DEVELOPING UPPER-SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ COLLOCATIONAL SKILLS IN WRITING THROUGH CORPUS-BASED TASKS
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ing, collocation, corpus, SkELL, COCA, writing process, self-editing, assessment criteria, upper-secondary school students.##article.abstract##
This article examines the development of Grade 8–9 students’ ability to use English collocations accurately and diversely in writing through tasks based on the COCA and SkELL corpora. It proposes a system of tasks integrated into four stages of the writing process: pre-writing, drafting, corpus-assisted revision, and production of the final text. Four criteria are developed to assess collocational competence in written work: accuracy, range, appropriateness to the topic, and independent verification. The findings of an educational experiment conducted in schools in the Bukhara region indicate the effectiveness of corpus-based writing tasks.
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Corpus-based tasks are most effective when aligned with the pre-writing, drafting, revision, and final-text stages, since the corpus performs a distinct pedagogical function at each stage.
SkELL is well suited to locating topic-specific word combinations during pre-writing, while COCA is useful during revision for examining the frequency and contextual use of collocations.
The criteria of accuracy, range, topical appropriateness, and independent verification make it possible to assess the development of collocational skills in written work.
Independent corpus-assisted revision develops not only students’ collocational competence but also their learner autonomy.
Future research should examine how writing tasks can be aligned with the requirements of the written component of the Multilevel examination.
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