1. It's necessary to teach collocations and word clusters (Bahns & Eldaw 1993; Nesselhauf 2003).2. Inductive approaches to learning result in longer-lasting retention of difficult collocation patterns (Sun & Wang, 2003).3. Students find concordancers more useful for learning usage of vocabulary terms than meanings (Yoon & Hirvela 2004).

● Research Question: Will EFL students at a university in Jordan recall and learn appropriate usage of a greater number of adverb-adjective collocations when using either a web-based concordancer or a collocations dictionary as a reference tool?

● Hypothesis: The use of a web-based concordancer as a reference tool will result in greater retention and usage of appropriate adverb-adjective collocations than the collocations dictionary among EFL university students in Jordan.

● Independent: Reference material (Concordancer vs. Dictionary)

● Dependent: Collocation retention & usage● Moderating: Prior experience with computers,

dictionaries; Extent of computer use; Preferences for/against computer use; English proficiency; Number of years of English study

● Extraneous: Gender; Age; Academic major

● Quasi-experimental (convenience samples from 2 classes, not random)

● Confirmatory● Applied● Mostly Quantitative, Instrumental (open-

ended/constructed response tests, short essay)

● Background questionnaire● Test (list & writing sample)● Four classes: Two with concordancer, two

with dictionary● No control group: Every student uses both

treatment● Grading rubric: correct answer=1,

incorrect=0● Student feedback

Collocations Dictionary Free Web-based Concordancer

Book:● Large, bulky● Cheaper

Computer & internet access:● More expensive equipment● Can be accessed from any

computer with internet accessDeductive:

● Student may not retain as much info● Easier, more familiar format, quicker

Inductive:● Takes more time to learn and

use● Longer retention (Sun & Wang, 2003)Limited context:

● Fewer examples of usage● Less cognitive load because

acceptable collocates are neatly spelled-out

Wider context:● Greater cognitive load because

the learner is presented with more examples

● Many authentic examples, often in expandable contexts

Authentic texts:● Search results depend on corpus: If it’s

not in the corpus, it won’t be in the results

● Teacher can select & enter text/corpus

aware adj.1 conscious

● VERBS be, seem │ become │ make sb We need to make people more aware of these problems.

● ADV. acutely, keenly, very, well │ fully, perfectly Mr Bush did not appear fully aware of the importance of this act. │ dimly, vaguely │ hardly, not really He was not real-ly aware of what he was doing. │ horribly, painfully Moran was painfully aware of Luke’s absence.

● PREP. of The police are well aware of the dangers.2 informed

● VERBS be │ become● ADV. very │ environmentally, politically, socially

Compleat Lexical Tutor

http://www.lextutor.ca/

Just one of several free web-based concordancers.It has nice quizzes and multiple search functions (including collocations), features relatively simple

interface, creates level-appropriate cloze exercises, etc.