for future retrieval or recollection. Memory can be thought of as learning and storing information so that it can be retrieved in the future. Short-term memory is like the in-basket on an office desk. Permanent memory is like the file cabinets lining the wall. The in-basket has a limited capacity. It can hold only so much and then the contents are dumped to make room for more. Some of it is discarded. Nothing goes into the file cabinet until it has been sorted in the in-basket. Our permanent memories are virtually limitless - although some of the file cabinets are hard to reach. “What Can I Do to Hold onto Important Items in My Permanent Memory?” There are five ways you can keep from forgetting what you have stored:

1. Use it or lose it. Memories leave a trace in the brain that gradually fades with time. The basis of forgetting is disuse. You can combat this by repeating, rehearsing, using, or practicing what it is you want to remember.

2. Maintain interest. People with excellent memories have varied interests. There is a

natural tendency to remember what we are interested in. We remember what we want to remember. Make the material more interesting or of greater value to you and your recollection of it will soar.

3. Make it meaningful. If it doesn’t make sense it will be hard to learn. If it has meaning

for you it will be easier to learn. When material has no real meaning for you, you learn it by “rote.” Rote memory is tedious, like learning the multiplication tables in school.

4. Think around it. You know that word or name is stored in your permanent memory,

but you’re having trouble pulling it out. You can’t recall the name of the female lead in a motion picture you enjoyed last year. The technique entails thinking of everything you can that might be associated in any way with the actress’s name: her costar, the film’s title, whom you saw him/her with, the theater, the story line, the character’s name, her face, other films with the actress, and so on. It’s similar to the steps you would take to find your eyeglasses when they are misplaced. We sometimes call this verbal elaboration.


100

5. Relax and take a deep breath. Any kind of stressful situation can interfere with memory. The antidote is to relax. That’s why minutes after a student turns in an exam paper the difficult answers occur to him. The stress ended and the memory returned. People speaking in public think of great points to make - after the speech is over and they are seated. Taking a deep breath, relaxing the skeletal system, and closing your eyes can all help in retrieving the information you know is there.

The Sharper Mind – FRED B. CHERNOW © 1997 by Prentice Hall, Inc.


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Appendix 10. Pre and post test

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

YOGYAKARTA STATE UNIVERSITY

VOCABULARY – FINAL EXAMINATION

60 MINUTES (Post test) January 13, 2010

Student No.: Name:

(Pre- and Post-test questions)

Choose the best answer to form word collocations by crossing (X) one of the options

provided.

1. She has …………..memory for number; she can remember all her friends’ numbers.

A. powerful C. excellent

B. clean D. strong

2. I …..an interesting point in your speech.

A. look C. watch

B. see D. pay attention

3. The students have to ……….the final exam tomorrow.

A. attend C. take

B. conduct D. write

4. Children improve their skills to face their lives.……… time.

A. in C. by

B. at D. over

5. Rote ……….is tedious, like learning the multiplication tables in school.

A. learning C. memorization

B. thinking D. studying

6. There is ………difference between home computer and laptop.

A. minor C. inessential

B. little D. mini

7. His job is repetitive, it does not require much conscious…………….

A. action C. idea

B. thought D. decision

8. The interviewers in the job fair enquire detailed……………..about the job seeker’s

background.

A. question C. information

B. story D. fact

9. The burglar …………….no trace of having been breaking into the house.

A. left C. went


102

B. abandoned D. deserted

10. There is a growing tendency………women to marry later.

A. to C. at

B. for D. from

11. People often can not grasp the ………meaning of his words.

A. true C. realistic

B. actual D. concrete

12. I could ……….imagine living in such a remote and unpleasant place.

A. sadly C. only

B. merely D. hardly

13. His reason for his resignation was ………….understood.

A. entirely C. absolutely

B. fully D. comprehensively

14. These actions only have meaning within certain ………… context.

A. peculiar C. special

B. individual D. specific

15. The government should take ………. steps to reconstruct the economy.

A. practical C. wise

B. rational D. realistic

16. Although some ……..knowledge of programming and/or statistics is an advantage, it is

not a prerequisite for the course.

A. ante C. before

B. early D. prior

17. The entrance test is designed to help each applicant to make an informed ………

before applying for a particular study program.

A. decision C. investigation

B. determination D. conclusion

18. When it comes to …….. of prey the tiger, like many predators, is an opportunist.

A. choose C. choice

B. eat D. option

19. If there is a single …….. concept in the idea of higher education, it is criticism.

A. urgent C. substantial

B. chief D. key

20. It is important to determine, by a pre-test, the students' ……………..knowledge.

A. beginning C. before


103

B. prior D. primary

21. Paradoxically, the manner in which a given biographical narrative chooses to be false

determines the extent to which it can …….. claim to truth.

A. make C. arrange

B. propose D. expect

22. By establishing formal links with the universities, and international specialists,

researchers hope to redress……….

A. the harmony C. the equality

B. the justice D. the balance

23. In any surveying practice, labour is the key issue …….. and since it is an expensive

commodity it must be used to the highest level of productivity.

A. occurring C. happening

B. arising D. emerging

24. Short walks ………. the countryside lead into tranquil surroundings.

A. at C. to

B. in D. into

25. Understanding general differences between spelling and speaking may help you to

improve your own spelling, and may make it more interesting to focus………spelling

as an issue in your writing.

A. at C. in

B. to D. on

26. There does seem to be …………agreement amongst teachers that the school

curriculum should be broad and balanced for all pupils.

A. general C. public

B. common D. wide

27. We find that the fainter a star looks to us the farther away the ………….of galaxies

must be.

A. cluster C. batch

B. collection D. kaleidoscope

28. It is suggested that the funding authorities should ………consideration for the

fundamental purposes underlying Ph.D. research and to output measures of the value

of such work to the community.

A. provide C. have

B. do D. take


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29. Animals are superbly aware of the way a mind is reflected ….. body posture and there

is no way that a hunter could have concealed his alertness and readiness for attack,

whatever disguise he adopted.

A. in C. by

B. at D. from

30. A teacher cannot hope to function as a normal communicative support system in most

………….interaction since it is a one-to-many rather than a one-to-one situation.

A. teaching C. teacher

B. school D. classroom


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PRE AND POST TEST SCORES

Students Pretest score Posttest score Scores difference

1 14 19 8 ↑ 5

2 18 14 8.5 ↓ 4

3 18 16 5.5 ↓ 2

4 17 16 5.5 ↓ 1

5 17 17 8 ↔

6 12 16 7 ↑ 4

7 15 17 9 ↑ 2

8 16 18 12.5 ↑ 3

9 16 19 6 ↑ 3

10 14 18 10 ↑ 4

11 15 22 14 ↑ 7

12 11 17 9 ↑ 6

13 7 16 5 ↑ 9

205 259

14.64 18.5


collocation clusters to help the students of english

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