This study investigated whether a difference exists between Korean EFL learners frequency and variety of grammatical and lexical collocations and their reading ability. A total of 232 summaries were produced by 58 university-level Korean EFL learners with different reading comprehension ability. To measure the participants general reading ability, reading comprehension test was administered. The use of collocations was analyzed based on the classification of collocations proposed by Benson et al. (1986). The results suggest that frequency and variety of grammatical and lexical collocations were both significantly associated with Korean university EFL learners reading ability. Moreover, in comparison to the frequency and variety of grammatical collocations, the frequency and variety of lexical collocations seemed to be a better indicator for the students reading ability. Of particular interest were the findings that there were no obvious differences between good and poor readers when the collocation errors were considered. Findings in the study indicated that advanced readers used valid collocations more frequently, but they still could not produce acceptable collocations to some degree. Implications of these findings are discussed with a particular focus on pedagogical goals regarding teaching and learning of English collocations for Korean university EFL learners.
1. Introduction
2. Background of the Study
3. Research Methods
4. Results and Discussions
5. Conclusions
6. Pedagogical Implications
7. Recommendations for Future Research