THE TREATMENT OF COLLOCATIONS IN ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS FOR VIETNAMESE STUDENTS

collocation textbook EFL collocation exercise collocation presentation

Authors

  • Dung Thi Phuong Cao
    ctpdung@hcmussh.edu.vn
    University of Social Sciences & Humanities, Vietnam National University- Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam
  • Phuong Dzung Pho University of Social Sciences & Humanities, Vietnam National University- Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam
  • Nguyen Anh Chi Dang University of Social Sciences & Humanities, Vietnam National University- Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam

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The present study investigates collocational profiles that appear in the English textbook series for Vietnamese students from elementary to high school grades by identifying how the series covers collocations in terms of frequency and how the mode of collocation presentation aligns with recommendations in the existing literature. A total of 30,005 collocations of both verb-noun and adjective-noun patterns were identified, of which 1,078 are targeted collocations. The study found that the frequencies of occurrences of collocation tokens increase steadily alongside the three grade levels, while the frequencies of collocation types are not distributed proportionately. As for the mode of collocation presentation, targeted collocations and collocation exercises follow the best practices recommended in the literature to a certain extent and in some criteria; inconsistency, however, was found to be one of the shortcomings across those evaluation criteria. Pedagogical implications for teachers and textbook authors are discussed.