The Production Of Collocation At The Advanced Level And Some Implications For EFL Teaching

That collocations are an important part of native speaker competence, and that they therefore should be included in EFL teaching is widely acknowledged today. Collocations are not only of particular importance for learners striving for a higher degree of competence, but also of some importance for learners with less ambitious aspirations, as they not only enhance accuracy but also fluency.Owing to the nature of collocations, comprehension is normally unproblematic for learners. Therefore, identifying the problems of learners must mean analyzing their production of collocations.The present thesis attempts to discuss some of the problems of advanced learners of English in the production of collocations. It reports on a study of collocations produced by third and fourth year non-English majors at Shanghai University. The purpose is to examine whether these students are aware of the prefabricated chunks in language and their ability to produce them. The result indicates that mistakes are often involved in production. What is more, learners'first language has certain impact on the production of collocations. Therefore, some implications for the teaching of collocations are suggested in this thesis. Firstly, it is essential to raise students'consciousness of collocation. Secondly, it is the teacher's task to select suitable authentic texts for EFL learners from the viewpoint of gaining appropriate collocations. Thirdly, teachers play a key role in helping learners to minimize collocational errors.