How Well can Healthcare Students Use Medical Collocations at both the Recognition and Production Levels?

Abstract

This study aimed at investigating healthcare students’ collocational competence at the level of recognition and production. It was an attempt to provide answers to the following five questions: (1) How well can students recognize medical collocations? (2) How well can they produce them? (3) What types of mistakes do they make in recognizing and producing collocations? (4) Which type of collocation is the most difficult? (5) What implications to teaching English to healthcare students may this study have? Data were culled from a sample of 100 students through specially designed questionnaires for both recognition and production. It was found that the subjects’ collocational competence was below expectations. Therefore, it was recommended that medical collocations be accorded systematic treatment in the process of teaching English to healthcare students..