The Lexical Approach

Collocation involves knowing which words typically co-occur in fluent, native-like language. Studies across several settings have shown that collocation skills lag behind other aspects of second language learning. The present study looks at collocation skills in a linguistically diverse immigrant high school population in the USA, correlating scores on a collocation test (based on Bonk, 2000) with length of residence in the USA. The correlation was moderate for the group as a whole, but close to zero for the 19 36 month residence bracket. The second half of the study compares the collocation skills and the approaches to collocation of Russianand Spanish-speaking students. Although they did not differ in overall level of performance, there was evidence of different approaches by the two language groups to collocation.

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