THE COMPREHENSION OF ENGLISH LEXICAL COLLOCATIONS BY KUWAITI EFL LEARNERS (Published)
This study aims to contribute to an understanding of the comprehension of lexical collocations by Kuwaiti EFL learners. Particularly, it attempts to investigate whether the participants’ English proficiency level affects their comprehension of lexical collocations. The results showed that Kuwaiti EFL learners have little awareness of lexical collocations in English. Also, it showed that there were differences between the advanced and intermediate Kuwaiti EFL learners in terms of their comprehension of lexical collocations. However, these differences were not enough to be statistically significant. Furthermore, the most frequent types of errors and the possible reasons for their occurrence were identified. The types Adjective + noun and Verb (action) + noun /pronoun/ prepositional phrase were the most problematic in comparison with other types in both groups. On the other hand, Quantifier + noun was the least problematic type. It has been suggested that L1 interference plays a central role in the acquisition of lexical collocations by Kuwaiti EFL learners. Additionally, lack of knowledge of lexical collocations may also be a main reason behind such errors. The study recommended that English language teachers need to pay more attention to lexical collocations due to their crucial importance in second language acquisition.
Keywords: Collocations, Error Analysis, Kuwaiti EFL learners, Kuwaiti Spoken Arabic, Lexical collocations, SLA