Lecture 3: Developing Awareness of Collocations through Reading

1. Lecture 3: Developing Awareness of Collocations through Reading Developed by Yang Ying 2010 Online Lecture Series on Collocation Learning

2. Lecture 1 tells you about what is collocation. Lecture II tells you about the importance of collocation learning

3. Focus of Lecture 3 • Learning what to take note of in reading & • how to become aware of collocations in reading

4. Difficulties with Collocation Learning • There are too many of them!!! • Many of them do not affect comprehension, so I don’t pay attention to them. • I don’t know which ones to look for.

5. A habit to be developed • Pay attention to common words (whose meaning you know) and what words go with them! • Pay attention only to single and rare words that I don’t know the meaning of

6. What to look out for? • an interesting expression • a useful one (likely to be frequently used, on a common topic) • Common words combined (you understand their meaning, but may not be able to use them yourself)

7. Practice on a short text Jack considers himself a mathematical geek. He has a talent for working with figures and codes and spends a lot of time solving mathematical problems, not for any material gains, but just for the kick of it. Jack’s parents are quite worried about him when they see him online a good part of the time. To them, Jack seems like an asocial loner. To them, studying pure mathematics is boring and does not seem to offer any good job prospects. In fact, Jack corresponds with thousands of other people who are also passionate aboutmathematics. They share with each other solutions to tough math problems and they meet offline as well to talk openly aboutsome social issues and how mathematics can be applied to help solve practical problems. Many of Jack’s friends hold high paying positions and are paid well for their skills. Their work is in demandand the future seems to hold well for the so called “mathematical geeks.”

8. Practice on a longer text • Have you ever stopped and thought about how your ability to learn influences your life and prosperity? Take a moment and consider: • Your ability to learn during school heavily influences your grades, the quality of your education, and the choices you have for a career. • Your ability to learn "on the job" has a significant impact on your employment, promotion prospects and overall income or business success. • While your employment may provide formal training, how much do you remember 2 weeks, 6 months or a year after the course? The value you get from such training often depends on your personal learning skills.

9. Practice (continued) • As the retirement age increases, you'll need a well-functioning brain for longer. You can ward off degenerative brain diseases and age-related mental decline through continual learning and mental exercise. • While learning is a fundamental skill, it's surprising that it's so hard to find accurate and up-to-date information on how to learn well. We can, however, tell you what does work. After reading the text below, you will have a much better way to think about learning. You'll immediately be able to start using this knowledge to work out for yourself the value of various learning improvement products. You'll also be on your way to better learning and improved memory - just by understanding the simple principle described next.

10. Practice (continued) • The core principle - mental fitness • Improved memory and learning come from mental fitness. Your mental fitness determines how well you will learn and remember new information. Your mental fitness controls how effectively you can use your brain to achieve the goals you want and the prosperity you wish for. • A good way to think about this principle is that mental fitness is similar to physical fitness. Let's look at some examples: • Your natural muscle performance doesn't differ that much from the rest of the population. It's how you train and exercise them that make them either strong or weak. Similarly, your natural brain performance does not differ that much from other people as well. It's how you train and use your "brain muscle" that makes a real difference.

11. Practice (continued) • You can improve your athletic fitness through many activities. Similarly, you can also improve your mental fitness through many activities. Some are easy, some are challenging. It's often the more challenging ones that have the most benefit. • You don't expect you can run a marathon the day after going for a jog for the first time in five years. Similarly, you can't learn one memory technique and suddenly your memory drastically improves. You can, however, start to see results early in your training program, spurring you on to better fitness. Your brain rewards you for positive learning experiences. • Like improving your athletic fitness, improving your memory fitness has benefits in many areas of your life. Employment, relationships, confidence and leisure are a few. In today's economic climate,self-directed learners have a great advantage over those who wait for the next organized course to come along.

12. Practice (continued) • If you don't take care of physical fitness, it's more likely you'll develop physical illnesses and diseases such as heart disease. Similarly, if you don't take care of your mental fitness it's more likely you'll develop brain illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease, or that you'll experience age-related mental decline earlier in life. Both physical and mental fitness can help your body and brain work effectively for longer. • When you think about this principle, it makes sense. If a product promises significant memory improvements without much mental effort on your part, be suspicious! That's like saying you can improve your physical fitness without lifting a finger. Or it's like saying you can lose weight simply by taking a pill. You would be wary of those claims - why would memory be any different? Adapted from: accelerated learning\Memletics Accelerated Learning Manual's Home Page.htm

13. Don’t worry about finding all – find what is interesting and useful to you being CORRECT – each one may come up with his/her own list of useful expressions not being able to remember all – because you won’t. You will remember some and forget some. seeing immediate results – it takes time.

14. If you practice more on paying attention to common words and their combinations, your eyes will become sharper! You see them more in reading! You may even hear them more over the radio, on TV and in daily conversations! You appreciate the beauty of language more when you see how others combine words to make meaning!

15. Be More Aware of Collocations • Your language learning opportunities are extended through such awareness!

16. References Memletics. (2003-2010). Better learning and memory skills will improve your life. Retrieved Jan 18, 2010, from http://www.memletics.com/manual/default.asp Jiang, J. Y. & Yang, Y. (forthcoming). Become a fast reader and beyond: Increase your reading speed and collocation awareness. Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

17. Click here for further practice on recognizing collocations in reading texts