Editorial
This article first appeared in Modern English Teacher , Volume 21/1, January 2012

Playing with Collocation

Simon Mumford, Turkey

Simon Mumford teaches EAP at Izmir University of Economics, Turkey. He has written on using stories, visuals, drilling, reading aloud, and is especially interested in the creative teaching of grammar. E-mail: simon.mumford@ieu.edu.tr

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Collocation bingo
Collocation drill
Catchy collocations
Collocation grid
Collocation story
Collocation maze
Remembering collocation
Collocation mnemonic
Find the collocation
How well do you know a word?
Conclusion
Reference

Collocation has become recognised as being an important aspect of word knowledge. This new corpus-based knowledge is now available in specialist dictionaries, such as the Macmillan Collocation Dictionary (MCD), designed as a reference for higher level students. However, such reference works also have potential as a source of inspiration for teaching activities, because the tendencies of words can be exploited to create innovative classroom activities.

Collocation bingo

Stage 1
Choose two words to compare. It’s easier if you choose them from the same page of a collocation dictionary, eg check and charity. Write the words on the board. Put the class in two teams, and assign one word for each team, ie one is check and the other charity. Call out the collocations (shown in the table) and ask each team to ‘claim’ a word if they think it collocates with their word, i.e. they put their hands up. Give one point for each correct ‘claim’ and take one off for each incorrect one. The team with the most correct ‘claims’ at the end is the winner. Note that run and health are collocates for both words.

Stage 2
Based on the table below, call out pairs of words, some of which are collocations (carry out a check, set up a charity), and some of which do not (*annual charity, *go to a check). Students should repeat only the actual collocations, and those who repeat non-collocations are out. Do the drill quickly and continue until only a few are left in.

Collocation drill

Stage 1
The following are all collocations of the word low. Say each collocation in a way that shows its meaning, e.g. neutral for slightly low, in a disappointed way for disappointingly low, in a casual way for pretty low, with laughter for ridiculously low, with irritation for unacceptably low, and surprise for incredibly and remarkaby low, and with alarm for dangerously low.

• slightly
• quite
• fairly
• relatively
• pretty (informal)
• remarkably
• disappointingly
• extremely
• incredibly
• unacceptably
• unusually
• ridiculously
• dangerously

Stage 2 Say some sentences in a neutral way and ask students to repeat them with the appropriate intonation. Examples from MCD are:

Catchy collocations

It has been suggested that collocations are easier to remember when they have sound similarities, e.g. no pain, no gain; bed and board; family and friends. This activity looks at a number of different sound similarities.

Assimilation (final and initial sound the same)

• annual leave
• leadership position
• whole lifetime
• traditional lifestyle

Alliteration (same initial sounds)

Rhyme (same final sound)

• bright light
• bad mood
• present moment
• hold the lead

Internal rhyme (same vowel sound)

• mass panic
• grossly overweight
• sole owner
• driving licence

Explain the collocations and practise them. Then, make up catchy combinations, practise them, and ask students to do the same.

Some examples:

• National newspapers are increasingly intolerable.
• A leadership position is perfectly possible.
• He was in a bad mood during his annual leave.
• There’s mass panic at the present moment.
• He was grossly overweight his whole lifetime.

Collocation grid

Students have to place the words naked, optimistic, peaceful, polite, skilled and fragile in the grid as follows: the words must form collocations with the words at the beginning and end of each column and row. Words at the top and to the left go before the word, and words at the bottom and to the right come after. In the example given, skilled, the two collocations are highly skilled labour and suitably skilled personnel. Clues to shared collocations can be found by looking for words with related meanings, for example, ambition and greed, and state and conditions.

solution

Collocation story

Ask students to put the parts of the story in the correct order. The lines are broken at the collocations, so, except for the first and last lines, the first (main) word of each line collocates with the last (main) word of the previous line. Therefore, the collocations are the clue to ordering the story.

1. distraction, I left it on the train. When I got home, I realised my position was
2. information it contained. I decided to fabricate
3. a story, and say I was robbed on the train. I know this can be considered
4. immoral, but, I didn’t want to risk losing my job by admitting
5. my guilt. My boss demanded the Police carry out
6. my secret to anyone.
7. material, and I decided to take it home. Because of a momentary
8. an inquiry, but the documents were never found. To this day, people never
9. serious, because of the confidential
10. About five years ago I was working with some sensitive
11. suspected that I lost the documents, and until now I have never disclosed

Solution (with collocations underlined)

About five years ago I was working with some sensitive (j)
material, and I decided to take it home. Because of a momentary (g)
distraction, I left it on the train. When I got home, I realised my position was (a)
serious, because of the confidential (i)
information it contained. I decided to fabricate (b)
a story, and say I was robbed on the train. I know this can be considered (c)
immoral, but, I didn’t want to risk losing my job by admitting (d)
my guilt. My boss demanded the Police carry out (e)
an inquiry, but the documents were never found. To this day, people never (h)
suspected that I lost the documents, and until now I have never disclosed (k)
my secret to anyone.(f)

Collocation maze

Ask students to go round the maze as follows: in each move, the word in the old square must form a collocation with the word in the new square. Move one square at a time, up or down of left and right. Start at S and finish at F. The arrows show the solution.

Collocations: major change / change career / career plan / plan a jouırney / safe journey / safe and easy / looks easy / looks strange

Remembering collocation

Write the following sentence on the board, explaining unknown any vocabulary.

Good senior managers are truely impartial, and deal effectively with deliberate misconduct to protect the good reputation of the company.

Tell the students that this sentence is much easier to remember if it is broken down into groups of words, rather than seen as a string of individual words. The collocations are shown in green, and others in yellow.

Good senior managers are truely impartial, and deal effectively with deliberate misconduct to protect the good reputation of the company. Colour code the sentence as above and drill it, pausing after each collocation. Now erase the collocations, leaving the first letters as reminders, as shown below. Ask students to remember the sentence.

G S M are T I, and D E W D M to P t G R of the company.

Then delete the words between the collocations, replacing each with a line, as below:

Next, just leave the first letter of each collocation, with a line for each word, and see how much students can remember.

Finally erase these letters, and ask students to help each other remember the whole sentence, based only on the lines and colour.

_ _ _ - _ _, - _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ - - -.

This exercise should show that thinking in chunks rather than words aids memory, and use of colour should help students to visualise the collocations.

Collocation mnemonic

In this acrostic, the first letter of each word spells another word which collocates with all of the words. To make the words fit, one verb is introduced with to, and one synonym is introduced with and. However, the order has been mixed up. To find the word (in this case, maintenance), students have to put the first letters in the correct order. This is quite challenging, so help the students as follows: choose a collocation that is cross referenced with maintenance in the collocation dictionary, minimal. Read out some the collocations for minimal from the dictionary (amount, number, damage, disruption, disturbance, change, impact, effort, intervention, involvement, maintenance, supervision, training) and ask students to identify the one that can be made with the bold letters below. Finally, rewrite the words in the correct order, for students to use as a mnemonic for maintenance and its collocates.

Improve
Constant
Need
Neglect
To undertake
Minimal
Necessary
Essential
Annual
Ensure
And upkeep

Solution
Minimal, Annual, Improve, Need, (to) undertake, Essential, Necessary, (and) upkeep, Neglect, Constant, Ensure

Find the collocation

Ask students to find the word which collocates with all the others in each list. Answers are underlined.

1. balance, cost, repay, loan, amply
2. heavy, showers, drinking, very, pretty
3. false, married, pen, name, change
4. invite, warmly, papers, offers, officially
5. key, narrow, sharpen, work, focus
6. share, obsession, become, unhealthy, growing
7. pass, accept, motion, debate, table

Next, give the lists with the answers removed, and ask students to remember the word that each group collocates with.

1. balance, cost, loan, amply
2. showers, drinking, very, pretty
3. false, married, pen, change
4. warmly, papers, offers, officially
5. key, narrow, sharpen, work,
6. share, become, unhealthy, growing
7. pass, accept, debate, table

Finally, give the words alone and ask students to remember the collocates for each word.

repay, heavy, name, invite, focus, obsession, motion

How well do you know a word?

Draw the table on the board. Point out that students need all this information, and that to use a word correctly (as opposed to passive recognition), knowledge of collocations is important, hence its high percentage. Prepare some cards like the above, but with different words, and pass them around the class. Collect back the cards and then ask individual students how well they each know a word (e.g. 30%, 70%, 100%). Ask students to justify their level by providing the required information, as in the dialogue below. Give out the cards again and let them test each other.

A. How well do you know effect?
B. 100%
A. Spell it.
B. E-F-F-E-C-T
A. What class of word is it?
B. Noun.
A. Can you pronounce it?
B. Effect.
A. What are some synonyms?
B. Influence, result.
A. Collocations?
B. Cause, negative, produce.
A. Well done! 100%

Conclusion

It is being increasingly recognised that knowing the meaning of a word is not enough, and that understanding collocation is important for helping students to use words effectively. A collocation dictionary is a therefore useful tool for students. However, many students may never own or even consult a collocation dictionary. One way of introducing collocations to students at higher levels is through class activities based on corpus information. Therefore, a collocation dictionary will be a valuable resource for language teachers working with students at higher levels.

Reference

Macmillan Collocation Dictionary (2010)

Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Methodology & Language for Secondary Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Teaching Advanced Students course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the English Language Improvement for Teachers course at Pilgrims website.