Investingating the lties in english collocations encountered by sudanes learnes of english at unvirsity levels

Abstract

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to investigate the problems of collocations encotmtered by Sudanese learners of English. The general assumption is that Sudanese learners of English at university level do not know how to use collocations in their writing.Moreover, the syllabi taught to Sudanese university students four levels do not cover the area of collocations sufficiently. This study attempts to identify collocation errors in the students’ performance and suggest possible solutions to them. This is accomplished through several steps: (l) Choosing 40 final students in the department of English, Faculty of Arts, at Omdurman Ahlia University as subjects. (2) 17 instructors of English, who are all holders of different degrees in English language, answered the teachers ‘questionnaire. They all teach in the department of English in four Sudanese universities. a)University of Khartoum Faculty of Education. b) Al-Neelein university. C)Omdurman Ahlia university. d) Al-Ahfad university for Women. (3) Two instruments for data collection were used: (a) Students’ test and (b) teachers’ questionnaire.The data were statistically analyzed. The results of the investigation have revealed the following: 1. About half of the Students face a problem when using English idioms. 57.5%of their answers were incorrect and they rarely use idioms in their writing.46.5% of the students’ answers were incorrect when using collocations with verbs. They also make errors in collocations with adjectives. 59% is the percentage of their errors. Errors in collocations with nouns are more than 58% . 2. According to Al-Ahlia subjects’ register the syllabus used at the four levels does not focus on the area of collocations. 3. The structure of English phrasal verbs, and idioms sometimes causes collocation errors.