A Study of Japanese Collocation Usage by the 12th Grade Japanese Language Program Students

Abstract

This study investigates the use of noun + を + verb structure collocations among 200 twelfth-grade students enrolled in a Japanese language program at seven high schools in Nonthaburi Province, Thailand. Collocational errors influenced by the learners’ first language (L1) are categorized into four groups for analysis: 1) “wearing,” 2) “opening and closing,” 3) “taking medicine,” and 4) verbs with multiple meanings. Research instruments include a demographic questionnaire, collocation usage test, and interviews with students and instructors.

The collocation usage test indicates that students scored an average of 5.15 of 17 points (30.26%). When analyzed by category, the percentage of correct responses was 23.60% for “wearing,” 17.00% for “opening and closing,” 17.00% for “taking medicine,” and 44.91% for verbs with multiple meanings. These findings indicate that students’ knowledge and understanding of collocations remain at a low level. Interviews indicate that students who perform well tend to memorize collocations as lexical chunks. Additionally, schools implementing chunk-based vocabulary instruction have higher average scoring than those utilizing a word-by-word or meaning-separated teaching method. These findings suggest that chunk-based vocabulary instruction may enhance student collocational competence and improve language proficiency. Therefore, instructors should learn chunk-based teaching strategies to promote accurate, contextually appropriate vocabulary use among learners.