- All main clauses have essential elements such as a main verb and
statements have the subject and main verb in the correct order. -
The subject and main verb agree in person and number. -
Prepositions are used appropriately and with some variety. -
Articles and plurals are used correctly. -
Sentence, simple and complex punctuation is punctuation is correct.
4. Spelling
- Most high-frequency words are spelt correctly.
- Most less frequently used words and words with common but not
simple pattern are spelt correctly. -
Most words with difficult or unusual patterns are spelt correctly. -
Most challenging words appropriate to the task are spelt correctly. -
All challenging words appropriate to the task spelt correctly.
2. Collocations
a. Definition of Collocation
Collocations are the way in which words are used together regularly. The term of collocations are derived from the Latin word collocare which means to place
together or to assemble, and this term introduced by J. R. Firth in 1930s. Collocations are seen as language chunks which are memorized by speakers as whole units in
order to achieve language fluency.
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They are the occurrence of two or more words within a short space of each other in a text. They are a pair or group of words that are
often used together.
11
Violeta Seretan, Syntax-Based Collocation Extraction. Text, Speech and Language Technology Series Vol.44, Dordrect: Spinger, 2011, p.9
Collocations are one of the main concerns of lexicography. Lexicography itself is focus on the meaning and use of words, a central to dictionary making.
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The elements involved in collocations are assumed to be lexemes, for instance, it is
assumed that combinations such as pay attention, pays attention, paid attention and attention was paid are instantiations of the same collocations.
In Lexical Approach, an approach of language learning that suggests a much more central role for lexis or all the words of a language, collocations describe as the
way individual words co-occur with others.
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This approach was developed by Michael Lewis who believes that the primary approach in foreign language teaching
should be focused on the lexicon vocabulary of the target language as opposed to using the more traditional grammatical or structural approach. It suggests that
vocabulary should be taught in chunks instead of as individual words. These chunks are refered to as collocations which mean words that frequently go together.
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From several definitions above, it can be concluded that collocation is the combination of words that usually comes together in an appropriate pattern. The way
words combine is important because learners can recognise certain pattern that usually appear in a certain context.
b. Categorization of Collocation
Sinclair mentions two types of collocation, significant collocation and casual collocation.
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Significant collocations have high intencity to come together. For example, the words dog and barked, barked is not very common and, it usually occurs
near the word dog. Casual collocations are the combination of common words, such
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Douglas Bieber, et al., Corpus Linguistics: Investigating language Structure and Use, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p.21
13
Michael Lewis, The Lexical Approach: The State of ELT and a Way Forward, Londan: Language Teaching Publications, 1999, p.93
14
Deborah L. N., et. al., Kaleidoskope of Models and Strategies Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, New York:Greenwood Publishing Group Inc., 2006, p. 55
15
John Sinclair, Corpus, Concordance, Collocations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, p.12
as the big house, both big and house can be callocated with many other common words, the small house, the big problem. It is depend on the context of situation
where those words have to be combined. Hill differentiates collocation into more specific types
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: 1.
Unique collocations They have the unique meaning such as foot the bill which means to pay
an amount of money, not related to the part of body as the individual word foot.
2. Strong collocations
They are not unique but strong or very strong combination such as ulterior motives, harbour grudge.
3. Weak collocations
They are the combination of usual words in English, for example bad habit, expensive car, good time.
4. Medium-strength collocation
They are not strong or weak but in the middle, for instance hold a conversation, make a mistake, do the homework.
Collocation includes idiom and phrasal verb. Lewis mentions that all collocations are idiomatic and all phrasal verbs and idioms are collocations or contain
collocations. Collocations are placed on a sliding scale of meaning and form relatively unrestricted collocations to highly fixed idioms. He classifies
collocation into free collocation, restricted collocation, figurative idiom, and pure idiom.
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There are two major categories of collocation, lexical collocation and grammatical collocation. Lexical collocation is collocation in which two lexical
16
Jimmie Hill in Michael Lewis, Teaching Collocation: Further Developments in the Lexical Approach, Hove: Language Teaching Publications, 2000, pp. 63-64
17
Christopher Gledhill, Collocations in Science Writing, Language in Performance Series No. 22, Tubingen: Gunter Narr Verlag,2000, pp.7-20
