Focus on Collocations

Using the Dictionary in IELTS
by Sam McCarter

The Macmillan Collocations Dictionary (MCD) is a valuable resource for anyone using English in an academic or professional context. It shows how the most frequent words in English typically combine with each other, and with other words, to form natural-sounding chunks of language – and this is what makes it an especially useful tool for people taking the IELTS exams.

There is an important distinction to be made between IELTS (the International English Language Testing System) and other exams. The purpose of IELTS is not to test students’ knowledge of the English language, but to assess their competence in using it. Students are not awarded a pass or fail, but their scores are reported on a scale ranging from 1 (‘Non-User’) to 9 (‘Expert User’).

The word User is critical. Rather than testing students’ knowledge of grammar or of specific vocabulary items, IELTS evaluates their ability to use the English language in the completion of tasks (within fairly tight time limits) in the four main skills of Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking. This focus on testing competence rather than knowledge has implications for students and teachers alike, especially with regard to learning vocabulary.

Let us take, for example, a student who is about to take IELTS, and who has a reasonably large vocabulary of, say, around 7,500 words. A vocabulary of this size is a desirable asset for anyone aiming to achieve a score of 6.5–7 in the academic version of IELTS. But learning words from vocabulary lists is not enough. If our imaginary student has no awareness of how words work naturally together, he/ she will be at a disadvantage compared to someone who may have a smaller vocabulary (say 5,000 words), but who is able to use those words effectively by combining them in natural-sounding collocations.

What this illustrates is the importance of learning to use vocabulary, at speed, across tasks within the four main skills. This will improve fluency, clarity of expression, and naturalness – and hence competence in general.

The need for such flexibility in manipulating words to create the kinds of combinations that a fluent speaker would produce naturally is what makes the Macmillan Collocations Dictionary an ideal companion for students as they prepare for the IELTS exam.

How producing natural collocations can help IELTS students

There are two aspects of vocabulary that illustrate the relevance of collocation and the value of a dictionary like the MCD:

• the relationship between frequency and ‘coverage’: research shows that the most common English words make up a high percentage of everything we read or write. The most frequently-used words (the top 2,500) account for almost 80% of all text, while the 7,500 most common words make up over 90%.
  
  
• The relationship between frequency and collocation: the more frequent a word is, the more likely it is to enter into ‘partnerships’ with other words, forming combinations which convey a sense of naturalness and style.

This has implications for processing information in the four main skills tested in IELTS.

Processing information: Listening

In the IELTS Listening Module, students have to be able to process information at natural speed which they hear only once. Grammar and listening skills apart, such processing for students aiming for Score Band 7 requires an ability to identify facts and ideas, to see the relationships between them, and to recognize paraphrases and summaries. From the IELTS student’s point of view, the skill of predicting relationships between words in collocations or identifying the paraphrase of one collocation to another at speed is very useful.

At a fairly simple level, this can be illustrated by the alternatives students might have to choose from in a multiple-choice question. As students have to process what they hear while listening, quick understanding of the audio and the questions is essential. Look at the second entry for the word basic in MCD:

A question in the Listening Module might look something like this:

Their parents have to work from morning till night to provide the ________.
a basic necessities
b school fees
c expensive clothes

In the listening module, the speaker might say something like: ... supply the children with accommodation, food and clothing. Knowing that the word basic is frequently combined with necessities to mean things like accommodation, food and clothing makes it easier to process information while listening. If students have to think about the meaning of the two words combined, it will slow them down. Furthermore as the vocabulary used in the audio, and in the questions, is likely to be drawn from the most common 2,500 to 7,500 words (either as single items or in combination), then it makes sense to include work on collocation and on possible paraphrases as part of a course.

Processing information: Reading

The reading passages in the academic version of IELTS are long – around 800 words each and up to 2,700 words for the three passages – and students have to answer 40 questions about the passages in one hour. The skills needed for negotiating a text include skimming, scanning, rapid recognition of text type and organization, and the ability to process grammar at speed. But a flexible use of vocabulary can further enhance competence in reading. A good starting point is to acquire a thorough working knowledge of the most frequent English words and – critically – to learn the various ways in which they typically combine to form natural-sounding and predictable collocations.

Reading and processing speeds can surely be enhanced by a detailed understanding of the ways in which words fit together. If we take another entry from the MCD, for the word significant, a knowledge of collocation can help students predict as they read. In a text about the important consequences of a policy or decision, for example, the use of the adjective significant will ‘prime’ readers to expect nouns such as impact or effect to follow:

... have a significant impact on the economy of the region.

And collocation manipulation will also help the student to see that the phrase... benefit that part of the country considerably in a reading passage is being paraphrased by the phrase above in a True/False/Not Given statement or multiple-choice question. As the MCD shows, other words with which significant regularly combines, to express the idea of an important result or effect of something, include implications, consequence, influence, and benefit. These provide yet another rich source of language to manipulate for paraphrasing and summarizing.

The ability to understand and use collocations helps students to increase their speed in processing information as they predict the text that is to cover the blank pages to come.

Building fluency and sounding natural: Writing Task 2

In Task 2 of the academic version of IELTS, students are required to write a minimum of 250 words. A student with a good grasp of collocation has a distinct advantage, as we can see by again looking at the entry for significant in the MCD. It shows the nouns and adverbs that most frequently combine with significant to express a wide range of ideas. If you want to say something is ‘very significant’, there is a choice of typical adverbs. Or again, there are sets of nouns for conveying ideas like ‘a significant achievement’, ‘a significant problem or challenge’, or – as discussed already – ‘a significant effect or result’. Here we look at the set of nouns frequently used to express the idea of ‘a significant event or change’:

Let’s say a student makes a spelling or a grammatical mistake in the sentence (for example, writing The most significent recent development or Most significant recent development); despite these mistakes, the message is clear. But look at the difference if the student uses words of similar meaning but in unnatural combinations, and writes:

The most key recent act has been the initiative of an integrated fares and ticketing arrangement.

Though the sentence is not ‘incorrect’, its intended meaning is much less clear, because inappropriate words have been chosen, resulting in untypical collocations. If this is then repeated with the same consistency throughout an essay, with or without grammar or spelling mistakes, it becomes more difficult for the reader (the Examiner), to recover the meaning. Texts like this give the impression the writer lacks fluency and is operating with a limited working vocabulary. Yet, with even quite small changes, the meaning would become more transparent and the text as a whole would feel more natural.

Building fluency and sounding natural: Speaking Parts 2 and 3

The need for fluency becomes even more critical in the Speaking module of IELTS. In Part 2 students are expected to talk about a particular topic: for example, Describe a recent development in your life that you felt was important. A good way of demonstrating a wide vocabulary is to employ natural collocations which paraphrase what the Examiner says, rather than just repeating the exact words, for example: I’m going to talk about a recent change in my life that was very significant. If students are hesitant as they pick their way through the words that they know or simply repeat the words of the Examiner, this will affect their Score Band for vocabulary and fluency. Part 3 covers many abstract topics similar to those covered in Task 2 of the Writing module. Here, students are asked to talk about subjects such as the development of technology and its effects in the workplace or on domestic life. Again, the student who is able, with minimum hesitation, to choose words that fit together to make natural collocations is more likely to achieve a higher Score Band.

The Macmillan Collocations Dictionary is a useful companion for anyone working in an academic or professional context or taking exams such as FCE, CAE Proficiency, ILEC and ICFE. For IELTS, it is an especially valuable resource which seems tailor-made to meet the needs of students preparing for this exam.

Introduction to MCD

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