字詞搭配教學對台灣高中學生學習英文語法字詞搭配之效益研究

Abstract

本研究的目的是了解台灣高中生英語語法字詞搭配(grammatical collocation)的字詞搭配能力，以及字詞搭配教學對台灣高中學生學習語法字詞搭配能力的效益。六十九名台北市某所市立高中高一學生參加此項研究。首先，他們被區分為實驗組與控制組；兩組皆以第一學期的三次正式段考成績分為高分組、中間組、以及低分組。實驗組接受為期十二週的語法字詞搭配教學；他們接受字詞搭配概念的介紹及語法字詞搭配例句練習。另外一方面，控制組接受傳統的字彙教學；字詞搭配的概念並不會融入傳統字彙教學。本研究使用三種方式來檢測所有參與學生的英語字詞搭配能力；它們分別是二份問卷、一份選擇題測驗、以及一份填充題測驗。 研究結果顯示，參與學生對字詞搭配的概念不了解，且多數學生在學英文單字時，也容易忽略該單字在例句中可能出現的字詞搭配；但由第一次語法字詞搭配測驗發現學生對語法字詞搭配有初步的能力，而語法搭配詞測驗的表現也跟語言能力相關；第一次字詞搭配測驗發現學生在四種語法字詞搭配的表現平均，而較難的字詞搭配原因為：（1）學生不瞭解英文單字與介系詞的搭配限制，（2）字詞搭配中的介系詞沒有中文對應翻譯，（3）字詞搭配中的不同介系詞有中文對應翻譯，但與不同單字成為固定的字詞搭配，以及（4）學生不了解相同的英文單字可以接不同的介系詞而成為涵義不同的字詞搭配。第二次字詞搭配測驗實驗研究結果證明字詞搭配教學對提升實驗組整體學生與高、中、低分組學生的語法字詞搭配能力認知，皆有顯著效果。實驗結果也發現，在字詞搭配教學後，「名詞＋介系詞」字詞搭配對實驗組學生較為困難。問卷結果發現，台灣高中生在接受字詞搭配教學後，覺得語法字詞搭配對他們而言是困難的；第二次字詞搭配測驗分析顯示，較難的字詞搭配原因為：（1）字詞搭配中的介系詞沒有中文對應翻譯，（2）字詞搭配中的不同介系詞有中文對應翻譯，但與不同單字成為固定的字詞搭配，以及（3）有引申含義且沒有出現在課本上的字詞搭配學生。教學後問卷結果顯示，台灣高中生在接受字詞搭配教學後，覺得語法字詞搭配對他們而言是困難的。另外，台灣學生在學習英文時及回答字詞搭配測驗時對中文的高度依賴，也是造成本實驗中較難字詞搭配的可能解釋。 綜合以上的結果，本研究提出以下教學建議：（1）引導學生注意英文例句中的字詞搭配，（2）適時提供學生英文與中文的對比分析，協助學生瞭解英文介系詞在字詞搭配中的正確用法，（3）語法字詞搭配教學應該受到重視，（4）有系統教授字詞搭配概念並讓學生具有字詞搭配限制概念，以及（5）鼓勵學生多使用字詞搭配辭典及檢索工具。 未來的研究可以延伸至其他語法字詞搭配的教學效益研究，語法搭配詞教學在不同年齡及不同能力階段學生的教學效益研究，長時間追蹤學生語法字詞搭配能力的記憶，以及其他語法字詞搭配能力與英文能力的相關性研究。This study aims to investigate the effects of explicit collocation instruction on Taiwanese EFL learners’ learning of grammatical collocations. 69 first-grade senior high school students in a municipal senior high school in Taipei participated in the study. These participants were divided into the experimental group and the control group. Each group were further divided into three different proficiency levels—high, middle, and low levels—based on the scores of the formal school exams in their first semester. The experimental group received the explicit collocation instruction for twelve weeks, while the control group was not introduced to the concept of collocations and the collocation practice. This study used three different kinds of instruments. They are two questionnaires, one multiple-choice task, and one blank-filling task. The results show that senior high school students are in general ignorant of the concept of collocation, and that they need guidance to pay attention to the collocation in the English example sentences. It is found that the participants had some knowledge of collocation before the explicit collocation instruction because they could provide correct answers in the collocation test. The reasons for the difficult collocations are: 1) the participants are ignorant of collocation restriction, 2) the preposition without Chinese counterpart in a collocation are difficult, 3) the prepositions with similar Chinese meaning but are used to collocate with different headwords are also difficult, and 4) the collocations in which the same headword that collocate with different prepositions to denote different meaning are difficult. After the explicit collocation instruction, the experimental group performed better than the control group. And the participants in different levels all benefit from the explicit collocation instruction. Furthermore, Noun + Prep collocation is found to be more difficult to the participants. The reasons for the difficult collocations after the collocation instruction are: 1) the prepositions with Chinese counterpart are still difficult, 2) the prepositions with similar Chinese translation but are used in different collocations cause confusion for the participants, and 3) the collocation that is idiomatic in meaning and is not introduced in the textbook is difficult for the participants. Based on the research findings, this study presents the following pedagogical suggestions. First of all, more attention should be paid to the multi-word items while teaching and learning English vocabulary. Second, contrastive study between English and Chinese should be presented systematically to help the learners notice the different prepositions in collocations. Thirdly, collocation instruction should include both lexical and grammatical collocations. Fourthly, teachers should lead the learners to notice collocation restriction. Last but not least, teachers should encourage students to make full use of collocation dictionaries and concordancers to increase their receptive and productive collocation competence. As for the suggestions for further research, more participants from different age or proficiency levels should be included in collocation studies. In addition, future research can focus on other types of grammatical collocations. Furthermore, longitudinal studies should be conducted to investigate EFL learners’ retention of collocation competence. Lastly, the reasons of the difficulty for the grammatical collocations other than those tested in the present study are worth investigating in the future.