Collocational Competence in English Language Teaching: An Overview

Abstract:

Despite its prime importance for language proficiency, collocational competence is one of the most neglected areas in vocabulary studies and second language teaching/learning. This negligence is the underlying motive for writing the present paper. Hence, the paper aims at raising awareness of the importance of this significant dimension of vocabulary knowledge and presenting a well-rounded view of this lexical phenomenon. To this end, the paper gives a brief introduction to the topic, and offers an overview of relevant definitions and classifications. This is followed by a summary of the importance of teaching/learning collocations, and a list of relevant lines of research in collocation studies. The last part presents a number of recommended activities that English language instructors can implement in their classroom. The paper is thus helpful to both researchers and language instructors as it sheds the light on pertinent areas for research and recommends useful activities for teaching collocations.