THANH HOA HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF COLLOCATION AND COLLOCATION TEACHING

Abstract

The present study makes investigations into Thanh Hoa high school teachers’ perceptions of collocation and collocation teaching. The teachers’ understandings about collocation were examined through the way they perceived its definition, its categorizations, and how it differs from other word combinations. Regarding the perceptions of collocation teaching, the rank of collocation among aspects of a vocabulary item, the impacts of collocation on language acquisition and the effective methods of teaching collocations were explored through the lens of the teachers. The study employed a case study approach to provide an in-depth analysis of teachers’ perceptions of collocation and collocation teaching. Data sources included survey questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. As the main source of information, data from the questionnaire were analyzed statistically, while data from the interviews were integrated accordingly to give insights into the matters of research. The findings of the study reveal that high school teachers of English in Thanh Hoa city had insufficient understandings about the nature of collocation. Besides, although they showed great acknowledgement about the integral role of collocations in students’ language development, the teachers still paid inadequate attention to collocation teaching. Therefore, there is an ultimate need for a professional training program to first orientate the teachers to adopt more accurate views about collocations and later provide them with methods to integrate collocation teaching into their lessons.