DIFFICULTIES IN UNDERSTANDING AND APPLYING COLLOCATIONS IN WRITING OF ENGLISH-MAJORED JUNIORS AT A UNIVERSITY IN THE MEKONG DELTA, VIETNAM

It goes without saying that writing is one of the central pillars of language learning that helps learners show their viewpoints, thoughts, and feelings to readers. If writing is considered an effective means of communication, collocations are the colour of language expressions. There is no doubt that collocations are interesting to learn and use. Obviously, they make our written English become more flexible, colourful, attractive, and easy to understand. However, students also face some difficulties in understanding and applying collocations. Therefore, the research “Difficulties in understanding and applying collocations in writing of English majored juniors at a University in the Mekong Delta” was conducted to find out some difficulties in learning collocations. Juniors of Bachelor of English 13 classes at Tay Do University were chosen as the participants. A questionnaire and interview were the instruments of the study. The findings of the survey would point out the learners’ difficulties consisting in vocabulary, recognizing collocation in the specific contexts, guessing meaning, and putting collocations in the appropriate situations. Based on the results, some solutions and tips would be suggested to help students be able to master collocations and use them accurately. Article visualizations