An Exploration of Lexical Collocations Employed in EFL Students’ Essay Writing

Abstract

This study investigates the use of different types of lexical collocations and common errors made related to these collocations in essay writing.  The participants included EFL students who wrote an essay as a class writing test in 60 minutes. A 5-level Likert close-ended survey questionnaire was designed to collect quantitative data regarding students’ perceptions of the categories of lexical collocations they have used and the difficulties they have encountered in using these.  To get qualitative data for the study, students’ essays were then analyzed to identify errors related to different categories of lexical collocations. The results revealed that adjective-noun collocations were the most frequently used by the participants while lexical collocations related to adverbs were used least frequently. Errors related to the morpheme -s such as the omission of morpheme -s in plural nouns and overuse of morpheme -s in singular or uncountable nouns were most commonly made by students, followed by the wrong choice of component words and non-existent lexical collocations. Pedagogical implications are then discussed to assist students in enhancing collocational use in essay writing.