Difficulties in Learning English Collocations at Secondary Level

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate, identify and analyze difficulties facing Sudanese students at secondary level in learning English collocations. The sample of the study involved eighty secondary school students and fifty five English language teachers. The researcher adapted two tools, a multiple choice test for students and a questionnaire for teachers. In the first, a test was meant to evaluate and assess the performance of Sudanese EFL Learners on both lexical and grammatical collocations which proposed by Benson, Benson, &Ilson (1997). In the second, 55 teachers who are specialized in English language responded to the questionnaire. The questionnaire consists of 10 items which mainly focus on the following issues: English language teachers’ attitudes towards the importance of teaching collocations; their frequency and their methods of teaching, their opinion of the need for formal teaching of collocation, their opinions of the causes of students’ collocational errors and suggested methods for learning collocations. The participation was voluntary. They were given five choices (strongly agree - agree - neutral - disagree - strongly disagree ). The findings confirmed that Sudanese Learners face difficulties with English collocations. With regard to the poor result of lexical and grammatical collocations as well as various strategies; negative transfer, synonymy and overgeneralization that students resorted to, the study provides some recommendations to tackle these problems and enhance the processes of teaching and learning English collocations in Sudan.