Past Event! Note: this event has already taken place.
Speaker Series: Dr. Stuart Webb
February 1, 2012
| Location: | 234 Paterson Hall |
| Cost: | Free |
| Audience: | null |
Research on the Learning of Collocation
Dr. Stuart Webb [Link removed 29 April, 2015]
Senior Lecturer, School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
(Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand)
This study investigated the effects of repetition on the learning of collocation. Taiwanese university students learning English as a foreign language read while listening to one of four versions of a modified graded reader that included different numbers of encounters (1, 5, 10, and 15 encounters) with a set of 18 target collocations. A surprise vocabulary test that was made up of four tests measuring receptive and productive knowledge of the form of the collocations and receptive and productive knowledge of the meaning of the collocations was administered after the treatments. The results showed that (a) collocations can be learned incidentally through reading while listening to a graded reader, and (b) repetition has an effect on the extent of learning. If learners encounter collocations 15 times within a graded reader, sizeable learning gains may occur.
Issues related to researching collocation will be discussed.
Stuart Webb is the MA programme director at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and a senior lecturer in Applied Linguistics. His research interests include vocabulary acquisition, extensive reading, and extensive listening. His most recent work has focused on teaching and learning collocation, and the lexical demands of television programs and movies. He is co-author, with I. S. P. Nation, of Researching and Analyzing Vocabulary, published in 2011 by Heinle.