Collocations, Phrasal Verbs and Idioms

Two weeks ago I gave a workshop on phrasal verbs, idioms and collocations.

I believe that teaching collocations is similar to teaching any other vocabulary area and similar rules and principles do apply to it; similar types of activities and games can be used in the classroom.

However, many of us feel less confident when teaching collocations and we do it rather randomly …. unsystematically … once in a blue moon … only if there is an exercise in the coursebook  … even though it should be a part of our every day regular classroom practice from elementary level of students.

CALL MY BLUFF! Which is the correct definition of a collocation? 

e) a word or a phrase not used literally, but used to describe somebdy or something in a more graphic way and to make the description more powerful, e.g. he flew to the door

b) informal words and expressions that are more common in spoken language, especially used by a particular group of people, e.g. teenagers. They often go in and out of fashion very quickly.

c) a frequent combination of words in a language. Often they are the only possible combination to express the concept, e.g. heavy rain

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Give it a try. Play the Call my bluff game with your students to pre-teach or to recycle vocabulary. Give students words and ask them to prepare three definitions (making use of their monolingual dictionaries); one correct, two distractors. Or, give them collocations, idioms, or phrasal verbs to define!

Here are some statements on collocations. Do you agree with them?

Cllcatins, hw wrds ccr togthr in spech nd wrtng, re n imprtnt prt f spekng and wrtng flently.

Usng cllcatons crrctly cn mke yur Englsh sund ntral, flent and mre prcse.

Cllcatns occr s frquntly in Engish tht stdnts ned to mstr thm if thy ar evr ging to prgrss.

OOPS, MY DOG HAS EATEN ALL THE VOWELS! Can you identify the message?

Btw, try this activity with your students to introduce a new topic, a text (e.g. a headline, the first paragraph), to warm them up.

Look at these expressions. Can you use three of them in a personal sentence(s).

• make a mistake
• apply for a job
• totally unaware 
• shrug shoulders
• live dangerously
  heavy rain
• to see eye to eye
• film star
• give up
• half understand
• to set the ball rolling
• run out of money

Can you identify any types of collocations, e.g. adverb + adjective (e.g. completely incomprehensible).

Here are some practical tips for teaching collocations:

• Fristly, make students aware of collocations.
• Help them identify them in context.
• Teach collocations, practise them and use them in context and full sentences.
• Help students to group them and record them effectively (e.g. by topic, or using collocation forks). 
• Help them remember them with images, stories, TPR activities.
• Do not teach them in isolation and/or through long lists from a coursebook. 
• Do not overwhelm them (up to 6, 8 expressions at one go?)

Present and recycle collocations in groups. You can use so called COLLOCATION FORKS. 

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E.g.     make                                               

            earn

            save                     money

           spend

Think of collocation forks your students should know.

A)     dictate the verbs, ask students to guess the missing nouns, e.g. pass/take/fail … an exam.

B)     Write down the forks on the board. Erase the verb; keep first letters only, gap it out for students to reconstruct coming to the board one after another.

BANANA STORY  

Make students put all related collocations into a short story to remember them beter.

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I banana(ed) my final exam last week but I banana(ed). Hopefully I’ll banana next time.

PHOTO OF MY COLLOCATIONS

Distribute collocations/groups of collocations to your students. Ask them to take a photo on their mobile phone (give them a time limit in the classroom or ask them to do it for homework/on their way to work/in the office). Then they work in pairs/small groups and recycle the collocations. Be creative with the follow-up activity. Make them use the collocations.

DICE GAME

Write numbers 1-6 on the board. Elicit collocations from a text students have just read. Then students roll the dice. They use the word they have chosen in a story/first line of a story/in a poem/in a personalized sentence/in a question/in the “I´d like to find someone who…” phrase.

Make sure to replace the collocations you have used with another examples from the text. You can look for different types, e.g. 1 – noun + noun, 2 – adjective + noun. 

BUSY BETTY, LAZY LEO

Introduce characters such as Busy Betty, Lazy Leo, Happy Henry, Exhausted Eve, Cool Cathy, or Frustrated Fionna to students. They choose one character and write a diary entry/tweet using as many collocations as possible. E.g. On Monday … 

COLLOCATION TENNIS

Learners take turns to add collocations to create a chain of collocations. The word which collocates can come before the previous one (presenter – sports (presenter)) or after it (television – (television) presenter).

You could have a string such as:

Heavy – traffic – light – colour – television – presenter – sports – adventure – hair-raising – film  - series – crime – appalling – weather – forecast …

I use an online collocation dictionary with students. They enter the word into a seach engine,scan the entry and choose the  next collocation.

Make it authentic

It is important to see and teach collocations in context. Do not forget to use authentic sources, show them the language in magazine articles, songs, cartoons, adverts.

Google Run out of

Simply, google the collocation (e.g. run out of) and use authentic headlines, song titles, etc. to help students understand and use the collocations.

Guess the collocation

When working with a text, I often use an activity in which students listen to the story and when I pause, they try to guess what comes next. Then read more, pause, and let them guess the word(s) again. Of course, the process of guessing is more important the “correct” answers.

A success story

In 2005, Sheri Schmelzer was a 40-year-old stay-at-home …

mom when she decided to get …

creative with …

her family's multiple pairs of Crocs …

shoes. The plastic slip-on …

shoes have ventilation …

holes across the top and Schmelzer, armed …

with …

clay created mix-and-match designs that would fit in the …

holes.

Collocation Treasure Hunt

Before reading a text, give each student/pair a note indicating a type of collocation, e.g. noun + noun, or instructions such as “Find an expression which means … Find a two-part verb which means …a chunk which means…” . They read the text and find the lexis.

Of course, make the task learner-centred. They create the prompts for another pair themselves.

 Mime the Collocations

Before students read the text, write the collocations from a text on the board. Students work in pairs and prepare to mime the collocations.

Then read the text aloud and students act out the collocations when they hear them.

Variation: Students read silently the text and they mime the words as they come along them.

It´s my Collocation – Do not Jump the Queue

Distribute collocations to students, each on a separate poster/card. Students listen to a song and when they hear the phrase, they have to put up the card.

Variation: With a bigger group, they are asked to come to the board when they hear their phrase and stand in a line. If they hear the phrase for the second time, they have to move to the end of the line.

The activity was done in the workshop.

So, would you like to add your own collocation activity? Share it with us!