Minding the Gap in Vocabulary Knowledge: Incidental Focus on Collocation through Reading

Abstract

The present study seeks to contribute to our knowledge of the effectiveness of reading in the incidental learning of collocations. The study also addresses the question whether out-of-class exposure such as watching TV, listening to radio or music, reading English books and using social media plays a significant role in the learning of collocations. The research participants were 46 Arabic-speaking young adult EFL learners. They were asked to read a modified text containing 10 pseudo-word collocations and to verify that all were unfamiliar to them. One week later, they read a text containing the actual 21 target collocations, which had been selected on the basis of appearing in instructional materials and a reference corpus, as well as of frequency. Participants were then asked to complete a meaning-recall cloze test in the form of a gap-filling task in which the 21 target collocations were embedded in sentences. Subsequently they were administered a self-report survey about any incidental exposure to English. The analysis of the quantitative results revealed that the target collocations can be learned incidentally through reading although the level of mastery was limited. The survey data showed a positive correlation between the learners' knowledge of collocations and activities such as watching TV, listening to radio and reading English books. The study also confirmed that collocations are particularly difficult for adult EFL learners and is thus an aspect of vocabulary knowledge in need of further empirical investigations.

The Learner’ Levels of Collocation Knowledge and Idiomatic Expressions: Exploring the Relationship of Acquisition of Two Items of Phraseology

“…Clearly in the current study, the presence of context was advantageous and able to strengthen the interpretation of the figurative collocations and led to overly impressive amount of learning, hence showed evidence of incidental collocation learning while reading. The results are in line with recent similar studies on the learning of collocation in classroom settings (Alharthi, 2018;Boers et al, 2014;Durrant & Schmitt, 2010;Sonbul and Schmitt, 2013).…”

“…In the absence of intentional treatments, particularly in the context of EFL, it is observed that incidental learning of collocation might be most effective. Focusing on implicit collocation learning, Alharthi (2018) examined the degree of EFL learners' productive task of verb-noun combinations at three word frequency bands affected their knowledge of collocations while reading. The results showed that incidental learning of collocation suited to promote the development of productive knowledge and that the frequency of occurrence is more effective at fostering such development.…”

“…It would appear good news; therefore, that formulaic sequences help learners to improve their language proficiency (Keshavarz & Salimi, 2007;Hsu and Chiu, 2008). Moreover, the knowledge of formulaic sequences fosters reading (Alharthi, 2018;Pellicer-Sánchez, 2015); oral fluency (Wood, 2006). On a negative note, nevertheless L2 learners struggle with formulaic sequences for production and comprehension standpoints.…”

Relationship between Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary Knowledge in English Authentic Text among Afghan English as Foreign Language Learners

“…Similarly, plenty of other research have found that language learners improve their vocabulary knowledge by accident as a result of intensive reading. This is backed by [5], who conducted a research at Saudi Arabia's King Abdulaziz University to see if students may learn collocations by being exposed to target text repeatedly. The quantitative study revealed the chosen respondents memorize the collocations by reading extensively.…”

Investigating the Relationship Between Vocabulary Knowledge and FL Speaking Performance

“…The commonsense view of vocabulary assessment is to address this knowledge in the four separate skills, i.e., reading and listening (receptive skills) and writing and speaking (productive skills) (Fitzpatrick & Clenton, 2017). Many L2 vocabulary researchers have highlighted the potential relationship between vocabulary knowledge and the ability to read, write and listen in the target language (e.g., Alharthi, 2018Alharthi, , 2019Laufer & Aviad-Levitzky, 2017;Staehr, 2009;Wang & Treffers-Daller, 2017). With the exception of De Jong, Steinel, Florijn, Schoonen, and Hulstijn (2012), Koizumi and In'nami (2013), Milton, Wade, and Hopkins (2010) and Uchihara and Clenton (2018), it is almost certain that no study has attempted to examine the association between vocabulary knowledge and ability to speak in a Saudi setting.…”