Exercises on collocations: a comparison of trial-and-error and exemplar-guided procedures

A growing body of evidence suggests that second or foreign language learners stand a lot to gain from mastering a variety of multiword units, such as idiomatic expressions and collocations. Although most of the research on this formulaic dimension of language and its relevance for language learners has so far dealt with English, there are solid grounds for believing that formulaicity is part and parcel of natural languages in general, and that pedagogues should therefore give due attention to multiword units also in other target languages than English, such as Spanish. Contemporary textbooks for language learning have started to include a focus on lexical phrases generally and on collocations in particular, albeit mostly through decontextualized exercises where learners are required in one way or another to match words that form partnerships. Often, these exercises do not first provide the learners with exemplars of the correct, intact target collocations that are to be assembled in the exercises. Instead...

[1]  Meesha Warmington,et al.  Improving word learning in children using an errorless technique. , 2013, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[2]  Rosalind Potts,et al.  The benefit of generating errors during learning. , 2014, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[3]  J. Newton,et al.  Incidental learning of collocation , 2013 .

[4]  N. Schmitt.  Review article: Instructed second language vocabulary learning , 2008 .

[5]  A. Rufat.  Léxico gramaticalizado y lengua formulaica: algunas precisiones al enfoque léxico , 2011 .

[6]  Harry P. Bahrick,et al.  The importance of retrieval failures to long-term retention: A metacognitive explanation of the spacing effect , 2005 .

[7]  Jeffrey D. Karpicke,et al.  The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning , 2008, Science.

[8]  Nan Jiang,et al.  L1 Influence on the Acquisition of L2 Collocations: Japanese ESL Users and EFL Learners Acquiring English Collocations. , 2010 .

[9]  F. Boers,et al.  Formulaic sequences and perceived oral proficiency: putting a Lexical Approach to the test , 2006 .

[10]  Elke Peters.  Learning Collocations through Attention-Drawing Techniques: A Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis , 2009 .

[11]  Nadja Nesselhauf,et al.  Collocations in a Learner Corpus , 2005 .

[12]  Stuart Webb,et al.  Learning Collocations: Do the Number of Collocates, Position of the Node Word, and Synonymy Affect Learning? , 2011 .

[13]  John Sinclair,et al.  Corpus, Concordance, Collocation , 1991 .

[14]  Elke Peters,et al.  Learning German formulaic sequences: the effect of two attention-drawing techniques , 2012 .

[15]  David A. Wood,et al.  Formulaic Language and Second Language Speech Fluency: Background, Evidence and Classroom Applications , 2010 .

[16]  Jeffrey D. Karpicke,et al.  The Power of Testing Memory Basic Research and Implications for Educational Practice , 2006 .

[17]  F. Boers,et al.  Experimental and Intervention Studies on Formulaic Sequences in a Second Language , 2012, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics.

[18]  F. Meunier.  Formulaic Language and Language Teaching , 2012, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics.

[19]  G. A. Allen,et al.  Effects of recall tests on long-term retention of paired associates , 1969 .

[20]  B. Laufer,et al.  Verb‐Noun Collocations in Second Language Writing: A Corpus Analysis of Learners’ English , 2011 .

[21]  Marta Higueras García.  Las colocaciones y su enseñanza en la clase de ELE , 2006 .

[22]  Elke Peters,et al.  The learning burden of collocations: The role of interlexical and intralexical factors , 2016 .

[23]  Martha A. Jones,et al.  Facilitating the acquisition of formulaic sequences: An exploratory study in an EAP context , 2004 .

[24]  N. Ellis,et al.  Formulaic Language in Native and Second Language Speakers: Psycholinguistics, Corpus Linguistics, and TESOL , 2008 .

[25]  Murielle Demecheleer,et al.  Gauging the effects of exercises on verb–noun collocations , 2014 .

[26]  Alison Wray,et al.  Formulaic Language and the Lexicon: List of Figures and Tables , 2002 .

[27]  F. Boers,et al.  Formulaic sequences and L2 oral proficiency: Does the type of target language influence the association? , 2011 .

[28]  J. Hulstijn,et al.  SOME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE INVOLVEMENT LOAD HYPOTHESIS IN VOCABULARY ACQUISITION , 2001 .

[29]  Jeffrey D. Karpicke,et al.  When and why do retrieval attempts enhance subsequent encoding? , 2012, Memory & cognition.

[30]  F. Craik,et al.  Levels of Pro-cessing: A Framework for Memory Research , 1975 .

[31]  G. Hitch,et al.  Enhancing the learning of new words using an errorless learning procedure: Evidence from typical adults , 2014, Memory.

[32]  James R. Nattinger,et al.  Lexical Phrases and Language Teaching , 1992 .

[33]  Frank Boers,et al.  Optimizing a Lexical Approach to Instructed Second Language Acquisition , 2009 .

[34]  Fanny Forsberg,et al.  Using conventional sequences in L2 French , 2010 .