Collocations
Or chunks if you prefer. New and updated materials available.
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We recently created this video highlighting collocations related to “fall” for our YouTube channel (please subscribe!). Find the materials for teaching with the video here.
Collocations are like “chunks”, words that predictably go together. “take a bath” or “do the dishes”. Students learn them together and it’s a great approach to teaching vocabulary. J. R. Firth (1957) is considered the “father” of collocations, the first to insist that the meaning of any word is very much determined by its surrounding linguistic environment.
Teaching collocations can be as simple as taking a root word and then brainstorming words associated with it. Here’s a nice template to use plus one looking at words related to “free”.
After making the above video, I thought it would be great to update members with the main materials we have to support teaching collocations.
WORDS. Top on the list, a sensational video with a full pptx and answers. This RadioLab video was the inspiration for the above video.
Common Collocations. Full exercises for all the common collocations of English. Make. Do. Take. Give. etc …
Symmetry. A wonderful video featuring binomials. A special kind of collocation, word pairs that always go together in a particular order. Think “salt and pepper” (not pepper and salt). See our full binomial resource here.
Looking for a book that takes the approach of teaching collocations to students. Mike McCarthy has been a big proponent and you can’t go wrong with his English Collocations In Use.
