This piece of research is expected to inform teachers of English at Quang Nam University of the problems students usually encounter in IELTS Writing Task 2 and to gain an insight into how students perceive their using of collocations in academic IELTS Writing Task 2. It will also put forwards some recommendations on the use of collocations for improving band score on IELTS Writing Task 2. | PERCEPTIONS ON THE USE OF COLLOCATIONS IN ACADEMIC IELTS WRITING TASK 2 BY SENIOR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT QUANG NAM UNIVERSITY Nguyen Thi Kim Phuong1 Abstract One of the IELTS marking criteria is lexical resource which focuses on the way students use collocations in their writing section. Therefore IELTS test takers should make effective use of collocations to ace IELTS Writing test. This means IELTS learners should not learn individual words by themselves and should focus on what other words these lexical items are collocated with to build up their vocabulary range and thus maximize their IELTS score. This paper presents a study on Quang Nam University English major students perception of using collocations in IELTS Writing Task 2. This piece of research is expected to inform teachers of English at Quang Nam University of the problems students usually encounter in IELTS Writing Task 2 and to gain an insight into how students perceive their using of collocations in academic IELTS Writing Task 2. It will also put forwards some recommendations on the use of collocations for improving band score on IELTS Writing Task 2. Key words collocations perception IELTS academic writing essay problems 1. Introduction It is widely acknowledged that writing has always been demanding and dif cult for students especially IELTS Writing Task 2 which requires test takers to write at least 250 words presenting about a topic by means of giving and justifying an opinion discussing the topic summarizing details outlining problems identifying possible solutions and supporting what they write with reasons arguments and relevant examples from their own knowledge or experience. Notably IELTS learners often face dif culties when it comes to collocations also known as the natural combination of words or the correct arrangement of words in a sentence. Regarding IELTS Writing Task 2 IELTS test takers should make the most of collocations to be aware of language chunks used by native speakers in
