The present study is a preliminary study on the effects of the two bilingual tools (JuKuu and Bing Dictionary) on junior high students’ collocation learning and their perceptions toward the bilingual concordancing, but its relevance to EFL junior high students’ general performance in collocation knowledge can also be seen. Further discussion is presented below.
Two main topics of the present study are discussed. The effects of the two bilingual tools on collocation learning are compared and discussed first. Then, a comparison of learners’ perceptions toward collocation learning with the two bilingual tools between the two groups is provided.
In terms of the participants’ overall collocation knowledge before participating in the present study, the results show that the learners in EFL contexts indeed lacked collocation knowledge and were less aware of collocation usage. Many previous studies (Fraghal & Obiedat, 1995; Kuan, 2008) also observe that EFL language learners often have insufficient collocation awareness and knowledge because they do not have ample exposure to authentic language use in different contexts.
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A main finding in the present study is that the participants improved significantly in the task of collocation retrieval with the help of two bilingual tools. The result suggests that bilingual tools indeed facilitate learners to find proper collocates. The finding is not in contradiction with those of the empirical studies discussed above (Chan & Liou, 2005; Chujo et al., 2006; Gao, 2011). Regarding the effects of the two bilingual tools, the result confirms those of Chan and Liou (2005). Both of Chan and Liou’s (2005) study and the present study reveal that bilingual tools are beneficial to collocation learning, although the participants in the present study are junior high school students while those in Chan and Liou’s study are university students. As a result, more participants at different educational levels were recruited in this research field.
The participants in both groups in the present study made significant improvement in the task of collocation retrieval but regressed later in the posttest.
Their performances in the posttest were still better than those in the pretest however.
The results suggest that learners’ awareness and knowledge of collocations have been raised because at the end of the posttest their collocation knowledge was significantly better than their entry level in the pretest. The findings also proved that without any teacher’s guidance, junior high school students could find the needed collocations by themselves with the help of the bilingual tools. Similar findings were also found in the study of Chujo et al. (2006). They suggested that with the help of the bilingual tool even learners at the beginning level can also find the proper collocations by themselves without teachers’ assistance.
Based on these results, the participants in both groups made significant improvement in the task of collocation retrieval but regressed later in the posttest.
Several possible reasons might be able to account for why there was significant improvement between the pretest and the task of collocation retrieval but insignificant
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on the improvement between the posttest and the task. First, the participants may have forgotten what they had learned during the collocation consultation since they took the posttest a week later. Second, no practice was provided between the task and the posttest. People need repeated practices to successfully store entirely new input in the long-term memory; therefore, teachers can design collocation learning activities with the help of the bilingual tools. These activities may help to increase learners’ retention of collocations. Third, when the participants searched for the collocates during the task of collocation retrieval, they were only required to copy down the proper collocates instead of memorizing them. In other words, memorizing the collocates may not be the learning focus for the students during the consulting process; therefore, they could not get most of the answers right when they took the posttest. Fourth, the task session may not be long enough for the participants to memorize the collocates.
Finally, the participants reported that too many possible collocates confused them.
Hence, such confusion might have increased their learning burden and influenced their performance in the posttest.
Another important finding in the present study is that the participants of the JuKuu Group surpassed significantly those of the Bing Dictionary Group in the task of collocation retrieval. The finding makes it clear that JuKuu, the bilingual concordancer, is more powerful in assisting students in finding proper collocates than Bing Dictionary, the bilingual dictionary. There might be several possible factors for this. First, the quality and accuracy of Chinese translations in the two bilingual tools.
Second, the numbers of example sentences provided by the bilingual tools. Third, the search language that the learners used.
On the quality and accuracy of Chinese translations, JuKuu provided learners with more accurate collocation usages as compared with Bing Dictionary. The participants sometimes encountered direct and literal translations of Chinese or
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inappropriate expressions when consulting Bing Dictionary. For example, learners got the literal translations “*wash the film” when they searched for 沖洗底片 (develop the film), and “*cheap price” for “ 價 格 便 宜 (low price).” They also found inappropriate expressions “*do remember” when searching for “做筆記 (take a note).”
As a result, learners who utilized Bing Dictionary had incorrect input. Even worse, they produced incorrect output in the task of collocation retrieval. On the contrary, JuKuu does not provide literal or direct translations. When compared with JuKuu, the quality and the accuracy of Chinese translations in Bing Dictionary should be improved.
As for the numbers of example sentences, Bing Dictionary does not provide many example sentences; sometimes not ever one example sentence is provided in the search result from Bing Dictionary. For example, when learners searched for the collocate of “拍電影 (make a film),” the result only showed “making a movie”
without providing any example sentences. Therefore, the participants who used Bing Dictionary did not have sufficient clues to find the proper collocates. That is also why they proposed that Bing Dictionary should provide more example sentences when answering the open-ended questions. Furthermore, based on the results of the questionnaire, the participants in the Bing Dictionary Group perceived fewer unknown words. This can be attributed to the lack of example sentences in Bing Dictionary.
As to the search language used by the learners, in comparison with using Chinese search word, learners get more information from Bing Dictionary about word usages or collocation usages on the right column when keying in an English search word.
However, when searching for the collocates in the task of collocation retrieval, the participants only used Chinese search words. That is the reason why they could not perform well in the task. Therefore, learners in future studies with a high language
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proficiency level can be encouraged to use English search word.
After the discussion of the effects of the two bilingual tools on collocation learning, a comparison of learners’ perceptions toward collocation learning with the two bilingual tools between the two groups is discussed. Three topics related to the participants’ perceptions toward the two bilingual tools are presented. First, learners’
perceptions toward the usefulness of the two bilingual tools are provided. Second, learners’ perceptions toward the strengths and the weaknesses of the two bilingual tools, their difficulties of consulting bilingual tools and their willingness of future use are also discussed. Finally, their recommendations about the two bilingual tools are presented.
First of all, the effects of the English example sentences and the Chinese translations are discussed. As for the English examples and Chinese translations, more JuKuu users than Bing Dictionary users found the English examples and Chinese translations helpful in their collocation learning. In addition, the participants in the JuKuu Group were more satisfied with English example sentences and Chinese translations than those in the Bing Dictionary Group. A partial explanation for this result may lie in the fact that when learners consult the bilingual dictionary, they only focus on word forms and word meanings. The English examples are therefore not the main concern during the consulting process (Lai, 2010). Furthermore, another possible interpretation might lie in the differences of the quality and accuracy of Chinese translations as well as the numbers of example sentences between the two tools.
Furthermore, by comparing the patterns of English sentences with those of Chinese translations, many participants in both groups reported that they realized that there is no one-to-one relationship between Chinese collocations and English collocations. The result is similar to that in the previous studies (John, 2001; Wang,
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2001). By providing the native language and the target language at the same time, learners can have both exposure to authentic language use and opportunities to compare the differences between the two languages.
In conclusion, Chinese translations and English example sentences in bilingual tools can not only facilitate learners’ collocation learning but also help them observe the relationship between Chinese collocations and English collocations. However, because the quality and accuracy of Chinese translations in JuKuu are better than those in Bing Dictionary, more participants in the JuKuu Group thought that Chinese translations are beneficial.
Furthermore, as to the data of the usefulness of the two bilingual tools, nearly three quarters of the participants in the JuKuu Group perceived the benefits of JuKuu while less than half of the participants in the Bing Dictionary Group agreed that Bing Dictionary was helpful. The results are similar to those in Lai’s (2010) study. When learners search for information on collocations, they choose to utilize corpus tools.
Second, the strengths and weaknesses of the two bilingual tools as well as the difficulties of using the two bilingual tools perceived by the participants are discussed.
As to the advantages of the two bilingual tools, Chinese translations and highlighting the target collocation are the two main concerns of the participants. The participants in both groups regarded Chinese translations as the most important feature of the two bilingual tools. A possible explanation for the result is that with the help of learners’
mother tongue, the learning burden and difficulty can be reduced, as stated in previous studies (Chen, 2011; Chujo et al., 2006; Nation, 2001).
Another important feature of the two bilingual tools is highlighting. JuKuu highlights the Chinese collocation in the example sentences, and Bing Dictionary highlights the Chinese collocation and English collocation, its counterpart, at the same time. One reason for the emphasis on the highlighting could be that learners can filter
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out the key information quickly. Comparing highlighting Chinese collocations only, learners stated that alignment of Chinese translations and English examples sentences is needed and more helpful. Therefore, highlighting and alignment are important for language learners.
As for the disadvantages of the two bilingual tools, they shared three major weaknesses: unknown words, too many possible collocates, and time-consuming. The findings reported here support the results of previous research. As stated in Chambers (2005) and Chang (2008), many unfamiliar words often overwhelm language learners.
Furthermore, learners’ uncertainty about the correct collocates and insufficiency of deciding proper collocations were also observed by previous research (Vannestål &
Lindquist, 2007). Therefore, training and practice about how to formulate corpus queries and interpret the corpus results are needed (Vannestål & Lindquist, 2007).
Other disadvantages about the two bilingual tools reported by the participants are discussed as follows. One fifth of the participants stated that Bing Dictionary provided too few examples, and they also reported in the open-ended question that too few examples was the cause of their difficulty in collocation learning. Furthermore, the participants who used Bing Dictionary also stated that they usually could not find the collocations they needed. As to JuKuu, half of the participants pointed out that it had a key weakness. That is the Chinese translations and English example sentences do not align. Therefore, the participants have to find out the correlation between the Chinese translations and their English counterparts, which may increase the difficulty of collocation searching. Although JuKuu only highlights the key-in Chinese search phrase, learners can still find the counterpart of the Chinese collocations easily and quickly just by pressing “Ctrl + F.” As based on the reasons above, JuKuu is a more effective and beneficial tool than Bing Dictionary. A clear comparison between the two bilingual tools is shown in Table 4.12.
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Table 4.12
Comparison of the Two Bilingual Tools
JuKuu Bing
Strengths 1. The quality and the accuracy of Chinese translations are better.
2. More example sentences are provided.
1. Bing Dictionary highlights the target phrase both in Chinese and English.
Weaknesses 1. JuKuu only highlights the key-in Chinese phrase, but the Chinese translations and English sentences are not aligned.
1. Some phrases are translated directly or literally from Chinese to English.
2. Bing Dictionary does not provide many example
sentences; sometimes there are no example sentences at all.
3. Bing Dictionary sometimes provides inappropriate
expression because of direct translation from Chinese. For example, “*do remember”
instead of “take a note”).
Common weaknesses
1. Unknown words.
2. Too many possible collocates.
3. Time-consuming.
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The difficulties learners encountered when consulting the two bilingual tools are analyzed as follows. Although most of the participants in the JuKuu Group (78%) and some in the Bing Dictionary Group (42%) held neutral attitudes toward the difficulty in using the bilingual tools, some participants still had difficulties in utilizing the bilingual tools. The difficulties that the participants encountered are exactly the three main weaknesses they proposed above: too many unknown words, too many possible collocates and time-consuming. Hence, because of the comparison and reasons presented above, more participants would be willing to utilize JuKuu in the future.
The percentage of willingness of consulting JuKuu in the future is twice the percentage of willingness of consulting Bing Dictionary.
Finally, participants’ recommendations about the two bilingual tools are discussed. Since the participants in the present study encountered some difficulties when consulting the two bilingual tools, some recommendations were provided by them. The participants in both groups have the same need to have the traditional Chinese version of bilingual tools. A partial interpretation for this may lie in the discrepancy in the forms of the Chinese characters and the word usage between traditional Chinese and simple Chinese. Because of the two reasons, learners may not find the appropriate collocates or the collocations they want.
As to the recommendations about JuKuu, one of the recommendations proposed by the participants in JuKuu search is the alignment of English examples and Chinese translations. Comparing with the highlighted Chinese collocations only, learners benefit from alignment of Chinese translations and English sentences more. They can clearly compare the patterns between the two languages, easily differentiate the differences of the usage, and quickly find proper collocates. Another important recommendation provided by the learners is that the example sentences should be categorized on basis of the vocabulary difficulty or the learners’ language proficiency.
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As a result, learners may encounter fewer difficulties, resulting in learning interests being aroused.
On the other hand, the participants in Bing Dictionary reported that they usually could not find the collocations they needed, so they recommended that its corpus be expanded and more example sentences collected. Hence, when designing a bilingual tool, teachers or researchers should take the learners’ needs, interests and language proficiency into consideration.
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CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSION
The main purpose of the present study is to investigate the effects of two bilingual tools, JuKuu and Bing Dictionary. Two collocation tests and a task of collocation retrieval were utilized to explore the effectiveness of the two bilingual tools. Two questionnaires were used to analyze learners’ perceptions toward collocation learning by consulting bilingual tools. Two intact classes in EFL junior high school were recruited. The results indicated that using bilingual tools to find collocation is beneficial, and learners performed significantly better when utilizing the bilingual concordancer, JuKuu. Furthermore, most of the participants held positive attitudes toward consulting bilingual tools when learning collocations. In view of the findings of the present study, some pedagogical implications are discussed.
Limitations of the present study and suggestions for future research are also discussed.