VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE A SURVEY INTO THE TEACHING OF LEXICAL COLLOCATIONS IN ACADEMIC WRITING AT FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE – UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES – HO CHI MINH CITY A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master‟s degree in TESOL By DANG THI VAN DI Supervised by NGUYEN THI KIEU THU, Ph.D HO CHI MINH CITY, AUGUST 2014 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: A SURVEY INTO THE TEACHING OF LEXICAL COLLOCATIONS IN ACADEMIC WRITING AT FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE, UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES – HO CHI MINH CITY in terms of the statement of Requirements for the Thesis in Master‟s Program issued by the Higher Degree Committee The thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other situation Ho Chi Minh City, August 2014 Đặng Thị Vân Di i RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, Đặng Thị Vân Di, being the candidate for the degree of Master in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master‟s Theses deposited in the Library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for the purpose of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the library for the care, loan or reproduction of the thesis Ho Chi Minh City, August 2014 Đặng Thị Vân Di ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe a great debt of gratitude to those who have helped me complete this thesis First and foremost, I would like to express my gratefulness to my teacher and supervisor, Dr Nguyễn Thị Kiều Thu, for all her kindness, encouragement, and valuable guidance In this thesis process, her support and endless advice guided and led me through times of difficulty I am greatly indebted to the Board of Administrators of the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature, whose facilitation and assistance greatly contributed to the implementation of this thesis My sincere thanks also go to my colleagues at the Faculty, especially Ms Lâm Như Bảo Trân, Ms Bùi Huỳnh Thủy Thương, Ms Hồ Thị Thúy Kiều, Ms Nguyễn Thị Hằng and many others for their constant care, support, and willingness to help and share experience This study would not have been completed without the affectionate consideration from my close friends, Ms Lê Hoàng Anh, Ms Lê Thị Minh Hiếu, Ms Trần Thị Bích Ngọc, Ms Lưu Nguyễn Hà Vy, and Ms Nguyễn Phan Quỳnh Thơ Their care, support, encouragement, and understanding were sources of motivation for my effort to complete the thesis Last but not least, my passionate love and heartfelt are extended to my late father, my loving and caring mother, and my brother who nurtured my love for English and teaching, strengthened my motivation, and gave me encouragement, especially in times of trouble iii TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS .ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii LIST OF TABLES viii LIST OF FIGURES x ABSTRACT xi CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 1.1.1 The Academic Writing Course 1.1.2 The Lexical Approach 1.1.3 Collocation 1.2 AIM OF THE STUDY 1.3 THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 1.5 TERMINOLOGY 1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 1.7 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY CHAPTER REVIEW OF LITERATURE 10 2.1 THEORETICAL ISSUES ON COLLOCATIONS 10 2.1.1 Definition of Collocation 10 2.1.2 Categorization of Collocations 15 2.1.2.1 Grammatical Collocations 16 2.1.2.2 Lexical Collocations 16 2.2 COLLOCATIONS IN EFL 18 2.2.1 The significance of Collocations in EFL 18 2.2.2 Collocations and Vocabulary Teaching 20 2.2.3 Collocations and Writing 21 2.2.4 The Teaching of Collocations 24 iv 2.2.4.1 How to Teach Collocations 25 2.2.4.2 What Collocations to Teach 30 2.2.4.3 Assessment of Collocational Competence 31 2.2.5 Types of Collocational Errors 32 2.2.6 Causes of Making Collocational Errors 33 2.3 ERROR ANALYSIS 36 2.4 THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 38 2.5 SUMMARY 41 CHAPTER METHODOLOGY 42 3.1 CONTEXT OF THE STUDY 42 3.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 43 3.3 RESEARCH DESIGN 44 3.3.1 Participants 44 3.3.1.1 Student Participants 44 3.3.1.2 Teacher Participants 46 3.3.2 Research Materials 48 3.3.2.1 Coursebooks 48 3.3.2.2 AW Final Writing Papers 49 3.3.2.4 COCA 50 3.3.3 Research Instruments 53 3.3.3.1 Coursebook Analysis 53 3.3.3.2 Error Analysis 54 3.3.3.3 Questionnaire 55 3.3.3.4 Interviews 60 3.4 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE 64 3.4.1 Lexical Collocational Error Identification 64 3.4.2 Questionnaire Administration 68 3.4.3 Coursebook Analysis 68 3.4.4 Interview Conducting 69 3.5 DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE 70 3.5.1 Lexical Collocational Error Analysis 70 3.5.2 Questionnaire 71 3.5.3 Coursebook Analysis 71 v 3.5.4 Interview 71 3.6 SUMMARY 71 CHAPTER RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 72 4.1 DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 72 4.1.1 The Teaching Practices of Lexical Collocations 72 4.1.1.1 Coursebooks 72 4.1.1.2 Instructions of Lexical Collocations 73 4.1.1.3 Assessment 78 4.1.2 The Learning of Lexical Collocations 80 4.1.2.1 Students‟ Perception of Collocations 80 4.1.2.2 Types of Lexical Collocational Errors 85 4.1.2.3 Causes of Lexical Collocational Errors 88 4.1.3 Summary 93 4.2 MAJOR FINDINGS 94 4.3 SUMMARY 98 CHAPTER CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 99 5.1 CONCLUSION 99 5.2 RECOMMENDATIONS 100 5.2.1 Recommendations to Teachers 101 5.2.2 Recommendations to Students 105 5.2.3 Recommendations to EF Administrators 106 5.2.4 Recommendations for Future Research 106 REFERENCES 108 APPENDIX 1: SYLLABUS FOR ACADEMIC WRITING 117 APPENDIX 2: FINAL TEST PAPER IN ACADEMIC WRITING 123 APPENDIX 3: QUESTIONNAIRE 125 APPENDIX 4: INTERVIEW WITH AW STUDENTS 127 APPENDIX 5: INTERVIEW WITH AW TEACHERS 127 APPENDIX 6: SAMPLE AW FINAL TEST PAPERS 128 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AW Academic Writing BNC the British National Corpus CA Contrastive Analysis CLT Communicative Language Teaching COCA the Corpus of Contemporary American English EA Error Analysis EF the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature EFL English as a Foreign Language EGP English for General Purposes ELT English Language Teaching ESL English as a Second Language ESP English for Specific Purposes LA the Lexical Approach MI Mutual Information OCD Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English USSH the University of Social Sciences and Humanities – Ho Chi Minh City vii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Eight Types of Grammatical Collocations 16 Table 2.2: Seven Categories of Lexical Collocations .17 Table 2.3: The Revised Six Categories of Lexical Collocations 17 Table 2.4: Sources of Collocational Errors .35 Table 3.1: Sampling of AW Teachers 47 Table 3.2: The Coding of Five AW Teachers 47 Table 3.3: A comparison between COCA and other Corpora (by Davies (2008)) 50 Table 3.4: A comparison of collocates between COCA and BNC (Oxford University Press, 1998) 51 Table 3.5: The Procedure of EA (adopted from Gass and Selinker (2008)) 55 Table 3.6: The Function of Questionnaire Items 59 Table 3.7: The Function of Questions in the Interview 62 Table 3.8: Synthesis of Research Instruments and their Functions 63 Table 3.9: The Identification of Headwords in Lexical Collocations 65 Table 3.10: A Record of Coursebook Content 68 Table 4.1: Students‟ Statement of the Classroom Instruction of Lexical Collocations in AW 74 Table 4.2: Teaching Strategies of Lexical Collocations 76 Table 4.3: AW Teachers‟ Criteria of Good Pieces of Writing 79 Table 4.4: AW Students‟ Understanding of the Term „Collocation‟ 81 Table 4.5: AW Students‟ Receptive Knowledge of Lexical Collocations .82 Table 4.6: Sources of AW Students‟ Collocational Knowledge 83 Table 4.7: AW Students‟ Opinions about the Role of Collocations .83 viii Table 4.8: Lexical Combinations Produced by AW Students 85 Table 4.9: AW Students‟ Errors in Lexical Collocations .86 Table 4.10: Summary of Sources of Lexical Collocational Errors Made by AW Students 92 Table 4.11: Summary of the Results .93 ix Wiersma, W., & Jurs, S G (2009) Research methods in education: An Introduction (9th ed.) Boston: Pearson Willis, J., & Willis, D (1996) Consciousness raising activities in the language classroom In J Willis, & D Willis (Eds.), Challenge and change in language teaching (pp 63-76) Oxford: Heinemann Woolard, G (2000) Collocation - encouraging learner independence In M Lewis (Ed.), Teaching collocation: further developments in the Lexical Approach (pp 28-46) Hove: Language Teaching Publications Wu, W.-S (2003) A quantitative study of university students‟ collocational competence in an ESP context ESP Malaysia, 9, 95-119 Yunus, K B (2011) Collocational competence among Malaysian undergraduate law students Malaysian Journal of ELT Research, 7(1), 151-201 Youmei, G., & Yun, Z (2005) A tentative corpus-based study of collocations acquisition by Chinese English language learners Canadian Social Science, 1(3), 105-112 Retrieved September 2, 2013, from http://www.cscanada.net/index.php/css/article/download/j.css.19236697200 50103.016/233 116 APPENDIX 1: SYLLABUS FOR ACADEMIC WRITING VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HCM UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE EF- SYLLABUS-1-A COURSE SYLLABUS I II III IV V VI Course Title: ACADEMIC WRITING Course Code : NVA001 Course Credits: credits (Theory: credits, Practice: credit) Course Prerequisites: Students are required to fulfill all the Language Skills courses Course Overview Scaffold students‟ language and develop students‟ writing skills for the English academic purposes  Steps in an academic essay writing process  Sentence construction in academic essays  Paragraph building in academic essays  How to write an academic essay  How to cite  Styles in an academic essay Course Content Chapter 10 11 Content What is Academic Writing? What is a Paragraph? An Overview Unity and Simple Outlining Coherence Kinds of Logical Order Concrete Support The Essay Patterns of Organization Using Outside References Quotations Paraphrases Summaries Writing a Three-Paragraph Opinion Essay Writing About Graphs and Statistics Writing a Classification Essay Writing a Cause-and-Effect Essay Writing a Satirical Essay 117 12 13 14 Writing an Argumentative Essay Writing a Comparison and Contrast Essay Writing an Essay Analyzing Literature VII Course Learning Outcomes Upon completion of the course, students are expected to be able to (i) Collect information and choose suitable vocabulary for sentence construction (PLO15; PLO25; PLO35) (ii) Build paragraphs and academic essays (PLO14; PLO24; PLO34) (iii) Develop an essay in different purposes, such as describe Graphs and Statistics, analyze Cause-and-Effect of an event, etc (PLO17; PLO27; PLO37) (iv) Write an academic essay with appropriate citation and styles Linking between course learning outcomes, teaching & learning strategies, course assessment and program learning outcomes No (ii) Course learning outcomes Teaching & learning activities Course Assessment Program Learning Outcomes Knowle Skills dge Search and synthesize information (using libraries, Internet, etc.); effectively use ICT in learning and researching during student life and future (PLO15; PLO25; PLO35) Group discussion Written midterm exam on a given topic Group oral and multiple presentation choice exercise Question & to check the use of information answer and vocabulary Teacher feedback and conclusion Use language (writing skills) flexibly and effectively for social, academic, and professional purposes, benchmarked against C1 – CEFR, 6.5-8.0 – Lecturing to explain how to build a sentence from which a paragraph and essay developed cohesively Written midterm exam on a given topic and multiple choice exercise to check the use of coherence linking devices 118 x x x Attitu des IELTS, 110-120 – TOEFL or equivalents (PLO14; PLO24; PLO34) Oral presentation to explain the outline of a piece of writing (groupwork) Group discussion Question & answer (iii) (iv) Describing and explaining the various approaches and techniques in developing different types of essay based on the purposes expressed Lecturing Identifying and describing the key prompt that should be quoted Lecturing Group oral presentation Group discussion Question & answer Group oral presentation Group discussion Question & answer Written x midterm exam on a given topic and multiple choice exercise to check the use of coherence linking devices x Written midterm exam on a given topic and multiple choice exercise to check the use of coherence linking devices x x x VIII Texts and Materials Required texts and materials - Cohen, F Robert & Judy L Miller 2003, Reason to Write – Strategies for Success in Academic Writing Hong Kong: Oxford University Press - Oshima, Alice & Ann Hogue 1991, Writing Academic English (2nd ed.) AddisonWesley Publishing Company, Inc Supplementary Texts and Materials + Books: Adams, Judith-Anne & Margaret A Dwyer 1982, English for Academic Uses – A Writing Workbook Hoa Kỳ: Prentice-Hall, Inc 119 Holten, Christine & tác giả khác 1998, Looking Ahead – Mastering Academic Writing Hoa Kỳ: Heinle & Heinle Publishers Leki, Ilona 2006, Academic Writing Hoa Kỳ: Cambridge University Press Oshima, Alice & Ann Hogue 1997, Introduction to Academic Writing (2nd ed.) Hoa Kỳ: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc + Websites: http://www.englishclub.com/ http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ http://englishforvietnamese.com/ http://www.ctu.edu.vn/centers/cfl/soft/index.htm http://www.calstatela.edu/centers/write_cn/sites.htm IX Basis for Final Grade Assessment Criteria Percent Score Midterm exam 100% 100% Midterm score Final exam 100% 100% Final score Percent Of final grade 30% 70% Note To be computed by the University Admission Office To be computed by the University Admission Office 100% Passing grade: 5/10 Exam Information Time allotment: 90 minutes Part (3-4 pts): Questions about topic sentence, coherence, cohesion, unity, outlining, … Part (7-6 pts): Choose one of the topics listed and write a 300 to 350-word essay X Course Policies A Grades Late Work Policy: There are no make-ups for in-class writing, quizzes, the midterm, or the final exam Written projects turned in late will be assessed a penalty: 5% loss of the associated point value of the assignment each date it is late Written projects will not be accepted if overdue by more than seven days Group Work Policy: Everyone must take part in a group oral presentation and/or written project All members of a group will receive the same score; that is, the project is assessed and everyone receives this score Once formed, groups cannot be altered or switched, except for reasons of extended hospitalization B Technology and Media Email: students are encouraged to contact with the instructor via email beside class hours Email address will be provided at the beginning of the course 120 C Student Expectations Attendance Policy: Attendance will be taken at the beginning of every class If you are more than fifteen minutes late, you will be marked with an absence You should be in each and every class, though I understand that things sometimes come up I would appreciate some advanced notice if you know you will be absent, and I expect you to exchange your contact information with a few other classmates so that if you are out, you can contact them for information on what you missed in class You are responsible for getting the information you missed Please keep in mind that each time you are absent, you miss a lot of in-class discussion that may affect your overall understanding of the topics being covered and inevitably your performance Professionalism Policy: Attendance is required – both physically and mentally You are expected to take an active role in class discussions Also, please make sure your phone is off or on buzz (and buried deep inside your backpack), so it‟s not heard while in class Save your text messaging for after class or at break I not want to see anyone text messaging during class Academic Integrity Cheating and plagiarism will not be tolerated XI Week Schedule Content What is Academic Writing? What is a Paragraph? An Overview - Unity and Simple Outlining & Coherence - Kinds of Logical Order & Concrete Support The Essay - Patterns of Organization - Using Outside References – Quotations, Paraphrases, and Summaries Writing a Three-Paragraph Opinion Essay Writing About Graphs and Statistics Periods Writing a Classification Essay Writing a Cause-and-Effect Essay Writing a Satirical Essay Read the materials Writing Academic English Periods 10 10 Read the materials Writing Academic English Read the materials Writing Academic English 10 10 Read the materials Writing Academic English Read the materials Reason to Write – Strategies for Success in Academic Writing Read the materials Reason to Write – Strategies for Success in Academic Writing Read the materials Reason to Write – Strategies for Success in Academic Writing Read the materials Reason to Write – Strategies for Success in Academic Writing Read the materials Reason to Write – Strategies for 5 Students’ preparation 5 121 10 10 10 10 10 10 11 12 Success in Academic Writing Read the materials Writing an Argumentative Reason to Write – Strategies for Essay Success in Academic Writing Read the materials Writing a Comparison and Reason to Write – Strategies for Contrast Essay Success in Academic Writing Read the materials Writing an Essay Analyzing Reason to Write – Strategies for Literature Success in Academic Writing  Note: The Schedule is subject to revision XII References This course syllabus is designed using as reference the - Syllabus High Advanced Writing of George Mason of University English Language Institute, website link http://mason.gmu.edu/~llmiller/Syllabi/AW/syllabus.html - Syllabus Advanced Grammar of Armstrong Atlantic State University, website link http://www.llp.armstrong.edu/5800/syllabus.html Designed by Department of English Language Skills 122 10 10 10 APPENDIX 2: FINAL TEST PAPER IN ACADEMIC WRITING Student‟s full name: VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE SKILLS Student ID: FINAL EXAMINATION Course: Academic Writing Time Allotted: 90 minutes Department Exam Date: Proctor Examiner Exam Score ( %) Proctor Examiner Other Score(s) ( %) Total Score Chair Notes: Monolingual dictionaries in printed format are allowed A Part 1: Class Activity (2 marks): B Part 2: Final Test (8 marks) I Write the topic sentence for the paragraph _ First of all, we need money to repair old roads and build new roads We also need more to pay teachers‟ salaries and to pay for services such as trash collection Finally, more tax money is needed to give financial help to the poor citizens of the city It is clear that the city will have serious problems if taxes are not raised soon II Circle the letter next to each topic sentence that supports the thesis statement There are three topic sentences Although skiing is a great sport, it may not be a suitable sport for everyone a Not everyone has the ability to ski well b Becoming a good skier means taking certain risks that some people are afraid to take c Skiing is more difficult than skating d A day on the slopes is not always affordable for everyone e Skiing down the highest slope can be dangerous 123 III One sentence is missing from each short paragraph below Choose the sentence that best completes the paragraph In many ways the invention of email and computers has motivated many young people to take up letter writing Email makes it fun and easy to get in touch with faraway friends For these reasons fewer people are sending letters through the mail a I bought a new computer last week b Furthermore, email is convenient and essentially free Books on tape have become very popular in our fast-paced society One of the reasons is that people not have the time to sit still and read _ Some listen while jogging outdoors and exercising in the gym Therefore, a book on tape makes a great gift idea for the active book lover a Stephen King‟s latest book is available in this format b In fact, many people listen to these tapes while driving to and from work Don Quixote de la Mancha is an epic novel written in the 1600s by Miguel de Cervantes This is the story of a man who read so many books on chivalry and knighthood that he went crazy Together the characters had many adventures always searching for truth and beauty and upholding the highest ideas a He traveled the world as a ridiculous knight along with his friend Sancho Panza b Don Quixote came from a small town in Spain called La Mancha IV Choose to write an essay of about 400-450 words on either of the following topics (6 marks) When students have jobs, they are too likely to neglect their schoolwork and become overly materialistic Do you agree or disagree with the opinion? Defend your point of view Compare (or contrast) two parenting styles you have observed Explain the effects of stress on you Focus on limiting to a specific situation 124 APPENDIX 3: QUESTIONNAIRE Dear Student, Thank you for taking the time to complete this questionnaire! The purpose of this questionnaire is to collect data for the research entitled “A Survey A Survey into the Teaching of Lexical Collocations in Academic Writing at Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature – University of Social Sciences and Humanities – Ho Chi Minh City” Please help us understand the current teaching of lexical collocations in writing and improve the learning and teaching quality This questionnaire will take less than 10 minutes of your time Your answers will be completely anonymous and confidential as well for research purposes only Please carefully read the questions and cross (X) the appropriate choice(s) In the question that requires further information, please write down your answer in the space provided Thank you for your cooperation! Part A: Perception of Collocations Do you know what collocation is?  Yes  Not sure  No (Please go to Question 2, and then finish the questionnaire here Thank you for your time!) Please decide whether the phrases below are correct or not Correct Incorrect make exercise expensive price a flock of fish (to) follow my steps tightly messy thoughts           Correct Incorrect (to) increase highly totally terrible the rain dropped… (to) broaden relationships (to) weaken my health           How did you come to know collocation? You can choose more than one option  From Teacher‟s instructions  From textbooks  From friends‟ help  From self-study  Others (please specify): …………………………………………………………… What you think about the role of collocation in writing?  Very important  Quite important  Not important 125 Part B: The Teaching of Collocations in Academic Writing Course Did your teacher of Academic Writing teach collocation in class?  Yes  No (Please finish the questionnaire here Thank you for your time and cooperation!) How did (s)he teach collocations? You can choose more than one option  Introduce the term „collocation‟  Introduce the role of collocation  Direct your attention to collocations in sample writings  Choose some collocations to teach/introduce in class  Encourage you to collect and study collocations on your own  Mention already-taught collocations for a few times  Use collocation dictionaries  Use linguistic corpora15  Identify your errors and ask you to look for corrections  Identify your errors and give corrections in your writings  Others (please specify): …………………………………………………………… Thank you for your time and cooperation! 15 Linguistic corpus: a collection of spoken or written (natural) text, or „kho ngữ liệu‟ in Vietnamese Plural form: corpora 126 APPENDIX 4: INTERVIEW WITH AW STUDENTS SI1 What you think about the role of collocations in your writing? SI2 Why you think so? SI3 How your instructors of AW teach collocations? SI4 How often/much does she teach lexical collocations? APPENDIX 5: INTERVIEW WITH AW TEACHERS TI1 In your opinion, what are the criteria of a good piece of writing? TI2 Do you let your students know about such criteria? (How?) TI3 Do you know collocations? (types, uses, etc.) TI4 What you think about the role of collocation in learners‟ writing? TI5 Do you explicitly teach (lexical) collocations in your class of Academic Writing? (Yes: Q6; No: Q10) Why or why not? TI6 How you teach collocations? TI7 Does your teaching of collocations have any effects on your students‟ writing? TI8 Do you have any difficulties/problems in teaching collocations? TI9 What can you to improve your teaching of colocations? TI10 Do you think that the teaching of collocations should be required in Academic Writing? 127 APPENDIX 6: SAMPLE AW FINAL TEST PAPERS Sample In a fast-paced society as now, human being often have many health problem, especially in mental I am a university student, with a busy schedule, I usually feel stressed heavily It make me alway get tired, hard to sleep and easy to be angry I always feel very tired because of stress I want to sleep all the day and nothing, exactly, nothing can motivate me The more this state of tension prolong, the worse my health get I will never forget I spent two day in the hospital when I was grade 9th I was in state of having no energy and exhausted completely After that, it take me a period of time to be more healthy again Stress also cause some sleep problems on me I can not achieve a good night Actually, I feel uncomfortable and I find hard to drop off to sleep deeply, even sleep I often move around my bed at night If I can sleep, it means that I will awake from a horrible nightmare Therefore, it is really too hard to sleep with ease when you get stressed Stress cause angers unintentionally I often get angry easily, even I have no reason to be angry That feeling is so bad and I couldn‟t control my own emotion I am usually in trouble with my friend, my family conflicts happen everyday and I feel very awful The relationships around me are getting worse I can not find solutions eventhough I know the main reason is me In this situation, many people choose to kill them-self to escape and so I But fortunately, finally, I solved my problems thanks to supports from my family And I‟m grateful to them for that In conclusion, stress can cause many serious problem such as getting tired, finding hard to sleep and getting angry easily These are big problems so if you look down on it, you may harm seriously yourself Sample 128 In the competitive environment, what all companies require their employers is experiment Consequently, many students apply for jobs while studying which is believed that jobs can make students omit their responsibilities at school and become practiable at first sight However, I strongly disagree that belief because of the effective way students can control their time, attitude and money First of all, learners can balance their schedule between studying and working Most of jobs for students are part-time one; hence, schoolwork can be completed after working time Furthermore, taking a job brings lots of advantages such as experiment and friends As a result, students can widen their knowledge in many fields and be more friendly which means they don‟t focus on money and how to become richer In no way, learners neglect their exercises from teachers or over materialistic if they can arrange their time effectly Attitude is another important feature Whether students have jobs or not, if they don‟t have the right view about school, they can not finish it well Many learners just stay at home; however they can not reach the goals of teachers because time is wasted for playing game or listening to music In this case, working can be more intelligent options Many part-time jobs such as waiter or staff at coffee shop give time for employers to study when there are no customers Students whose attitude is good will still focus on their main role eventhough they get jobs Bich Lan translator is a typical example Her condition was too poor to study; hence she tried many jobs and now, she is a famous translator of Viet Nam The attitude is the key for everything Public believe that the main role of a student is study and they can get a great deal of risks if they work soon However, in some situation, students need money to pay for school fee which raise more and more each day Moreover, besides risks they can widen the environment and collect experiment from many sources which is needed for their future If learners not dare to try with challengable circumstances, they may get drawbacks when they start their real journey 129 In conclusion, applying for jobs while studying can bring advantages and disadvantages The successfully person is one who knows how to manage her time interest, maintain her attitude and use their money effectively If parents or even students are so scared for challenges, they will be in their cocoon a long time and get losts of disadvantages in comparison with the brave ones Keeping the faith and facing with difficulties are what youngster should in a limitted life 130 ... which assumes the same importance as teaching them (Hill, 2000) Acknowledging the importance of collocations, teachers may fall into the trap of teaching all collocations that appear in class This...STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: A SURVEY INTO THE TEACHING OF LEXICAL COLLOCATIONS IN ACADEMIC WRITING AT FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS. .. common: the heart of the two approaches is communication and learners‟ competence to communicate fluently, because LA also “places communication of meaning at the heart of language and language