Teaching Phrasal Verbs

Find someone who

Aim To practise and consolidate phrasal verbs learnt (Useful as a warmer) Preparation Prepare a list of sentences using the phrasal verbs you want to practise and make a copy for each student in the class. E.g. Find someone who.. has fallen out with someone recently gave something up for the New Year. picked up some new English expressions yesterday takes after their mother

Procedure Give one copy of the sentences to each student in the class. Explain that they are going to transform the sentences into questions and then go round the class asking one another the questions. When they find someone who answers yes to a question, they put that persons name next to the statement in the space provided. It is important to tell the students that they can only put the same name once or depending on the number of students in the class, twice. This is to encourage them to speak to as many different partners as possible. When one student has found a name for each of the statements on the worksheet, stop the activity.

Peer teaching
Aim of the activity For each student to learn one phrasal verb and then to be responsible for teaching it to other members of the class Preparation Select the phrasal verbs you want to teach. Prepare some cards with a phrasal verb and some example sentences showing the phrasal verb in context written on one side of each card. On the other side, write a sentence illustrating the meaning of the verb, but not using the phrasal verb. It is preferable to also show a picture illustrating the meaning of the verb. The book, Making Sense of Phrasal Verbs by Martin Shovel, is an excellent source of pictures for this kind of activity. Procedure Give each student in the class one card and ask them to look at the picture (or sentence illustrating the meaning of the phrasal verb) and try to guess which verb it could be. You 1 @Lake School Email:enquiries@englishinoxford.com

can help the students by limiting the phrasal verbs to a particular stem or particle, for example, verbs with get or verbs with the particle out. Students check to see if they have guessed correctly by turning the card over. Now ask the students to stand up and go round the class and teach the other students their phrasal verb. No writing is involved at this stage. Once the students have seen all the cards they go back to their seats. Collect the cards and then test the effectiveness of the peer teaching by showing all the pictures on the OHT open class. The teacher hands out a copy of all the pictures and students then write the verbs down. For further practice in class or for homework, students make up sentences or stories using the picture prompts.

Contextualisation of phrasal verbs by using newspapers or magazines

Aim To show phrasal verbs in action and in an authentic context Preparation Cut out headlines / articles / captions from topical newspapers (or from the Internet) and highlight the phrasal verb to be studied. Mount on card and then put up around the walls of the class. Procedure Ask the students to stand up in pairs and go round the class to try to work out a meaning for the verbs highlighted on the cards around the classroom according to the context. Once all the students have seen all the cards, ask them to compare their answers and check that they have guessed the correct meanings. Ask students to report back on any article that particularly caught their eye. This could lead to an open class discussion on the subject if students are interested. For further practice ask students to find an example of a phrasal verb and bring it in to class to show the other students. This makes the activity very personal.

Presentation through contextualisation of phrasal verbs

Aim To present new phrasal verbs in context Preparation For this activity we recommend the pictures in Phrasal Verb Organiser by John Flower, published by LTP. However, you can do the activity using pictures from another source, e.g. from cartoons in magazines etc. Choose a set of pictures illustrating the phrasal verbs you want to teach and stick them on separate pieces of card. Display them around the classroom walls. Write sentences illustrating the meaning of each phrasal verb, but not using the phrasal verb, on a separate piece of paper. 2 @Lake School Email:enquiries@englishinoxford.com

Procedure Ask the students to work in pairs. Give each pair of students a copy of the sentences and ask them to try to guess which phrasal verb the sentence is illustrating. Then ask students to stand up and walk around the class, matching a picture illustrating a phrasal to each sentence on their sheet. Check answers open class. Now give each student a jumbled up question containing one of the phrasal verbs taught. Ask them to put the words of their question in order and memorise it. Now ask the students to go around the class and ask everyone his/her question and also answer the other questions. For further practice students make up stories / dialogues / cloze-gapped sentences / true or false statements.

Brainstorm Circle
Aim To elicit phrasal verbs the students already know and to introduce new ones in a given time limit Preparation On the board, draw a circle and inside the circle, write a phrasal verb stem, for example BREAK or PUT or a particle, for example OFF or OUT. Procedure Ask the students to work in groups. Each group should copy what you have drawn on the board onto a piece of paper. Tell the students that they have got a limited time (2 to 5 minutes depending on their level) to jot down examples around the circle of verbs or particles which go with the main prompt. Students are only allowed to write something down if they can explain the meaning. The group with the most correct answers are the winners. Ask them to read out what they have written and explain any new expressions to the other groups. If necessary, add some new phrasal verbs at this stage.

Phrasal verb quiz

Aim To present students with a mixed group of phrasal verbs and for the students to guess the meanings according to the context

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Preparation Prepare a set of quiz questions for your students. Each question should contain a phrasal verb to be learnt or revised. For this activity, we have used a quiz from Target Vocabulary 3 published by Penguin. Its a good idea to photocopy it onto A3 paper if you have the necessary facilities to do so. Procedure Ask the students to work in groups. Give the students a time limit of 15 to 20 minutes and leave them to work out the answers to the questions. Ask them to write down the answers on a separate piece of paper. When the time is up, stop the activity and allow students to compare answers with other groups. Check that they have got the right answers. If they have, you can assume that they have understood the meaning of the phrasal verbs contained in the questions. Further practice Personalise the activity by giving a phrasal verb to each student in the class who writes down a question using this verb. Then ask them to go round asking and answering one anothers questions.

Other activities for practising and consolidating phrasal verbs

1) PAIR FORMING ACTIVITIES a) Match a phrasal verb to its synonym e.g. find out + discover b) Match a verb to its picture e.g. look up a word + picture c) Match two halves of a sentence. e.g. Bob and Mary have + broken off their engagement I have run + out of sugar 2) GROUP FORMING ACTIVITIES e.g. Bob came + across a fiver + in the street Gill didnt know + a word so she looked + it up in the dictionary 3) REORDERING A SENTENCE Reorder a series of sentences with phrasal verbs. Get the students to put each sentence back in the right order. This is good practice for dealing with separable and non-separable phrasal verbs (as well as general sentence structure!). 4 @Lake School Email:enquiries@englishinoxford.com

4) MIME, DRAW, AND DESCRIBE THE PHRASAL VERB The aim of the above activities is for one person in each group of 3-4 students to come to the teacher who gives them a phrasal verb on a card. They must mime it, draw it or describe it to their group. The first group to guess which phrasal is being described wins the point. The winning group is the one with the most cards. 5) NOUGHTS AND CROSSES Please refer to GAMES FOR REVISION AND RECYCLING (Criss Cross Quiz) 6) BLOCKBUSTERS Write down as many phrasal verbs as have been studied on a specially prepared grid for the OHP. Divide the class into two groups. One group has to make their way from top to bottom on the grid by making a sentence using the verb in their box. The other group has to begin making sentences from the bottom to the top of the grid. Only sentences which are correct are accepted. The teacher can write a code name in each box to identify the group. The aim of the game is to get to the other side of the grid the quickest and also by blocking the other groups progress. 7) SNAKES AND LADDERS Gapped sentences with phrasal verbs can be written into boxes on a Snakes and Ladders grid. Students play the game in groups. When they land on a sentence, the students have to complete the missing verb or particle in order to proceed with the game. 8) STORY BUILDING The teacher hands out phrasal verbs written out on cards and students have to invent a story which connects to the previous phrasal verb. Students have to think quickly in order to keep the story flowing! Alternatively, the teacher puts cards with phrasal verbs in a hat and the hat is passed round the class with each student picking out a card at random and making up a story which connects. 9) TRUE / FALSE QUIZ The teacher prepares some sentences on an OHT using phrasal verbs. Some of the sentences are true and others are false. e.g. I would feel happy if someone looked down on me. (False) A baby sitter usually looks after children. (True) If someone tells you off, you may feel unhappy (True) In groups students have to shout out the correct answer to get a point. 10) WORD SEARCH PUZZLES Email:enquiries@englishinoxford.com

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Please refer to www.puzzlemaker.com This website allows you to create your own vocabulary puzzles, including phrasal verbs. You just type in the verbs you want to practise and the site will automatically generate the puzzle. The students are given a time limit to find the phrasal verbs hidden in the grid. 10) INFORMATION GAP ACTIVITIES The teacher creates two worksheets (A and B). Each worksheet contains up to 5 sentences containing questions with the phrasal verb stem gapped out. A students fill in the gaps while B students fill in their gaps. The teacher checks that the correct verb stems have been chosen. The students then stand up and As find Bs in order to test and then interview each other. 11) T-SHIRT SLOGANS Prepare an outline of a T-shirt on an OHT and then ask students to brainstorm in groups any slogans using phrasal verbs which could be put on the T-shirts. e.g.

Please back me up! Dont let me down! I can get away with anything!

The aim is for the class to choose a winning slogan. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Phrasal Verb Organiser by John Flower, LTP Making Sense of Phrasal Verbs by Martin Shovel, CASSELL Phrasal Verbs Made Easy by P. Watcyn Jones, MACMILLAN Test Your Phrasal Verbs by Allsop, PENGUIN Nelson Practice Book of Phrasal Verbs by Walker, NELSON Making Headway, Phrasal Verbs and Idioms by G.Workman, OUP Phrasal Verbs in Context by Raymond Briggs Cambridge International Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs, CUP Collins Cobuild Phrasal Verbs Workbook by Malcolm Goodale, COLLINS English Phrasal Verbs in Use, by M. McCarthy, F.ODell, CUP Timesaver Phrasal Verbs and Idioms by Peter Dainty, SCHOLASTIC 6 @Lake School Email:enquiries@englishinoxford.com

Really learn 100 phrasal verbs OUP Check your English Vocabulary for Phrasal Verbs and Idioms by R.Wyatt, A&C BLACK USEFUL WEBSITES (for lesson ideas/worksheets) www.handoutsonline.com, www.onestopenglish.com, www.eslcafe.com/pv

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