Learning Collocations in Southern Thailand
On 27 November, Rungroj Chorbwhan gave a FASS seminar entitled 'Patani Malay & Southern Thai Speakers’ Problems and Learning Strategies in Acquring English Collocations'.
Learners of English in Thailand tend to have problems with collocations such as the following:
- ‘*golden hair’ instead of ‘blonde hair’
- ‘*switch turn/*change turn’ instead of ‘take turn’
- ‘*set the bed’ instead of ‘make the bed’
- ‘*ride the car’ instead of ‘get in the car’
- ‘*write a diary’ instead of ‘keep a diary’
- ‘*sticky traffic’ instead of ‘heavy traffic’
- ‘*red hair’ instead of ‘blonde hair’
- ‘*powerful coffee’ instead of ‘strong coffee’
- ‘*confidence on’ instead of ‘confidence in’
- ‘*depend in’ instead of depend on
It was hypothesized that speakers of Southern Thai would have more problems than those whose first language is Pattani Malay.
However, in a study of 39 speakers of Southern Thai and 39 of Pattani Malay, it was found that there was no difference in collocational problems for these two groups of students.