Online Verb-Noun Collocation Instruction with the Support of a Bilingual Concordancer

Studies on language learning have revealed that collocation knowledge is an important indicator for advanced second language competence. Native speakers' production relies heavily on prefabricated or pre-made chunks such as collocations, which save processing load to achieve language fluency and accuracy. Previous investigation on ESL and EFL students indicated that nonnative learners' collocation competence lags behind the level expected; among various collocation types, verb-noun (V-N) collocation has been found to be more difficult for learners. Various collocation instruction programs have been conducted to improve EFL learners' collocation use and have gain positive effects. Recently, some collocation instructional programs were carried out by teachers' guidance through concordancing (automatic display of key words in context); such a method has been claimed to be beneficial for providing ample collocation use in concordances, which learners can read and induce patterns from by themselves. The current study examines the effects of web-based bilingual concordancers with six practice units (TOTALrecall and Tango, developed in CANDLE project). Two teaching approaches, inductive and deductive teaching methods, and different collocation types were taken into consideration. 74 senior high students participated in the study. The effects of online materials on learners’ performance at different vocabulary levels, their collocation performance, and their perception of computer-assisted collocation learning were explored by a vocabulary test, a posttest on collocation, and an evaluation questionnaire. It was found that learners of different vocabulary levels performed significantly differently both before and after the treatment period with mostly satisfaction about the online materials. Those who liked the concordancer seemed performed better. Implications are suggested.