SOME APPROACHES TO TEACHING LEXICAL COLLOCATIONS (illustrated by everyday and sport collocations)

Abstract

The present article deals with the word combinability and the importance of word co-occurrence while learning the English language. The importance of a word comprehension not as a separate lexical unit but as a part of a phrasal item is recognized in many scientific articles written by Richards, J. and Schmidt, R., Willis D., Mackin, R., the latter being broadly cited in a great number of modern student books focused on the methods of English language teaching. While designing Students’ English Books and the authors, those who are not English native speakers, pay little attention to such an important point as word collocations. This leads to poor results when learners are to take the examination in English as a foreign language or write a test to obtain a certificate of a corresponding level. The authors have analyzed the available Pupil’s books designed for pupils of Ukrainian secondary schools and recommended by the Ministry of Education of Ukraine. Among them there are books issued by both national publishers and foreign ones. Some samples of tests were analyzed as well as the authentic texts taken from the Internet resources, newspapers and journals. The article contains some useful tips for teachers of English as a foreign language. For those who are going to study English independently, we offer some approaches to mastering the vocabulary using the available printed and  e-dictionaries.